What is Safety Culture?
Safety culture is determined by the values and priorities placed on all aspects of safety by everyone at every level of an organization, and how managers, supervisors and the workforce behave on a day-to-day basis.
Why is Safety Culture important?
Organisations with a strong safety culture have less accidents and incidents, as everyone's behaviour is aligned towards the common goal of avoiding harm to people. A weak safety culture can exist where, despite the presence of engineered and procedural safety controls, the behaviour of managers, supervisors and the workforce does not support working safely.
Assessing an organisation's current safety culture allows the understanding of:
- Why people behave safely or unsafely
- How managers and supervisors can influence safety behaviour more effectively
- Whether behavioural safety interventions are working effectively, or not
- How to improve safety behaviour and performance
The Keil Centre has considerable expertise in helping organizations assess and develop a strong safety culture. This includes:-
Safety Culture Maturity®
Developing and implementing this innovative method to assess safety culture - (see Safety Culture Maturity® Model )
Industry or company-specific safety culture models
Over 25 such award-winning projects in diverse sectors including oil and gas, petrochemicals, food manufacture, construction, engineering, pharmaceuticals and life sciences
Industry projects
PRISM – joint prime contractor for safety culture on this 3-year EU-funded project, coordinated by the European Process Safety Centre
On behalf of the UK Health and Safety Executive, the UK offshore oil and gas industry, and the Railway Safety and Standards Board, researching aspects of safety culture and producing practical guidance.
Assistance with existing safety culture assessments
The Keil Centre has also provided further analysis and recommendations for companies who have already undertaken their own assessment of safety culture or climate, e.g. using the UK Health and Safety Executive's Climate Survey Tool.
Other expert advice
For example, identifying next steps in safety culture development, expert opinion, running in-house or external safety culture seminars or conferences.