Page 47 - IGC BOOK

Negative Safety Culture

Where there is a negative health and safety culture, management and
staff are likely to adopt only the minimum safety arrangements
necessary to comply with the law, and even to ignore the requirements
completely. Many organisations do only approach health and safety
without spirit. Their performance may be characterised as not being
concerned with hazards and risks, and there is an acceptance of
danger in the workplace – altogether an unhealthy approach.

Indicators of an Organisation’s Health and Safety Culture

It is one of the significant aspects of the management to promote positive health and safety
culture. There are number of indicators used to assess an organisation’s health and safety
culture. Health and safety outcomes related indicators include:

• Level of compliance with rules and procedures
• The number of complaints about working conditions
• The number of Work-related accident/ incidents happening.
• Absenteeism and sickness rates.
• Staff turnover.

If the above outcomes are increasing over a period, for example, if there is an increase in
absenteeism and sickness rates, it shows the existence of negative safety culture in the
organisation. Even though there is less number of absenteeism and sickness outcomes, the data
may not be reliable due to poor or no reporting system.

Level of Compliance with Rules and Procedures

The extent to which these rules and procedures are followed is always a good indicator of
the attitudes towards health and safety in practice. This can be achieved by agreed policies and
the way the policies are implemented are the key factor.

A high level of compliance indicates that there is a strong health and safety culture, however low
level of compliance indicates serious problems and insists investigation that why health and
safety policy is not being followed – by both management and employees.

Monitoring compliance levels can be achieved by looking at some of the reactive indicators.

Complaints about Working Conditions

The level and more number of problems reported to senior management by supervisors, safety
representatives and health and safety practitioners may be indicative either the level of
compliance with the rules and measures, or of the extent to which those rules and procedures
are considered appropriate. However, a high level of complaints would be indicative of a poor
health and safety culture.

ENSIGN| Unit IG1 – Element 3 – Managing Risks – Understanding People and Processes 2