 What do we mean by Safety Culture within an Organisation?
Safety Culture is the way safety is perceived, valued and prioritized within an organisation.
Safety Culture reflects the true commitment to safety at all levels in the organisation.
James Reason described it as “how an organisation behaves when no one is watching”.
Safety Culture is a combination of a range of drivers including organisational norms, national cultural beliefs and professional attitudes. It reflects people attitude and believe towards the importance of safety.
How important is Safety Culture?
A Positive Safety Culture Matters because it provides a focus on how the organisation approaches incident recording, incident analysis, staff training and the integration of maintenance safety and operational safety priorities.
Poor Safety Culture can have a very negative impact on safety performance of an organisation. If people believe that safety is not important, then the tendency to engage in workarounds and the taking of unsafe decisions or judgements will simply raise the exposure to the potential of Human Factor error.
What happens to SMS in an EASA 145 Organisation
Do we have a Proactive Safety Management System (SMS) – If yes, it is a positive driven primarily by the organisation. (Not be regulatory obligations)
An SMS demonstrates an organisation’s competence in relation to the management of Safety. An effective SMS is driven Top down from the Accountable Manager with a genuine buy in to the importance of Safety throughout the Organisation.
The challenge of under-reporting of incidents remains a real issue today – In part due to multiple reasons including “fear” “attitude” and lack of “trust”
The ratio of unreported incidents to accidents can be as high as 300 – 1 – accepting this as an organisation challenge for betterment is a significant positive
Can you Measure Safety Culture?
Off Course and it is of immense benefit as it provides the executive team with information regarding the various exposures within the organisation.
A typical Safety Culture Survey starts with raising awareness regarding the purpose, rational and methodology of what is being carried out.
The process is independent, anonymous and typically confidential to the organisation
Moreover the importance of the process is evidenced with how “senior management team” manages the outcomes.
If the survey result leads to clear and concise actions being developed by the organisation to address any deficiencies identified then it is a significant positive and the organisation will undoubtedly benefit.
Sofema Aviation Services www.sassofia.com and Sofema Online www.sofemaonline.com offers classroom and online training in EASA compliant Maintenance Human Factors training both for delegates and for human factor trainers – Train the Trainer Maintenance Human Factors (TTTMHF).
Tags:
aviation human factors, Safety Culture & Organisational Factors
