Safety Culture: The Achilles Heel of Safety Management Systems
Safety Culture the Achilles heel of Safety Management Systems?
Introduction –
The influences of cultures formal or informal, in organizations have extensive effects on all of its mechanisms, strategies and performances. In essence safety culture is at the heart of the company’s safety management efforts1. Fundamentally safety culture is ‘the way safety is perceived, valued and prioritized in an organization’
(Eurocontrol/FAA, 2008, p7), the health of these three pillars of safety culture have great consequences on an organizations Safety Management System (SMS) both in positive and negative terms.
A ‘poor’ safety culture; consequences, performance indicators and solutions –
Looking at the consequences a poor or broken2 safety culture has on the effectiveness of the organization’s SMS can be done from two angles; a macro ‘birds eye’ and a micro ‘insiders’ point of view. ‘The one universally accepted feature of culture is that its influence extends to all parts of an organization’ (Reason, 1998, p297), when looking at the macro effect of a poor safety culture, it has to be identified that any poor culture will have an adverse effect on the organization’s management systems as a whole. When describing an effective SMS three core elements create its structure; its tools, processes and culture3. If the culture is flawed, or ineffective the two remaining elements can be deemed insignificant and even useless4.
Subsequently the ROI (return on investment) on the company’s SMS investment may drop down to zero. From this general ‘birds eye’ perspective we conclude, that an
SMS without a healthy safety culture is ‘an SMS that at best is marginalized and at worst, completely ineffective’ (Smith, 2010, p2).
1
‘It is the pervasive nature of culture that makes it uniquely suitable for creating and sustaining the colinear gaps in defenses-in-depth through which an accident trajectory has to pass’ (Reason, 1998, p293). 2
‘A Broken Safety Culture is
Introduction –
The influences of cultures formal or informal, in organizations have extensive effects on all of its mechanisms, strategies and performances. In essence safety culture is at the heart of the company’s safety management efforts1. Fundamentally safety culture is ‘the way safety is perceived, valued and prioritized in an organization’
(Eurocontrol/FAA, 2008, p7), the health of these three pillars of safety culture have great consequences on an organizations Safety Management System (SMS) both in positive and negative terms.
A ‘poor’ safety culture; consequences, performance indicators and solutions –
Looking at the consequences a poor or broken2 safety culture has on the effectiveness of the organization’s SMS can be done from two angles; a macro ‘birds eye’ and a micro ‘insiders’ point of view. ‘The one universally accepted feature of culture is that its influence extends to all parts of an organization’ (Reason, 1998, p297), when looking at the macro effect of a poor safety culture, it has to be identified that any poor culture will have an adverse effect on the organization’s management systems as a whole. When describing an effective SMS three core elements create its structure; its tools, processes and culture3. If the culture is flawed, or ineffective the two remaining elements can be deemed insignificant and even useless4.
Subsequently the ROI (return on investment) on the company’s SMS investment may drop down to zero. From this general ‘birds eye’ perspective we conclude, that an
SMS without a healthy safety culture is ‘an SMS that at best is marginalized and at worst, completely ineffective’ (Smith, 2010, p2).
1
‘It is the pervasive nature of culture that makes it uniquely suitable for creating and sustaining the colinear gaps in defenses-in-depth through which an accident trajectory has to pass’ (Reason, 1998, p293). 2
‘A Broken Safety Culture is
References: – D.L Van Dyke (2006) Management Commitment: Cornerstone of Aviation Safety Eurocontrol/FAA (2008) Safety Culture in Air Traffic Management. No place: Eurocontrol GAIN working group E (2004) A roadmap to a just culture: enhancing the safety environment International Civil Aviation Organization (2009) Safety Management Manual. Doc 9859 AN/474, 2nd ed J.R Katzenbach (2012) ‘Cultural change that sticks’, Harvard Business Review July – August pp.110-117. J. Reason (1998). 'Achieving a safety culture: theory and practice '. In: J. Reason (ed), Work & Stress J. Smith (2010) Safety Culture – What’s Yours? No Place: BAINES SIMMONS. (No report number). P. Hudson (2001) ‘Safety culture: The ultimate goal’, Flight Safety Australia September – October pp.29-31.