Transforming Safety Culture Within An Organization - Research Paper Example

Transforming Safety Culture Introduction Culture is the heart of an organisation. Culture is sustainable and constant force that is present within the organisation and shapes the way people behave, approach their work and think. The cultural change in any organisation that needs to be modified has to face many challenges (The University of Michigan, 2002). In any dangerous industry, persevering safe working environment signifies a daily challenge. To manage the safety of the work and employees through the application of culture is very challenging but an achievable endeavour for an organisation. Analysis Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G), has been in the business of providing safety to the employees by virtue of cultural change and creating a culture of safety in the organisation. Through this process, PSE&G with 6500 employees and 32 fatalities in the previous 27 years has been able to achieve an OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) at a rate of 1.41 and a lost workday case rate of 0.33 by the year 2007 (Simon & Cistaro, 2009). 1. PSE&G is the US based company and was founded in New Jersey. There was lack of safety measures in the company. There was lack of safety management in the workplace like PSE&G as the employees were largely scattered in vast area and had little means of communication. The level of risk was high in the field operation for the workers. The management was not indulged in formulating the safety measures for the employees. The workers thought of taking the initiative in developing the safety requirements that would be helpful in preventing hazardous accidents. A program was developed by the company to create a safety environment for workers. A new safety system was developed creating a new safety system, developing a safety constitution and a safety congress for the company. The new system had integrated 19 constituents that were mandatory. It represented the chief characteristics of protection from responsibility taking to training and to generate accountability, which were also in the form of manual and programmed for successive executions for company-wide over 5 year tenure. Development of a new safety structure for managing the safety program was one critical mandate (Simon & Cistaro, 2009). The safety structure has been operating at two levels. A local Safety Council (LSC) was developed that consisted of supervisors, managers, represented workers, and SH&E professionals. It was created for every division and district. A different line of business council (LOB) was developed for electric, gas and customer process. The membership of each division and district was composed of the respective LOB upper management and the LSC chairpersons (Simon & Cistaro, 2009). The new structure that was developed was devoted considerably by large individual resources towards the safety. It highlighted the obligation to completely engage the forefront employees in the safety development process. The LSCs were intended to encourage much superior grassroots dependability for their own safety and for the safety of others in the organisation (Simon & Cistaro, 2009). The structure for the development of the safety was established upon the identification that formed an optimistic safety culture that was mandatory with the participation, commitment and engagement by all levels in the company (Simon & Cistaro, 2009). The cultural changes can be brought through the leadership initiative that has been evident in the case of PSE&G. The managers had taken initiative to develop the culture for the safety. The changes were being recommended for the purpose of maintaining the safety working environment. There were many accidental incidents in PSE&G that were recorded by the management. To reduce the level of accidents the cultural program was initiated by the management. The major challenge in the cultural changes is the resistance to change that the organisation faces. The matter of safety was previously not taken seriously. For this purpose only the management had to sign a commitment contract. The commitment contract was known to everyone. They need to stick to the commitment towards the safety of the employees. 2. The organisational structure design had to go through changes as there were different setups for the purpose of safety. Another change in the organisation was the involvement of the union workers with the management towards building a safe working zone. There were problems as the change in values, norms, attitude is a long process and takes time. Even though there were the implementation of new structure for the gas and electric working, there were the challenges of cultural change towards the safety. The political factor was the disadvantage in rapidly developing the safety culture. The political ruling between the management and the workers was affecting the work process of safety. There were unsolved problems between the union of workers and the managers that affected the safety program. There was mistrust, suspicion around the organisation. The management and workers were suspicious of each other. This culture of mistrust was hampering the work process towards the safety development and culture for safety. There were many injuries and the management was blamed for getting them into trouble. 3. Senior Managers The senior managers were managing rather than leading the safety program. In this manner their time and concentration was devoted. This was identified soon and initiative was taken to make them get involved in the safety program and to lead the program in their different leadership style. Not only they led the cultural program towards safety but they also evaluated their leadership skills in leading the program. The roles of each senior manager were well defined by themselves. The senior managers had to perform and practice the safety management every day in the operations to make others understand about the security in the place. They were to set examples of the safety. These ways develop the culture for safety working in this industry (My Safe Work, 2008). This was possible with the help of the senior managers. They prepared a safety culture leadership inventory that observed different catalogues of their individual and collective, different form of leadership skills that were to be utilised in leading the program. The senior managers worked in their own division and had projects that were committed by the committee that resulted in the influential use of leadership skills in attracting the worker force in the direction of the implementation and application of the safety program. Shop-Floor Personnel The shop-floor personnel are the persons who are actually attached with the grass root level of the work. They have high interaction with the workers and have great influencing power upon them. They devote time for the training tools and methodology that would be helpful in creating the culture for safety. The process of the training helped PSE&G to develop leaders at a supervisory level. This was effective in influencing the workers in every section of gas and electric locations of PSE&G. The shop-floor personnel were trained and they were to implement the tools for the development of the safety. The process showed development as the interaction was more with the workers and the supervisors and this led to develop the culture of safety in PSE&G (Rossa, 2007). Management This was not working out properly with the senior managers and supervisors. There were certain things that were not working out properly in developing or leading the safety program. The program was to be led for the future that was not happening. For this purpose the management developed a team consisting of managers and supervisors that were designed for Safety Culture Transition Team (SCTT). Even after the development of the SCTT, the performance level of the team was not satisfactory. The team was not able to lead towards the future prospective in developing the safety culture for the future operations. Management focused upon the other team that was leading and developing the culture for safety. This team was developed with management support and involved the management people and the supervisors with unions and all the people that were dedicated towards the transformation process. With the innovative process there were every SCTT newly developed in each division that was performing in leading the safety cultural program. The team that comprised of management, supervisors and committed people towards the safety development program, developed the leadership initiatives to carry forward the program of the cultural changes for the safety reasons (World Steel Association, 2010). The first level that dealt with the process was to increase the number of personnel at grass root level for the safety purpose. For the grass root level it was important to manage the coordination and the control. For this purpose mentoring and peer-to-peer coaching was implemented. This was possible with the help of the chairperson and the management coordination. The next level was to develop leadership initiative for the safety culture leadership that was developed at the middle management level. The main objective of the team was to respond to the major changes that were due to the modification in the new safety system. The old system and the new system had huge differences in contributing towards the cultural program. The new system consisted of more employees who were dedicated towards the safety changes and that were for the long term purpose and intended for the future prospect. There were several supervisors who were conventionally handling the safety programs. They were dealing with a compassionate job and responsibility towards safety rather than a leadership role. The second initiative offered was the systematic workshops that were able to aid the supervisors to expand a superior consideration of their new role. This was done through the continuous developing process for the safety culture leadership skills of middle management towards PSE&G. This helped in the enhanced contribution towards the safety culture development. The third initiative by the leaders was to improve the relationship between the leaders and supervisors in the gas department to increase the level of activity towards the development of healthy and safety culture. In addition, the relationship building was helpful in developing the cultural language and parallel tools, to develop the level towards the healthy and safety culture. The program initiative assisted in developing the leaders' abilities and potentials to not only supervise the workers and the people towards work and culture for safety, but it also led the team towards the safety culture. The chief consequence of the program was that more employees were able to go back to their home safely every day without accidents occurring in the working areas. This was also evident in the participation level of the employees towards the local safety council structure and the inflow of participation level towards the program. Employees’ supreme apparent potential was around three concepts of knowledge of the significance of safety that were transmitted to the way of success of PSE&G as a whole. It reflects towards the safety values and presentation of the value and effectiveness; an inherent faith that accidents are avoidable; and a mutual value of safety and how it is itself noticeable by people functioning safely and securely. This also encouraged others to follow and perform, and by immediate supervisors who would hear all the problems and concerns towards health and safety concerns (Gill, 2008). The safety culture transformation team members consisted of a cross function of safety employees. They carried on to direct the safety cultural changing process functioning with senior management and provided the support that was necessary for the resources. The influence power or authority to make sure the accomplishment of the grassroots safety teams and towards the safety culture conversion process was accomplished by the team members of the safety program. In this fundamental nature they were stimulated with maintenance of the overall process moving towards the future. In PSE&G the Safety Culture Found Out It has been an informed culture. Here the managers, supervisors and team members have been well-acquainted with the knowledge about technical, environmental, the present knowledge and other factors that have been determining the safety of the system. There has been a reporting culture. The employees were willing to report errors and accidents to the leaders, supervisors and management to decrease the errors and accidents that was able to contribute towards the safety culture. Previously there were problem of abuse towards the management from the workers, but because of the team efforts and developments, the culture of safety was developed and this led to participation of all employees and the level of abuse had decreased. Through the cultural program the atmosphere of trust was generated that helped PSE&G to move forward towards the future of creating a culture for safety. The team members were motivated and encouraged to contribute towards the development of safety culture. The flexible culture was found out in the PSE&G Company. There existed the old team that was composed of management members and supervisors and was not able to function at the grass root level. The management recognised the problem and developed a new team that was more focused on, comprising of employees and being coordinated with the supervisors and management. This helped the development of the culture for safety that was intended to be future oriented. In PSE&G, the other cultural factor was the learning culture. The employees were willing and competent enough to learn and develop the skills of maintaining the safety culture. The safety information system was well absorbed by the employees and the supervisors; and the team members of safety cultural development helped in guiding them with the full management support (Hudson, n.d.). Figure 1(Hudson, n.d.). The safety performance will get better as the culture of safety gets matured but there can be conversation of safety culture on one occasion until the calculative stage has been passed. Acquiring beliefs and ideas that safety is meaningful and valuable in its own direction the management of PSE&G forces the work safety cultural program. By developing deliberate measures an organisation can force and take strong measures itself into enchanting safety critically, or can be forced by an authoritarian body. This shows true noteworthy characteristics of an accurate safety culture and the values and beliefs, associated with safety and safe working culture that has been accomplished by PSE&G. The company has been developing the safety measures through the cultural development and it has proved that many industries have achieved the level through the decreased rate of accidents and accidental activities. Incidental Rates Figure 2 (Simon & Cistaro, 2009). There was variation in the accident rates till 2005. Mostly it was highly volatile during the phase of 1999 to 2003. This might be due to distrust between the workers, the unions and the management. But looking at the data from the year 2003 there has been less variation. This might be the result of new team that has been introduced with participation of employees. The level of trust was increased and there was proper coordination among the management and others. From 2005 the accidents have declined. This might be due to the developed culture towards the safety. Overall from 1999 to 2007, there has been huge decrease in the accidents rates from 3.11 to 1.41. The lowest accident recorded was 1.38 in the year 2003. The Lost Time Report of PSE&G Figure 3 (Simon & Cistaro, 2009). For the number of cases that contained lost work days, the calculation is done by multiplying the number of unpleasant incident that were lost time cases by 200,000 and then dividing that by the employee labour hours at the company (The United States Department of Labour, 2010). There has been a constant decrease in the lost time rate of PSE&G from the year 2000 to 2007. It was decreased from 0.99 rates to 0.33 rates. The decrease in the rate of lost time has been an evident in showing the effect of cultural development towards the safety management. PSE&G Company with the voluntary involvement of all the employees and management and team members of the safety group with leadership skills, made the rate of lost time decrease. The decrease rate shows the success level of the initiative that PSE&G Company had taken towards establishing a safety culture. This has been an example in recent times for other industries. Conclusion The three phase levels of approach made the developing the safety culture a success. Apart from the technical and engineering related topics, the cultural talks are heard in PSE&G in recent times. There are safety cultural leaders at all the level dealing with the development of safety culture for everyone and reducing the everyday accidents that occur in day to day activities in the company. PSE&G’s success depends upon the employee recognition and the effective utilisation to develop the safety culture that made possible for the company to achieve a culture towards safety for present and future (Simon, 2009). References Gill, B., 2008. Green Energy Services an Investment in PSE&G’s Future. PSEG Outlook. [Online] Available at: http://www.pseg.com/info/retiree/pdf/psegoutlook_august08.pdf [Accessed December 02, 2010]. Hudson, P., No Date. Safety Culture Theory and Practice. Centre for Safety Science. [Online] Available at: http://ftp.rta.nato.int/public//PubFulltext/RTO/MP/RTO-MP-032///MP-032-08.pdf [Accessed December 02, 2010]. My Safe Work, 2008. Benefits of Health and Safety Best Practices. Employers. [Online] Available at: http://www.mysafework.com/employers/whitepapers/benefits-health-and-safety-best-practices [Accessed December 02, 2010]. Rossa, R. L., 2007. PSE&G Health and Safety Journey. Safety Culture. 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