Safety culture

"Safety as a value" inscribed on a bench at a coal mine in Colorado

Safety culture is the element of organizational culture which is concerned with the maintenance of safety and compliance with safety standards. It is informed by the organization's leadership and the beliefs, perceptions and values that employees share in relation to risks within the organization, workplace or community.[1][2][3] Safety culture has been described in a variety of ways: notably, the National Academies of Science and the Association of Land Grant and Public Universities have published summaries on this topic in 2014 and 2016.[4][5][6][7]

A good safety culture can be promoted by senior management commitment to safety, realistic practices for handling hazards, continuous organisational learning, and care and concern for hazards shared across the workforce.[8] Beyond organisational learning, individual training forms the foundation from which to build a systemic safety culture.

  1. ^ Silbey, Susan S. (2009). "Taming Prometheus: Talk About Safety and Culture". Annual Review of Sociology. 35 (1): 341–369. doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.34.040507.134707. ISSN 0360-0572.
  2. ^ Cox, S. & Cox, T. (1991) The structure of employee attitudes to safety - a European example Work and Stress, 5, 93 - 106.
  3. ^ Rip, Arie (1991), "The danger culture of industrial society", Communicating Risks to the Public (PDF), Springer Netherlands, pp. 345–365, doi:10.1007/978-94-009-1952-5_16, ISBN 9789401073721
  4. ^ Confederation of British Industry (1991), Developing a Safety Culture, London
  5. ^ "That's the Way We Do Things Around Here". southernlibrarianship.icaap.org.
  6. ^ "A guide to implementing a SAFETY CULTURE in our universities". APLU.org. April 2016. Retrieved 26 July 2018.
  7. ^ "Safe Science: Promoting a Culture of Safety in Academic Chemical Research (2014): Division on Earth and Life Studies". dels.nas.edu. Retrieved 26 July 2018.
  8. ^ "The Ultimate Guide to Safety Culture in 2022 [+ Assessment]". AlertMedia. Retrieved 17 June 2022.