Values Based Safety Culture

A values based safety culture is essential for any organisation wanting to effectively manage workplace health and safety.

Culture is defined as the shared values, beliefs and behaviours of a group of people.  The 6 core values of any group are love, trust, courage, honesty, respect and fairness.  Social cohesion is maintained in a group if behaviours, systems and symbols, exhibited internally and externally to the group, are individually, and collectively, interpreted as positive displays of the values.  “Wow… that was courageous.”  “That was honest.”  “She really showed respect there.”  “Now… that was hard but fair.”  Social cohesion is a foundation for enhancing individual and collective performance.  No-where is this more important than in Health and Safety.

Your managers, supervisors and workers need to believe that the H&S systems of your business are crucial to the protection of your people and the success of your business.  “We do safety because we care not because we have to” needs to be your company mantra, at all levels, if your H&S endeavours are to be as successful as they can be.

InterSafe has developed a number of audit and evaluation tools and processes to help you understand the culture of your organisation.  We have delivered challenging, inspiring, and visionary sessions with leadership teams to help them become emotionally and intellectually attached to safety.  We also coach organisations to help them ensure that their systems, symbols and behaviours are not disenfranchising their workers and creating a counter culture that is fragmenting the organisation.

Traditional approaches to developing safety culture speak about a positive interdependent safety culture.  It is essential that this culture is coupled with strong information and that this information is grounded in data and the scientific method.  If this does not occur then it is possible for managers to sleep soundly at night due to the harmony and cohesion that exists at work and be woken by ‘that’ phone call.

We can help you get the balance right.  An emotional attachment to safety because you and your people care about each other AND an intellectual attachment to the phenomena of damaging occurrences and taxonomic data to help you focus on what makes a difference.