Worley

Understanding your organization’s safety culture maturity is important. This knowledge helps with applying the appropriate resources and energy to reach what is expected by the organization. I classify the maturity of a safety culture in three different levels: immature, maturing and mature.

The immature safety culture level is characterized by:

• Lack of leadership involvement in the safety programs and processes

• Lack of safe work planning and execution processes

• Lack of work family safety training

• Lack of work family member engagement in positive safety culture elements

• Lack of work family individual and collective recognitions (positive and constructive)

• Lack of safe work culture vision (reactive to safety events)

The maturing safety culture level is characterized by:

• Moderate level of leadership involvement in the safety programs and processes (e.g., executives say and do the right things, yet the expected safe work behavior is not cascaded throughout all levels of leadership)

• Developing safe work planning and execution processes (e.g., no formal and consistently applied job hazard analysis process)

• Lack of effective work family safety training

• Inconsistent engagement in positive safety culture elements (e.g., work family members are not part of creating and assessing the safety program)

• Inconsistent positive and constructive recognition for safety performance

• Developing safe work culture vision, which is mostly reactive with some proactive elements

The mature safety culture level is characterized by:

• The highest level of leadership involvement in the safety programs and processes (e.g., executives say and do the right things and their expected safe behaviors are cascaded throughout all levels of leadership)

• Solid and consistently applied safe work planning and execution processes are in place (e.g., a formal job hazard analysis process is used consistently throughout the organization)

• Safety training is in place at all levels (e.g., work family members receive effective safe work training from new hires to the CEO)

• Consistent engagement in the positive safety culture elements (e.g., work family members are part of creating, assessing and evolving the safety program)

• Consistent positive and constructive recognition for safety performance 

• Developed proactive safety vision that is easily articulated and embraced by all – an attitude that “we can and will perform every task safely or not at all”

Leadership engagement limits immature safety cultures
I have worked in several immature safety cultures during my career. The most consistent and profound issue occurs when leadership is not engaged with where the work is done (e.g., shop floor, oil field, processing unit, and engineering office floor).

“Focusing in on what is done well inspires people to see what is possible in safety achievements.”

In my first safety professional role, I worked at a steel fabricator with an immature safety culture in Charleston, WV. The company was cited by OSHA for numerous violations, and I offered my services to correct the citations, as a new graduate of Marshall University’s Graduate Safety Management Program. I effectively worked with the leadership team to correct all the citations and develop a more proactive safety program for the work family members.

One of the biggest voids in that particular safety program was a lack of senior leadership involvement where the work was performed. The vice presidents and CEO of the company never routinely visited the workers, even though the leadership offices were physically connected to the fabrication shop. A solid safety program was in place, but executive leaders were not engaged. Their behavior suggested that they were going to be reactive to safety issues like they were when the company had been cited by OSHA.

Maturing cultures are hit or miss
I have worked in several maturing safety cultures during my career. Maturing safety cultures look at safety proactively and dedicate resources to make work safe and effective for the humans they employ. They also are inconsistent in applying the basics of safe work culture. As an example, some leaders in maturing cultures exemplify safe work behaviors, while others don’t. They have a somewhat effective job hazard analysis processes in place, safety training effectiveness varies from group to group, and they lean towards recognizing what is wrong with the safety program more than what is right.

I worked with a group that experienced serious injuries as a normal experience of getting things done, and those injuries were accepted. Even though they had world class safety resources (people, processes and equipment) available to them, the leaders did not focus and inspire the hearts and minds of the work family to replicate what was done well. Focusing in on what is done well inspires people to see what is possible in safety achievements.

Mature cultures expect safety
I have worked in and helped create several maturing safety cultures during my career. The main differentiator of these mature safety cultures is that safe work is expected and exists on purpose.

Assessing safety culture maturity
I base my assessments of safety culture maturity in four basic areas:

1. Executive leadership engagement with the safety program and work family

2. Job hazard analysis process

3. Safety training program (why, what and how things get done)

4. Recognition and accountability program

Taking safe work home with us
Five of the eight global organizations I have served in were mature in the safety culture space, including my present company. The work family members not only believed that working safely was possible, but they believed that living safely was possible by taking what they learned at work back home to their family and communities.

My wife has exemplified this behavior to me by blowing her car horn twice to make others aware of her planned reverse movement. She adopted the behavior after observing me do this proactive safety practice hundreds of times. Mature safety cultures not only exist at work, but they also exist at home.