Measuring safety climate in aviation: A review and recommendations for the future

This paper reviews 23 studies that have examined safety climate within commercial and military aviation. The safety climate factors identified in the aviation safety climate questionnaires were found to be consistent with the literature examining safety climate in non-aviation high reliability organizations. Therefore, it was concluded that the aviation safety climate tools had some construct validity (the extent to which the questionnaire measures what it is intended to measure). However, the majority of the studies made no attempt to establish the discriminate validity (the ability of the tool to differentiate between organizations or personnel with different levels of safety performance) of the tools. It is recommended that rather than constructing more aviation safety climate questionnaires, researchers should focus on establishing the construct and discriminate validity of existing measures by correlating safety climate with other metrics of safety performance. It is recognized that the accident rate in commercial aviation is too low to provide a sufficiently sensitive measure of safety performance. However, there are other measures of safety performance, collected as part of a company’s Aviation Safety Action Program or Flight Operational Quality Assurance, which could be used to assess the discriminate validity of an aviation safety climate tool.     

Measuring safety culture in a research and development centre: A comparison of two methods in the Air Traffic Management domain

This paper describes two safety surveys carried out in an Air Traffic Management Research and Development centre (EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre). The paper discusses the differences and similarities between the two tools with regard to their development, the method of conducting the surveys, the results and their implications. It has been estimated that about 50%¹ to 60%² of accidents and incidents appear to have their roots in the design and development process, and since this is the core business of the EEC, it was deemed necessary to investigate the maturity of safety at the EEC. The challenge for the EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre (EEC) was to develop a tool that is relevant to a research and development environment with the objectives of (i) identifying areas of weakness in the safety culture of the organization (ii) helping in developing a Safety Management System. The first objective was addressed by developing a Safety Culture Survey (SCS) tool and surveying the EEC (March, 2003). The second objective was addressed by customizing an existing (SMS) survey tool (RD) for the R&D environment. The SCS is based on traditional measures adapted to ATM and then to R&D, and the River Diagram (RD) is more of a safety management survey, adapted from other industries and already applied to HQ (EUROCONTROL Head Quarters) to examine their commitment to safety. Nevertheless, the two surveys have been compared to see where they agree and where they ‘dissociate’. Overall, the SCS has a broader focus on “softer issues”, i.e. more complex issues of ‘trust in management’. Diagnostically, the River Diagram survey helps the practitioner develop SMS implementation plans more readily than the Safety Culture survey.     

A safety culture maturity model for petrochemical companies in Brazil

A framework to measure safety culture maturity in the Brazilian oil and gas companies was formulated based on the model of Hudson (2001). Following a review of the safety culture literature, a questionnaire was designed to measure five aspects of organisational safety indicative of five levels of cultural maturity. The questionnaire was completed by the safety managers of 23 petrochemical companies based in Camacari, Bahia, Brazil and they were interviewed one month later. The reliability of the questionnaire was tested by asking the same questions in an interview and comparing the results (alternate forms reliability). The correlation coefficients between the questionnaire and interview scores on each dimension ranged from r = 0.7 to 0.9, demonstrating good reliability of the measures used. The research findings demonstrated that the 23 companies studied showed characteristics of different levels of safety culture maturity. Most scores were at the level of proactive. The model of Hudson (2001) and the revised framework and questionnaire were found to be practical to use, making it possible to identify levels of safety culture maturity in the context of the Brazilian petrochemical industry.     

Evaluating a safety culture campaign: Some lessons from a Norwegian case

The focus of the present study is on the implementation and some of the results of an evaluation of a safety culture campaign that partly was aimed at increasing workmate interventions (care). I focus on three groups either working on or with a Norwegian offshore platform: onshore managers, crane operators and process operators. The research questions are: “Has the safety culture campaign contributed to new safety cultures related to care in the three groups, why/why not and what can we learn from this?”. The study indicates that two of the groups have developed new safety cultures that sensitize them to new hazards, motivate and legitimize new preventive practices. In accordance with the interpretive approach to culture in organizations, these changes are discussed in light of members’ of each group’s negotiation over the meaning and relevance of campaign efforts on workmate interventions. Lessons that can be learned from the study are discussed.     

Perceptions of organizational safety: implications for the development of safety culture

Regulatory bodies in the U.K. have emphasized the importance of ‘a positive health and safety culture’ to the safety performance of companies. A key feature of a company's safety culture is shared perceptions amongst managers and staff concerning the importance of safety. This study recorded the perceptions of 312 British Rail train drivers, supervisors and senior managers concerning the relative importance of 25 railway factors. Each level also gave their estimates of the ratings of the other levels. The study found that whilst there was a shared perception of the importance of safety, intergroup perceptions were not realistic. It is argued that accurate intergroup perceptions are essential to the development of mutual trust and understanding between levels, which forms the basis for a positive safety culture. Suggestions for establishing the foundations for a positive safety culture are discussed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Marketing strategies for enhancing safety culture

Promotional and marketing strategies can be effective tools for raising and maintaining the profile of occupational health and safety (OHS) within an organization. It is important to maximize the impact of health and safety promotions, and to ensure a consistent, desired message is conveyed. When developing OHS promotional campaigns, consideration should be given to identifying the target audience and the objective of the campaign. The aim is to keep employees focused in a positive and proactive way. Effective communication brings together people, processes, and systems. The challenge is to promote health and safety throughout all levels of the organization, and to find effective strategies such as published materials, displays, media, training and the Internet, to gain management commitment and employee involvement in the decision-making and problem-solving processes which are essential for achieving a positive safety culture. The benefits can go beyond lowering the lost time injury rate, and can include economic and social gains.     

The nature of safety culture: A survey of the state-of-the-art

This paper reviews the literature on safety culture, placing particular focus on research undertaken from 1998 onwards. The term culture is clarified as it is typically applied to organizations, to safety, and particularly to construction safety. Some clarification in terms of positive safety culture, safety culture models, levels of aggregation and safety performance is provided by presenting appropriate empirical evidence and its theoretical developments. In general, safety culture is thought to influence employees’ attitudes and behavior in relation to an organization’s ongoing health and safety performance. Implications for future research in the area are addressed, as in recent years safety culture has become the focus of much attention in all industries, including the construction industry.     

Diagnosis of safety culture in safety management audits

Based on the sociotechnical systems approach, an understanding of safety culture as deeply rooted assumptions about the interplay of people, technology, and organization in their relation to safety is presented. As a complement to audit methods aimed at assessing formal safety management, a questionnaire was developed which allows some indications of these assumptions to be captured by providing data on perceptions regarding operational safety, safety and design strategies, and personal job needs. Analyzing response patterns of different occupational, hierarchical, and organizational groups within a company in combination with formal audit results and the communicative validation of both in a feedback meeting can help the auditors as well as the members of the company to gain a deeper understanding of safety management and safety culture in that company. Results from seven audits in petrochemical plants are presented and discussed with respect to the validity and practicability of the chosen approach.     

Measuring safety climate in elderly homes

IntroductionProvision of a valid and reliable safety climate dimension brings enormous benefits to the elderly home sector. The aim of the present study was to make use of the safety climate instrument developed by OSHC to measure the safety perceptions of employees in elderly homes such that the factor structure of the safety climate dimensions of elderly homes could be explored.MethodIn 2010, surveys by mustering on site method were administered in 27 elderly homes that had participated in the "Hong Kong Safe and Healthy Residential Care Home Accreditation Scheme" organized by the Occupational Safety and Health Council.ResultsSix hundred and fifty-one surveys were returned with a response rate of 54.3%. To examine the factor structure of safety climate dimensions in our study, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using principal components analysis method was conducted to identify the underlying factors. The results of the modified seven-factor's safety climate structure extracted from 35 items better reflected the safety climate dimensions of elderly homes. The Cronbach alpha range for this study (0.655 to 0.851) indicated good internal consistency among the seven-factor structure. Responses from managerial level, supervisory and professional level, and front-line staff were analyzed to come up with the suggestion on effective ways of improving the safety culture of elderly homes. The overall results showed that managers generally gave positive responses in the factors evaluated, such as "management commitment and concern to safety," "perception of work risks and some contributory influences," "safety communication and awareness," and "safe working attitude and participation." Supervisors / professionals, and frontline level staff on the other hand, have less positive responses. The result of the lowest score in the factors - "perception of safety rules and procedures" underlined the importance of the relevance and practicability of safety rules and procedures.ConclusionThe modified OSHC safety climate tool provided better evidence of structural validity and reliability for use by elderly homes' decision makers as an indicator of employee perception of safety in their institution.Impact on industryThe findings and suggestions in the study provide useful information for the management, supervisors/professionals and frontline level staff to cultivate the safety culture in the elderly home sector. Most important, elderly homes can use the modified safety climate scale to identify problem areas in their safety culture and safety management practices and then target these for intervention.     

Measuring safety climate: identifying the common features

In UK industry, particularly in the energy sector, there has been a movement away from ‘lagging’ measures of safety based on retrospective data, such as lost time accidents and incidents, towards ‘leading’ or predictive assessments of the safety climate of the organisation or worksite. A number of different instruments have been developed by industrial psychologists for this purpose, resulting in a proliferation of scales with distinct developmental histories. Reviewing the methods and results from a sample of industrial surveys, the thematic basis of 18 scales used to assess safety climate is examined. This suggests that the most typically assessed dimensions relate to management (72% of studies), the safety system (67%), and risk (67%), in addition themes relating to work pressure and competence appear in a third of the studies.     

Framework for creating a Best-in-Class safety culture

To answer the question, “What are the practical attributes of Best-in-Class safety management,” consensus principles have been identified and lessons learned harvested from a broad spectrum of organizations with exemplary safety programs. Through years of studying the underpinnings of a strong safety culture, the authors have identified ten attributes that are important to create a Best-in-Class safety culture. Instead of expecting one organization to possess all of the attributes or employ all of the techniques identified, the authors suggest these principles be treated as guidelines that can be used to improve the safety culture in organizations.     

Work-related road safety: A case study of Roche Australia

Fleet, work-related or occupational road safety has the potential to make a major contribution to reducing both human harm and asset damage. To date, however, there would appear to be a dearth of well researched and evaluated case studies in the public domain in this area.This paper provides an on-going, documented, real-world case study of work-related road safety within an Australian company that has sought to manage, monitor and improve its road safety performance over the last 5 years through a range of proactive, fleet manager, insurance and risk-led initiatives.Roche Australia has successfully implemented a Company Motor Vehicle Safety Program with support from its fleet insurers and risk management advisors. Four key initiatives are set out covering: (1) Driver risk assessment, monitoring and improvement. (2) Policy development and communications. (3) Process and outcomes evaluation. (4) Continuous review and refinement of policies, processes, programs and future developments.The program has led to a range of process and performance-based outcomes. Typical barriers to success in work-related road safety have been identified and overcome. Almost 100% risk assessment and improvement process compliance by drivers has been achieved. A predictive relationship between risk assessment outcomes and collision history has been identified. Reductions in insurance claims, collision costs and claims ratio have been sustained. A detailed project plan is in place to continue the program for the next 3 years.The paper concludes that with effective management, a well developed work-related road safety program can result in performance improvements within the initiating organisation. Several limitations in the case study methodology, as well as areas for further work and lessons for policy makers, researchers and practitioners are also identified.     

Team mental models and their potential to improve teamwork and safety: A review and implications for future research in healthcare

The importance of team mental models (TMMs) - team members’ shared and organized understanding of relevant knowledge - for teamwork and team-performance, particularly in high-risk industries, has been recognized for almost two decades. In healthcare, however, systematic investigations on the influence of TMM on teamwork and team-performance had yet to be conducted at the time of this review, despite many authors considering the concept to be useful for medical teams. The lack of measurement procedures appropriate for settings as complex and dynamic as, for example, the operating room, represents a major obstacle for empirical research in healthcare. We systematically reviewed empirical studies on TMMs aiming to identify methods that could be applied in healthcare. In particular, we analyzed the methods used, and situations in which TMMs have been investigated. The reviewed studies were sorted according to task and team characteristics. We discuss the results of this review with regard to characteristics of healthcare teams including anaesthesia teams and teams of ward nurses. Each of these examples represents a distinct teamwork setting (e.g. long- vs. short-lived teams) and hence requires a different approach to TMM measurement (e.g. focus on task-model vs. focus on team-model). Implications for study design, feasible measurement approaches, and questions for future research on TMMs in healthcare are discussed. In sum, our findings highlight the possible significance of TMM research in healthcare and its potential benefits for team-performance and, ultimately, patient safety.     

Measuring road traffic safety performance: monitoring trends in nonfatal injury

Traditional indicators used to monitor trends in nonfatal injury are influenced by a range of factors other than the incidence of injury. Indicators based on threat-to-life scales offer a means of addressing this problem. The aim of the research described in this article was to compare trends in the official indicators with trends in selected threat-to-life indicators. We compared indicators based on the New Injury Severity Score and the International Classification of Diseases-based Injury Severity Score with the official New Zealand indicators; namely, (1) reported injuries, (2) reported injuries per 10,000 vehicles, (3) reported injuries per 100,000 people, and (4) number hospitalized (discharges). All the official indicators suggest that there has been a substantive decline in nonfatal Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes (MVTCs) for the period 1988-2000, but a notable increase in 2001. The latter appear to be artifactual increases due to changes in patterns of data collection and do not reflect any real changes in incidence. Further support for this is provided by the results for the two threat-to-life indicators, which suggest that the decline observed for 1988-98 may have been attributable to a decline in the ascertainment or occurrence of minor injuries since those injuries, which represent a significant threat to life, have not declined to the same degree. Given the prominence of motor vehicle crashes as a cause of unnecessary morbidity, more thought needs to be given to deriving valid indicators for measuring trends in serious nonfatal injury.     

Evaluating safety management and culture interventions to improve safety: Effective intervention strategies

The Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment provided subsidy over the period 2004–2008 to a number of companies to introduce changes aimed at reducing accidents by changing their safety culture and aspects of their safety management. As part of the programme a scientific evaluation was set up to assess the effectiveness of the interventions in 17 of the projects, covering 29 companies. Before and after studies were made of the companies, documenting the state of their safety management and risk control efforts and their accident rates before the intervention, the changes made over the study period and the resulting changes in a range of measures aimed at assessing the success of the changes. The analysis led to a categorisation of the projects according to their degree of success.This paper describes the patterns of interventions distinguishing between successful and not successful projects and discusses the mechanisms lying behind them. Interventions bringing about constructive dialogue between shop-floor and line management, providing motivation to line managers and strengthening the monitoring and learning loops in the safety management system (SM) appeared more successful. The amount of energy and creativity injected by top managers and, above all, by the coordinator (safety professional) appeared also to be a distinguishing factor.     

Ranking of process safety cultures for risk-based inspections using indicative safety culture assessments

Although major hazard industries have no legal obligations to demonstrate a good safety culture, it is an increasingly important factor for risk-based inspections. This paper describes the development and evaluation of a relatively simple method for external indicative assessment of the process safety culture in major hazard industries. As a first step, a tool was developed. Second, the tool was successfully tested in a workshop with major hazard inspectors. After this ‘proof of concept’ and a few adaptations to improve the tool, quantitative evaluation and validation were carried out with a representative sample of major hazard inspectors in the Netherlands. In this stage, the tool comprised 30 questions, of which 19 sufficiently frequent valid responses were given for the validity test. The evaluations demonstrate that without specific preparations, inspection teams can use the tool to discriminate between plants with poor or good safety cultures. That is sufficient for ranking as additional input for risk-based inspection strategies. The resulting indicative ‘scores’ for safety culture correlate meaningfully with the quality of process safety management systems and the number of (legal) non-compliances, which were identified by the inspection team at the same occasion. The use of the tool can be further improved by training inspectors, making minor adaptations of the inspection process, and broadening the scope of a few questions. It is expected that external assessments of safety culture will become increasingly important not only for inspectorates, but also for a range of other external stakeholders.     

安全文化在安全生产工作中的作用

文章探讨了安全文化投入到安全生产领域的过程,叙述了对安全文化的认识及其工作的发挥和开展的保证。     

企业安全文化建设之思考

安全文化的创建和发展极大地丰富了安全管理的内涵,中外企业安全文化建设的成功范例,从不同角度和方面,都验证了企业安全文化建设对深化企业安全管理,提高企业安全管理水平,预防人身伤害事故的发生,具有重要意义。