How Safety Culture Can Improve Safety Behaviors of Employees - Essay Example

Name: Tutor: Course: Date: Workplace safety Introduction Work place safety is a very important organizational aspect for legal, financial and moral reasons. A safe working environment is important for business success and it is one of the ways that can be used to retain employees resulting to maximum productivity. It is however a responsibility for both employers and employees. Employees have the responsibility of preventing to prevent injuries and diseases related to work from occurring. Employees must be careful and must take all the precautions in ensuring that their health and safety, and that of their colleagues, are not affected by the work that they do. Employers on the other hand must ensure that the work place offers protection for the health and safety of the employees. They must also be able to respond properly to complain from the employees regarding their safety in the workplace. Various hazards can be sources of injuries in the work place. These range from physical and mechanical hazards which are associated with processes of running machineries and the physical nature of the building, to biological and chemical hazards which results from substances used in the industrial processes and also in the environment. However, for the employees to observe safety measures that have been set by the employers there is need for a safety culture to be promoted in the organization. This is to make it safety part of the employees’ responsibilities. This paper discusses the details of legal responsibilities of the employer in promoting workplace safety, how a safety culture can be promoted in the workplace as well as what Sopranos can do to promote safety culture in the company. The legal responsibilities that employers have to ensure a safe workplace The Australian law places various obligations to the employers for ensuring safety of their employees. Victorian state has laws that guide employers on their responsibilities in ensuring workplace safety. This is implemented through ‘worksafeVictoria’, the trading name for Victorian work cover Authority. This is a constitutional authority formed by the Victorian state government to ensure health and safety of the workers at the workplace as well as to facilitate worker’s compensation. According to ‘worksafe’ victoria, an employer must offer a safe and healthy working environment for the workers and also the contractors. This involves ensuring safety of the plant, which includes machineries and equipment, and safe system of operating the plant. Such a system must look into safety of entry points of risky areas, the pace of the work as well preventing falls from high heights. In maintaining a safe and healthy workplace, the employer must also come up with arrangements for storage, handling, use and transport of dangerous chemicals and other hazardous goods that are used in the company. The employer must also maintain a safe condition of the workplace by ensuring that there are easily accessible fire exits and availability of emergency response equipment. Facilities in the work place should be adequate such as toilets, drinking water, and eating areas that are well kept and hygienic. The employer must also ensure that workers are well informed and trained, and have adequate instructions and are adequately supervised so as they can observe safety measures during their work (Worksafe Victoria, pp1-2). The Victorian law on workplace safety also requires that the employer must properly monitor the health of the workers such as conducting tests on their hearing especially those working in noisy environment and blood tests to those exposed to lead. The employer must engage services of qualified people to offer advice on health and safety of the employees. On matters concerning the employees’ safety, the employer must consult the employees. The organization must nominate an employees’ representative who should be part of the senior management who will be resolving issues regarding employee safety and health in the workplace. When the employer is bringing in new employees, he must ensure that they are informed in writing, the kind of work that they will be doing and whether they have previous injuries that may be affected by that work. Other safety obligations as required by the Victoria state government include ensuring that all the business operations are not affected by the business operations of the organization, and also insuring the employees against work place injury. All these obligations are contained in the Occupational Health & Safety Act 2004 and its breach attracts penalties of up to $1,075,050. However, make these responsibilities easy to implement, the employer needs to create a safety culture in the organization which will form the operating environment for the employees (Worksafe Victoria, pp1-2). Safety culture Safety culture is defined by the British Health and Safety Executive as a product of individual and group values, competencies, attitudes and patterns of doing things, which determines how they are able and committed to the safety and health programs in the organization. In other words, it is the manner in which people do things in the organization as it reflects how the collectively value safety. The key supporters of organizational culture are the existing employees who make it easy for new employees to learn the culture. New employees learn of the safety culture through observation of the actions of the existing employees, their own experiences and through written and unwritten safety rules. One a safety culture is established in an organization, it is not easy to change since it is carried forward from the old to new employees (Health and Safety Executive, pp2). Safety culture is not necessarily a set of organizational policies and procedures; it is entrenched in the organizations and can be evidenced in the manner in which employees interact with each other, and how they interact with systems and equipment. Any organization’s management should prioritize the establishment of a safety culture. Employees on the other hand have the responsibility of ensuring that they follow the established culture in their work. Observing the safety culture should not be seen as an additional duty by the employees that will require them to put extra effort, it is matter of making decisions and carrying out all activities safely. Safety culture is a very important aspect in an organization and has direct effect on safe performance of employees. It affects their productivity, their reliability and also their morale at work. Poor safety culture can contribute to workplace injuries and accidents which will affect the productivity of the employees. A good safety culture results in better discipline among the employees in all areas of their operations. It makes them to always follow the right procedures and processes keenly. The company benefits from safety culture through increased productivity and also efficiency in operations which results from proper observation of procedures. This is evidenced through improved quality, low damage to equipment, faster production processes and most important elimination of laws suits arising from issues such as injury compensation claims (Cooper, p30). Components of safety culture For safety culture to be meaningful, it must consist of safety management system, safety climate and goal-directed safety behavior. Safety management system refers to integrated mechanisms that an organization adopts in order to control health and safety risks, current and future safety performance as well as ensuring employees’ compliance to safety laws. It should be an inclusive system consisting of policies, procedures and strategies that will ensure its harmonization by all members of an organization. Such a system will be used to create awareness, improve understanding and to motivate all the personnel on their commitment towards safety in their performance. Safety management system also consists of management control system which is part of total quality management (TQM). It involves having clearly set objectives, procedures for monitoring their achievement and a feedback system that will ensure that any deviations from the set safety procedures can be noticed and dealt with (McSween, & Terry, p78). Safety climate refers to how members of the organization describe their daily experiences as far as safety is concerned. It is how people explain the perceptions that have regarding their behavior in the organization. When employees perceive the work to be more risky, they are likely to observe safety. Safety climate therefore involves changing workers’ perception towards risk and ensuring that they are committed to safety in all the operations. Goal directed safety behaviors are safe behaviors by workers which are influenced by their attitude. Management of an organization should come up with ways of encouraging safety behavior among the employees for example through motivation and also by showing their own commitment. Safety behavior initiatives would result to increased safety performance, improved safety climate, high level of responsibility among employees and increased sense of safety ownership by the employees (Stranks, p98) Developing organizational safety culture According to Flynn & Shaw (39-40), there are eight steps that the organization management can follow to develop a safety culture in the organization. The first step involves commitment of the management into the development of a safety culture. The top management of the organization should be on the first line in support of safety organizational culture. This can be done by being able to indicate the magnitude of the costs associated with accidents in the workplace. The second step is for the management to describe the culture that is desired in the organization. All the policies, procedures and plans for the desired culture must be well defined. The third step is to establish a common understanding of the safety culture by setting examples. Sharing the vision towards safety culture can also help improve the understanding. The fourth step is for the management to assess the culture that is in existence, so that they can define the intended change. The fifth step involves communicating the status of the existing culture to the employees as well as any efforts required towards culture change. The sixth step involves identifying the gaps in the existing culture, the root causes of nay flaws and the required initiatives in addressing the problem. The opinions of the employees should also be sought regarding the way forward in the adoption of a new culture. The seventh step is to communicate the way forward regarding the new changes and how the employees can be involved. The employees must be informed on where they need to change and why they need to. This can be implemented through awareness training and use of team leaders to drive the change. The eighth stage is the implementation of change where all the interested parties must be involved. Implementation involves planning, doing, monitoring, and feedback action (Flynn & Shaw 39-40). How safety culture can improve safety behaviors of employees Behavior change can be well understood by looking at the ABC theory of behavior change. The elements of this theory are A: Antecedents, B: Behavior and C: Consequences. Antecedents are things that occur before a behavior and they may be linked to that behavior. They are thought to trigger the behavior from the person. Consequences are the outcome of that behavior and their nature may increase or decrease the chances that the person will repeat that behavior. Consequences explain the reasons as to why people embrace certain behaviors. Analyzing the ABC of particular behaviors helps the management to identify ways in which certain behaviors can be changed. This can be done by ensuring that the appropriate antecedents are put in place and that the consequences will support the appropriate behavior. In promoting safety behaviors, the ABC analysis can for example, be used to find out reasons as to why workers do not put on ear defenders when working in noisy environments and come up with ways of promoting wearing of the defenders to reduce damage to hearing. Some of the antecedents in this case would be supplying the ear defenders, informing them of the likely damage if ear defenders are not worn, and putting signs on areas where they need the ear defenders. The behavior in this case is wearing the era defenders while working in the noisy areas. The consequences of this behavior would be reducing the likelihood of loss of hearing, not being into trouble with the management, and also discomfort felt when wearing the ear defenders. Therefore to promote the behavior of wearing the ear defenders, the antecedents should be put into place and consequences made more attractive to act as reinforces (Cooper, p40). It is very important to integrate this approach to safety culture in an organization. This is because most of the workplace accidents occur as a result of unsafe behavior that took place just almost the time accident occurred. For example, it can be found that a worker was hit by a metal fragment in his eyes just because of not wearing safety glassed that had been issued the time he started grinding the metal. A safety culture should therefore aim at modifying the unsafe behavior of workers which will result in safety improvement. For it to be successful, the following steps must be put into consideration (Fleming & Lardner, p18): Organizational readiness: This involves the assessment of the organization’s safety culture to ensure that it is ready for implementation of behavioral safety programme. The elements of the safety culture which determines readiness are commitment from the management, trust and communication lines. Before an organization focuses on behavior change, it is important for the management to first ensure that the established safety culture has matured and the organization is ready to implement behavior change. This involves identification of potential problems that the organization is likely to experience under the new culture, likely barriers to implementation of safety culture and how they are going to be dealt with. Assessment of organization readiness can be conducted by surveying the safety climate in the organization and also by conducting workshops for the employees. Defining which behaviors are safe and which ones are unsafe: In coming up with the safety culture, the organization management should define what are safe behaviors and what are unsafe behaviors. This can be drawn from previous experiences with workplace accidents, conducting risk assessment, carrying out audits of the health and safety management systems, and also consultation with the operations supervisors and the staff who are in the front line of operations. Reports on dangerous incidences that might have occurred in the organization can also give an outline of the unsafe behaviors since they explain some of the behaviors that were the causes of the accidents or injuries, and also behaviors that almost caused an injury or an accident. Involvement of all members of staff in observation of their behaviors in the workplace This involves observing the behaviors of the employees against a checklist of safe behaviors. Observation can be conducted by the fellow workmates and also by the superiors. The person observing sis supposed to have a checklist with all the expected behaviors in the operation and indicate whether the person is safe or unsafe according to the manner in which the behavior is conducted. They behaviors should be well explained so that the observer can be able to make a judgment on whether the person is operating safely or unsafely. All the members of staff should be involved in this observation so that they can be able to apply the same judgment on their own behaviors (Institute for Healthcare Improvement, pp4). Giving feedback of the observations Positive feedback is an important element of creating safety culture since it helps to reinforce the behavior. Feedback may either be summative or formative. Summative feedback informs about the performance of an individual while formative feedback informs about how the individual can improve on his performance. Formative feedback is usually from an expert or from a knowledgeable person and should be given in private so that it does not appear as punishment. Summative feedback can be given either in public or in private. Generally, the feedback aims to congratulate the person for behaving safely and also on the behaviors where he acted safely and where he acted unsafely. During observation and feedback, barriers that may prevent the individual from behaving safely should also be highlighted so that improvements on the working environment can be done. Reinforcement of safe behavior After observing the safe and unsafe behavior, the organizational leader should assess ways of reinforcing the safe behaviors. Reinforcement ails at strengthening, supporting and encouraging the safe behavior. Positive reinforcement includes acts such as saying thank you, praising the individual and also by management and colleagues offering support to individual to promote behavior change. Reinforcement should be continued and be made consistent so that the behavior can become a habit. This is because if reinforcement is withdrawn after a short time, the behavior stops (Health and Safety Authority, p5). Intervention and re-education to prevent unsafe behavior This involves identifying the factors that are driving the unsafe behavior and what changes needs to be made. It is about evaluation of the behavior change intervention and modification to ensure that any identified flaw is corrected. Training can be used as reinforcement so that people become more knowledgeable regarding the consequences of the unsafe behavior. Recommendations to Sopranos on how to improve the safety culture within the organization Safety in an organization can be improved when the commitment of the leaders can be visible to other employees. The leaders should also ensure that employees can freely report safety information. Failure by the leaders to show their commitment will make the employees not to be willing to report any unsafe incidences and conditions because they believe that it will not change anything. The following five recommendations should be adopted by the management of Sopranos so that they can improve safety culture within their organization (Nielsen, pp 7). 1. The organization needs to come up with a safety committee whose pivotal role will be putting efforts towards organizational safety and would be the breeding ground for implementation of safety culture. The committee should consist of representatives of the top management, representatives of employees and supervisors. The main role of the committee would be to ensure that safety is part of every day’s operations agenda. Since the CEO states that he cannot always watch the employees, the representatives of the employees together with the supervisors can offer closer monitoring at all times. 2. The management of sopranos should lead by example by clearly showing their commitment to safety. This should be seen from the top level management down to all other levels and in all areas of the organization. This is because of the management fails to condemn unsafe behaviors; they indirectly reinforce that behavior because it creates a notion that it is acceptable. The management should use actions to reinforce their words of promoting safety. 3. Management of Sopranos should also come up with a safety reporting system. This will ensure that employees are free to report any incidence observed that could lead to accidents and injury. A reporting system will ensure easy exchange of information that will allow identification of human and system errors leading to accidents and injury. Once reported, the management should also be quick to respond to the incidences. The response should be quick, and there should be thorough investigation of the root causes and appropriate corrective action. Rewards given to those who report unsafe incidences can also be used to reinforce safety behavior. This will make those not observing safety to abandon their unsafe behaviors and work safely. 4. The other thing that the management of Sopranos should consider is the involvement of members of staff to promote employee participation. This can be enhanced by offering training and practice forums where employees are required to take personal responsibility on safety areas. This will offer learning opportunity where employees will actually understand what safety requires in regard to their jobs. Since the CEO states that they have policies and procedures in place, he should seek the opinions and involvement of the employees in their implementation so that they can have a sense of ownership. 5. Lastly, the management should come up with a Safety Management System which will be charged with managing and coordinating safety in all areas of the organization. The system should have set objectives and goals which will be used to monitor employees’ performance concerning safety. The system should be headed by a person who is part of the senior management and should consist of safety experts and professionals. This will ensure that employees work together towards the set objectives of improving safety culture (Cooper, p30). Conclusion “Prevention is better that cure”, this is the concept that is followed in establishment of safety culture. The CEO of Sopranos admits that it a matter of time before someone dies or is seriously injured, and asks what else he can do since he has policies and procedures in place; there is still so much to be done. Policies and procedures may be there but a safety culture is required so that they can be followed and observed. However, the commitment of the management is very crucial in establishment of a safety culture. The management should in the frontline in the improvement of safety culture by leading by examples. Works Cited Flynn, Adrian, and John Shaw. Safety Matters! A Guide to Health & Safety at Work. Cork: Management Briefs, 2010. Print. Stranks, Jeremy W. Health & Safety at Work an Essential Guide for Managers. 9th ed. London: Kogan Page, 2010. Print. Health and Safety Authority. Behavior based safety guide. HAS: Dublin, 2013. Print. McSween, Terry E., and Terry E. McSween. Value-based Safety Process Improving Your Safety Culture with Behavior-based Safety. 2nd ed. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley-Interscience, 2003. Print. M Fleming & R Lardner. Strategies to promote safe behavior as part of a health and safety management system. Crown: Norwich, 2002. Print. Nielsen Kent. Improving safety culture through the health and safety organization: A case study. Journal of Safety Research, 48, (2014): 7–17. Print. Cooper, Dominic. Improving safety culture: a practical guide. Applied Behavioral Sciences: Hull, 2001. Print. Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Develop a culture of safety. Retrieved from http://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/Changes/DevelopaCultureofSafety.aspx Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Workers health and safety. 2014., n.d. accessed on 12th may 2015 http://www.hse.gov.uk/workers/index.htm Worksafe Victoria. Employer Rights and Responsibilities. July 2014. Accessed on 12 may 2015 from http://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/laws-and-regulations/employer-rights-and-responsibilities Read More