Building an invisible safety culture: key strategies for workplace wellbeing
When you think of work health and safety, physical and mental health risks are likely top of mind.
But a good safety culture extends beyond these top-line elements and includes a concerted effort — from leadership level down — to create an environment where everyone in your business feels safe and supported.
Visible vs invisible safety cultures
A safety culture can be grouped into two distinct sets of processes — those that are visible and those that are invisible.
A highly visible safety culture may manifest in the following:
- Safety information is acted on
- “Messengers” are merely tolerated
- Safety responsibilities are segmented
- Failure is tolerated
- The status quo is generally maintained
- People tend to stick to their business units and roles
This kind of culture is largely bureaucratic where there is an excessive focus on rule-based or procedural safety, which is seen as a bolt-on function.
An invisible safety culture, on the other hand, is highly integrated and generative, and part of the cultural fabric of an organisation.
This may include:
- Safety information is actively sought
- Messengers are trained and rewarded
- Safety responsibilities are equally shared amongst all staff
- Failure is analysed and staff are supported when failure occurs
- New ideas are celebrated, and the status quo is challenged
An invisible safety culture is best practice for any organisation and should be the end goal when putting together a workplace safety strategy.
But if this is not yet the norm at your organisation, a Safety Culture Survey is a great place to start.
What is a Safety Culture Survey?
A Safety Culture Survey will benchmark your safety climate, which in turn improves your WHS culture.
Through the survey, you will receive the statistics and facts you need to transform your business’ safety climate.
Are your processes effective? Does your team feel comfortable bringing up their concerns? Do they need extra training?
Climate surveys, like those offered by CCIWA partner Epigroup, will help answer these questions.
"Although safety culture surveys aren't a silver bullet for consultation, they allow you to be more efficient in understanding what questions to ask your workforce next, and can give you real nuggets of gold,” says Epigroup WHS Consulting Manager Tim Lawler.
“Using tools that have been validated to measure the right stuff is critical - otherwise you'll be digging in the wrong places."
For more information on how Epigroup’s services can help your business, call 1300 414 313 or email [email protected].
