5 Signs that your company has an Awesome Safety Culture

1. Leadership Commitment

Its not just that the leaders are committed or that you have a statement pasted somewhere on the door or entrance, but Leaders are truly committed. They DO what they SAY. They don't just talk about safety, they walk their talk. They mean what they say!

It can be seen, it can be heard and it can be felt.

They truly care and are concerned about the staff.

And its not just the top leadership, its across all levels of the organization- Senior leaders, managers, supervisors, foremen. There is no two ways about doing things right.

2. Knowledge

An awesome company won't just have a safety officer or a safety champion, rather all the employees understand and can verbalise what they need to do to maintain a level of health and safety in their departments. Not only can they tell you what needs to be done, how it needs to be done but also WHY it is done in a certain why. They truly exhibit a working knowledge of health and safety topics. They are able to share what they cannot do as well. They will be able to say NO to tasks that they are not ready or trained for.

They know their job, their tasks, their roles and their responsibilities.

They do it right every single time and they expect their co-workers to do the same.

3. Defined Goals

There will be clearly defined goals and clearly defined desired state of culture that everyone will know. Every single person is on the same page. Like a football team that knows what its goals are. Everyone on the team will have the same goal. They also know where they stand on the football league. They know where they are and where they are going to.

4. Lack of competing priorities

Its never a showdown between production and safety. If the work has been planned out well, everyone knows what they need to do, all challenges have been highlighted, it should never be a battle between production and safety. People know that safety is there to help point out issues during the planning stage so we never get to a point that something just crops up. And if it ever comes to that even under the most intense situation, everyone stops and asks "how can we do it safely", rather than "how can we just get it done"

5. Putting your money where your mouth is

There will be clear visible evidence of a financial investment in health and safety. No not banners and posters but spending money to improve knowledge, competency, supervision, machines, equipment and the environment. Its not lip service, its true spending to prevent problems from happening.

These are just 5 signs that a company has an AWESOME safety culture. There are more, we will share the next time around.