- In an organisation with a

positive health and safety culture,

the majority of the workers think
Positive Culture and feel that health and safety is
important. There is a strong policy
Negative Culture Safety Culture and their effect on and clear leadership from the top
Health and Performance because senior management have
this attitude, which runs through
- In an organisation with a the whole organisation, from top
DEFINITION
negative health and safety to bottom.
culture, the majority of HEALTH AND SAFETY CULTURE
- In an organisation like this, it is
workers think and feel that
The shared attitudes, values, beliefs and behaviours relating easy to see the clear link
health and safety is not
to health and safety. These will either be positive or negative. between health and safety
important; they are poorly
culture and performance.
educated in health and
People work safely, so there will
safety and see it as
be fewer accidents and less ill
unnecessary or an TOPIC FOCUS health.
interference. There is a lack
Factors that have a negative impact on health and safety culture in an
of clear direction and organisation include:
leadership from senior
• Lack of strong safety leadership from management.
management.
• Presence of a blame culture.
- In an organisation like this
• Lack of management commitment to safety (e.g. saying one thing and doing
it is easy to see that there another).
will be a lack of proper
• Health and safety receiving lower priority than other business issues.
attention to health and
• Organisational changes (frequent or poorly-communicated change resulting
safety, standards will not in uncertainty).
be understood or worked
• High staff turnover rates (i.e. workers do not stay long enough to be
to, behavior will be poor influenced).
and accidents and ill health • Lack of resources (e.g. too few workers due to downsizing, and lack of
will occur as a result. correct equipment).
• Lack of worker consultation.
• Interpersonal issues (e.g. unregulated peer group pressure, bullying or
harassment).
• Poor management systems and procedures.
• External influences (e.g. economic climate resulting in difficult operating
conditions).
There is an obvious link between health and safety culture and In an organisation with a positive health and safety culture the majority
the number and type of complaints made by workers (and of workers want to work safely, so they comply with the safety rules
workers’ safety representatives) to management. and procedures laid down by the organisation. Formal or informal
safety inspections or audits usually find that there is a high level of
Complaints About
Compliance with compliance. The health and safety culture has influenced workers’
Working Conditions - Looking at the quality of investigations
Safety Rules behaviour in a positive way.
that follow accidents and the effort that
Where there is a negative health and safety culture the reverse is is put into preventing a recurrence is
usually true. another way of using accidents as an
indicator of health and safety culture. In
an organisation:
Accidents
•With a positive health and safety
culture, much time and effort will go
into investigating accidents, writing
Indicators of Health and investigation reports and introducing
Staff Turnover Safety Culture follow-up action to prevent a
recurrence.
•With a negative health and safety
An organisation with a
culture, superficial accident
positive health and investigations are carried out, reports
safety culture is often a are of poor quality, and follow-up action
good place to work. Absenteeism is either not taken, or is ineffective (and
Workers feel safe, may focus on blaming the worker rather
morale is good, training than identifying why it happened).
A high level of worker
is available, and workers - Accident records can be used to work
absenteeism indicates Sickness Rates
are consulted about their out how many accidents are happening
that workers are either as a rate (e.g. number of accidents per
working conditions. As a
not able, or not willing, A lot of ill health is 100,000 hours worked – we discuss this
result, workers stay
to come to work. If they caused, or made worse, later). The accident rate for a particular
with their employer for are not able, this might organisation can be compared
by work. For example, in
longer, so low staff indicate that they are many countries a huge with the:
turnover may indicate a suffering ill health number of working days Organization’s performance the process of benchmarking
good health and safety caused, or worsened, by are lost because of back in previous years with other companies
culture, while high staff work, as we noted above. pain, and a significant
turnover may indicate If they are not willing, it proportion of that back
the opposite. The Influence
indicates that they are pain will have been of Peers
withholding their labour caused or made worse by
for some reason. This is the work that individuals when people are put together into groups they interact. Some individuals will
usually caused by poor are doing. Sickness rates have a lot of influence over the group; others will have little influence. In this
workforce morale which, can be used in the same way a ‘hierarchy’ develops within the group (often known as a ‘pecking
in turn, may be linked to way that accident rates order’). Certain ways of behaving will become the ‘norm’, which will often be
poor health and safety are, as an indicator of established by the more influential members of the group. A person wishing
culture. health and safety culture. to become a member of the group will have to comply with the group norms.
This pressure to comply with group norms is called ‘peer group pressure’.