BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE H&S CULTURE Margaret Rimmer NZISM Level 2, Nielsen Building, 129 Hurstmere Road, Takapuna, Auckland

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1 BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE H&S CULTURE Margaret Rimmer NZISM Level 2, Nielsen Building, 129 Hurstmere Road, Takapuna, Auckland Introduction Culture is defined as the shared patterns of behaviours and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialisation. These shared patterns identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group. Organisational culture in its simplest form is simply the way we do things and what we value and is defined by both collective and individual behaviours; it is usually defined by its rules, procedures, values and beliefs. However simply stating what these rules are, ensuring new employees are given them and existing employees are reminded of them, is unlikely to influence the development of a positive and sustainable culture. 'Safety culture' or sustainable culture is simply a subset of the overall organisational or company culture and is unlikely to survive if this overall culture has negative influences. Many organisations values state safety is our number one priority but, do they really live this as a value. BP has safety as its number one value; however have had 42 fatalities since 1965, OSHA found "organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporation" and said management failures could be traced from Texas to London, stating "The only thing you can conclude is that BP has a serious, systemic safety problem in their company. If safety is embedded within an organisational culture it simply happens regardless of what values/slogans are publicised; think operations first, safety always. Organisations need to ensure that the values they promote are clearly visible in the way they operate their business otherwise they will have little or no influence on the culture. Building the culture of an organisation takes time and has many facets for consideration. An organisation's culture can have as big an influence on safety outcomes as the safety 1

2 management system. The safety management system typically provides a framework for compliance to legislative requirements; it provides guidance to employees with regards to expectations and process. Individual employees own values, beliefs and most importantly experiences, influence the level of compliance to this system. Individual accountability must remain for safety systems to completely work; usually the last line of defence in a safety incident is a human being, hopefully one that is informed and empowered to do the right thing. This is especially important should an unforeseen condition arise. Background Like many global companies Golder Associates in New Zealand, an environmental Engineering Consultancy, has multiple offices, with four main offices and three satellite offices geographically spread across the North and South Islands. Each office has a designated Office Manager as well as Team Leaders, manageing particular technical discipline groups. Golder Associates undertook their first Global Safety Culture Survey in 2009, in order to explore employee perceptions of the areas which are known to have the greatest influence on culture: 1. Leadership and Empowerment 2. Communication 3. Competence and Training 4. Compliance, Procedure and System Responses were based on a 5 point Likert scale: Strongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree The survey was repeated in 2011 and comparisons provided to all operating centres. The 2011 survey was distributed via electronic link and made available for five weeks to ensure field employees or those on leave had an opportunity to participate. In New Zealand uptake for the 2009 survey was 54% and in 2011 this had risen to 98%. 2

3 Following compilation of the survey data, presentations were prepared for senior managers and focus groups were facilitated in order to gather qualitative information to substantiate the quantitative findings. Feedback from the focus groups was anonymous and key comments were included in the final report to the Team Leaders and Principles and Associates within the company. Overall the survey results were positive; however the key area for improvement was felt to be visible leadership and mentoring. This was confirmed by the focus groups who felt that Managers needed to have a presence during fieldwork; this would also provide valuable opportunities for mentoring of less experienced employees. Challenges Managing consistent leadership where there is a geographical spread of teams and management, presents its own set of challenges as there is a significant risk of sub cultures manifesting. However sub cultures can exist providing they are in harmony with the core values and beliefs of the Parent organisation, how they get there may be different but the end results are the same. The import factor is that leaders are supported to enable them to inspire the fundamental behaviours to creating a positive safety culture. Employees have to want to do the right thing, feel that safety is important and their efforts are valued and supported. During these tough economic times pressure on managers to increase productivity/billable hours is the norm; however guidance is needed on how these messages are relayed to individual teams. Safety planning for jobs is fundamental to project management and regulatory compliance, but is often peripheral to this process; messages of safety being important while at the same time stating the importance of billable time and budget management can offer conflicting messages. Junior employees also indicated the importance of shared knowledge with the more senior, experienced project managers, valuing the importance of mentoring. This not only has technical advantages but also embeds the safety message into how we do things providing 3

4 the perfect opportunity to walk the talk. Managers not only have to lead by example by also believe and actively support the safety management system, fill in the requisite forms, wear the correct PPE and display positive behaviours. Using Management Systems as Drivers Medium to large organisation, are required to have documented safety management systems (Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992). The aim of the management system is to communicate to employees the organisational commitment, intent and methods for compliance with legislative and other related practise guides. Creating a management system is a fairly easy process, many companies taking the option of contracting out this process or engaging safety personnel to create management system manuals. Whilst this provides a very impressive and comprehensive system, achieving at least primary certification under the ACC Workplace Safety Management Systems, it has little bearing on the exhibited behaviours within an organisation. Organisations need to remind themselves that management systems have to be written for the employee group, if they are full of legal jargon or too lengthy they are unlikely to be read or understood. System driven organisations also often apply the punitive approach to behaviour adjustment and, while this can work in the short term, are not sustainable. Safety Managers have been relied upon to manage the system and also expected behaviours, this result in everyone being on their best behaviour during the Safety Managers work hours reverting to everyday behaviour once they leave. Safety Managers are there to support management in the decision making processes, they give guidance on legislative compliance and augment the positive approach to safety. Building the capacity of managers and leaders within an organisation has greater influence on affecting a positive organisational culture than relying on one individual. 4

5 Carrot Vs. Stick There has been much debate on which system offers better results, punitive or rewarding. The key to managing the carrot vs stick debate is balance, punishing undesirable behaviours without recognising and re enforcing positive behaviours can lead to concealing of subversive behaviour. In the same way rewards alone have little influence on cooperation; punishments have some, albeit short lived. When the two are combined the effect on cooperation is dramatic, suggesting that rewards and punishments are complements in producing cooperation. A simple example would be the punishing of employees for not wearing the correct PPE and then failure to acknowledge their efforts when the correct items are worn. Explaining the rationale and potential consequences of negative actions will only work if it is meaningful to the employee, using legislation as a key driver will have little success, much better to relate consequences to their preferred activities or what is important to them. In order to formally acknowledge and reward positive efforts of staff Golder introduced the Meerkat award, adopting the meerkat as a physical symbol of the journey towards interdependency. Why a meerkat? Meerkats live in communities and depend on one another for survival working together to find food and fend of predators. In order to be selected for an award monthly reports and commendations are assessed by peers against the meerkat criteria: Teamwork Health and safety instinct Communication Continuous improvement Safety as a priority Looking out for one another Selected winners receive a meerkat toy, certificate and store voucher of their choice with their positive behaviour reported through team meetings, newsletter and internal webpages. 5

6 All employees are encouraged to share their learnings via a learnings database, the reported learnings are used to generate discussion at group and team level meetings. Monthly reports on key learnings are distributed to Team Leaders to share and re enforce appropriate safety messages to their employee group. The investigations focus on the learning and system failings and not on punishing the involved individual. Undesirable decisions made by employees are addressed positively, recognising the influences of hindsight. This ensures the employees honest feedback, identifies corrective actions and encourages ongoing reporting. As a result the learnings reported have improved in quality and raise many opportunities for discussion and improvement. Assessing the Cultural Journey Many methods exist for the assessment of culture within an organisation; Golder chose to distribute an online safety culture survey which provided a measure of the employees perception of safety. Observations of behaviour are also a key indicator with regards to the maturity of a culture. Golder also has key performance indicators for senior employees in relation to field observations. These observations provide opportunities for the senior person to meet with field employees and comment on positive observations as well as discuss any areas they feel could be improved. The observations are reviewed by the management group, key learnings are recorded in the database and overall findings are considered. Without this review structure the observations would only present a snapshot of findings, this methodology better applies a holistic approach to the organisational cultural assessment. Consistently reported areas for improvement are therefore addressed across the organisation. 6

7 The Dupont Bradley curve is frequently used for self assessment purposes, where descriptions of organisational behaviours/observations are assigned to cultural descriptor. Summary diagram below. The Bradley Curve makes it simple for everyone to understand the shifts in mind set and actions that need to occur over time to develop a mature safety culture. 1. Reactive Stage People do not take responsibility. They believe that safety is more a matter of luck than management, and that accidents will happen. And over time, they do. 2. Dependent Stage People see safety as a matter of following rules that someone else makes. Accident rates decrease and management believes that safety could be managed if only people would follow the rules. 3. Independent Stage Individuals take responsibility for themselves. People believe that safety is personal, and that they can make a difference with their own actions. This reduces accidents further. 4. Interdependent Stage Teams of employees feel ownership for safety, and take responsibility for themselves and others. People do not accept low standards and risk taking. They actively converse with others to understand their point of view. They believe true 7

8 improvement can only be achieved as a group, and that zero injuries is an attainable goal. Assessing observations and focus group feedback against the descriptors provided an indication of where people felt the organisation sat on the cultural curve. The majority of organisations find that they overlap descriptors, in this case it is the majority of behaviours that are considered and action plans need to address those behaviours that are lagging. It is important to repeat this assessment at regular intervals, usually not more than annually, to ensure a progressing safety journey and also to monitor maintenance of positive behaviours. Feedback to employees is also essential, they need to be aware of findings, expectations and the journey the organisation is taking. They are more likely to get on the bus if they know where it is taking them! Conclusion Behavioural based safety programmes have their criticisms, mainly because results can take time to be observed and realised, effort is also required from the management team to emulate the desired behaviours and inspire the workforce to want to do the right thing. Building a sustainable safety culture can only occur in parity with organisational behaviour and therefore behavioural based programmes play a key role. Safety should not be driven by one person as this does not encourage personal responsibility or accountability and is unable to effect change in all parts of the business at all times. Organisations need to ensure there is consistency in their application of rewards as well as punitive measures, accidents should be fully investigated to identify the key drivers for the human action. Safety is a marathon and not a sprint to the finish line, the management team need to ensure sufficient time and effort is afforded to any programmes as behavioural change does not happen overnight. 8

9 References Andreoni, James; Harbaugh, William and Vesterlund, Lise (2002) The Carrot or the Stick: Rewards, Punishments, and Cooperation University of Oregon Economics Department Working Papers from University of Oregon Economics Department Dupont Bradley Curve assessing organisational culture ( solutions/en us/dss/ua/bradley curve.html) Unknown Author "Introduction to Behavioral Safety" Cambridge Center for Behavior Studies 9