Safety Culture Development Consulting
Our Consulting Approach
When having a conversation about safety culture and safety leadership, many leaders and safety personnel still think solely about a single cause – the worker doing the job and the tools and equipment they work with. Safety is much more than that. Leaders are responsible for creating and maintaining the organizational culture within which people work. This culture influences the behaviour of all employees. Recruitment and placement, staffing levels, performance management, promotion practices, rewards and incentives, contractual terms and so on, can all have impact on business safety. Safety Culture Development works with leaders to help them understand the impact their organisational culture is having on safety and to develop solutions to change or enhance that culture to achieve the desired outcomes.
Safety Culture Development works with companies to ensure that safety is aligned with their corporate values. Whilst we base our activity on our client’s corporate values, we are guided by our Safety Culture Integrity Methodology pictured alongside. This approach is influenced by:
- the OECD Guidance on Developing Safety Performance Indicators 2008);
- Legislative requirements;
- The International Network of Safety and Health
Practitioner Organisations - Australian Institute of Health and Safety (Safety Institute of Australia) “Body of Knowledge”;
- Australian Institute Health and Safety ( Safety Institute of Australia) definitions and skills requirements for Safety Professionals and Safety Practitioners;
- Safework Australia, in particular, the Australian Work Health Safety Strategy 2012 -2022 and various publications;
- Practitioners, academics and others who urge integration of safety into organisational activities.
Our broad approach to consulting projects is:
Assess the current situation through:
- Safety culture surveys
- Interviewing and observations guided by our Safety Culture Integrity Methodology:
Develop and implement solutions to close safety culture gaps or to ensure there are no future gaps.
Provide ongoing guidance on aligning safety culture with organization culture
Establishing key performance indicators measurement to ensure progress toward your goals
Provide ongoing monitoring to ensure sustainability
Safety Culture Alignment
We recommend that, in the first instance, companies determine the extent to which their safety culture is aligned with their organisational culture. We use our Safety Culture Integrity methodology to guide our approach. To ensure we provide the best outcomes we can for our clients, Safety Culture partners with a leading culture survey company for Safety Culture Surveying.
Safety Leadership Coaching
Our experience shows that real change occurs at work sites where there is workplace support for personnel implementing change. Safety Culture Development provides work site safety coaching support to assist personnel implement:
- safety culture strategies. (We recommend there is coaching after our workshops to provide implementation support.)
- safety leadership behavioral changes
Action plans specifically tailored to each leader and their site requirements
Safety Leadership Project Start-ups
During a typical project start-up there is often a spike in safety and production incidents and, as personnel become familiar with each other and their operations. Project start-ups can include the whole team or just the leadership personnel from all of the contracting groups involved. Through our project start-ups the operational team develops business plan and commences that includes:
- Agree the culture
- Commence team building
- Identify and have strategies to respond to culture and behaviour issues.