Improving your health and safety culture

What is a health and safety culture?

A health and safety culture can be defined as a set of shared values and beliefs that interact with an organisation’s structures and control systems to produce behavioural standards. Put more simply, it’s the way things are done based on what is important and how things work at the company.

Achieving a positive culture takes the input of all persons in the company, from senior management to individual workers; all of whom know their roles, responsibilities, and the expectations of them to secure a health and safe working environment. As with many health and safety systems and structures, when done well, a positive health and safety culture will produce other business benefits such as improved productivity, worker morale and waste reduction.

What are the features of a positive health and safety culture?

There are four key areas of a positive health and safety culture which are collectively known as the ‘four C’s’:

• Competence – the ability of individuals and / or groups to fulfil their role properly and safely
• Control – getting everyone to work together to achieve good performance
• Cooperation – engaging and encouraging everyone in the company to participate in health and safety matters
• Communication – understanding how messages are formed, presented and transmitted

The importance of good communication

Whilst communication is an integral part of a positive health and safety culture, the presence and value of communication in all areas of health and safety must be recognised as a crucial element to ensure that risks are effectively controlled and companies promote healthy and safe working environments. Consider writing a risk assessment – what is the value of spending hours producing a crucial document if you don’t inform your employees or colleagues of the hazards identified and the control measures implemented to protect them from injury or other harm?

Communication does come with its difficulties, and there are many different barriers that can prevent a message being formed, presented, transmitted and received by the workforce. Don’t forget, communication works both ways and managers and senior leaders must also be in the position to receive well-constructed upward communication.

To support you in ensuring good communication with the workplace, we’ve provided the following top 10 tips:

1. Ensure clarity of the message – prepare carefully for what you will say and allow opportunity for feedback
2. Reinforce the message through repetition as necessary – consider the use of posters and safety signs etc.
3. Avoid delivering messages when the receiver may be distracted
4. Pay particular attention to those communications that effect the organisation as a whole such as policies or risk assessments – language used must be understood by all
5. Provide the information in appropriate languages for those who do not speak English
6. Use pictures to highlight key points – a picture really can say a thousand words
7. Ensure safety critical communication is recorded – use minutes or notes of interviews to make records
8. Select your method of communication carefully, whether it be verbal, written or graphic
9. Remember, some forms of communication need to meet statutory standards – such as the HSE poster ‘What You Need to Know’
10. Break down complicated messages into manageable pieces, consider a combination of formats for complex information

Source: David Wright