Safety Culture

What is a “Safety Culture”?

Let’s look at those two words.

Safety may be defined as the state of being safe; freedom from the occurrence or risk of hurt, injury, harm, danger, or loss.  The quality of averting or not causing hurt, injury, harm, danger, or loss.

Culture encompasses the social behavior, attitudes, and norms found in human societies, including the knowledge, beliefs, and habits of a particular group.  Simply stated, culture is: “The way we do things around here”

Safety Culture describes how our organization collectively, thinks about safety and how we incorporate safety into our actions, attitudes, beliefs, customs, habits and values.

Where is the Auxiliary Safety Culture today? Hopefully, it’s not at the Pathological level. Possibly it’s between Reactive and Calculative or is it closer to Proactive? 

Where should we be?  A strong safety culture will move us toward Generative, where Safety is how we do business, always.