Company Safety Culture Assessment - How should I structure the Surveys & Interviews?

A

aba2304

I was not really sure where to put my Question, I hope it's OK here.

I am asked to assess our Company Safety Culture. I know I can do Observations and Surveys and Interviews. The Observation part is clear but what should I ask for or how should I structure the surveys and Interviews?

How do you do Safety Culture Assessments - what do you measure? Any eamples?


Thanks for any und every answer!
 

SteelMaiden

Super Moderator
Trusted Information Resource
Re: Saefty Culture Assessment

Some questions:
Who is asking you to do this?
What is your role in the company?

Why do I ask? It just seems as though if a manager is asking you to do this it would appear that the safety culture is not that important to your company. Wouldn't management know what your safety culture is?

Or, is management attempting to find out if the hourly folk are truly buying into your program? First thing, imho, would be to look at your injury and illness numbers. Where to they fit with the rest of your industry? Then, look at one of the safety program/certifications that are out there. There is the Z10, BS18000, various state and federal OSHA VPP(STAR) programs. Get yourself a copy of one of them and then start looking to see how close you come to meeting it.

Do you have a safety team? (my definition of this is mostly regular workers, feeding information into your higher level management safety committee) Are they active?

It doesn't take a lot to "assess the safety culture", what I'd be asking is what their definition of safety culture assessment is.:2cents:
 

Steve Prevette

Deming Disciple
Leader
Super Moderator
Re: Company Safety Culture Assessment

I had very good results from use of an employee survey at the Department of Energy Hanford Site. Originally 15 questions were developed (3 for each of the 5 OSHA Voluntary Protection Program Tenets) and two were added over the years. I used the technique at http://www.efcog.org/wg/esh_es/Statistical_Process_Control/docs/Survey_Analysis.pdf to analyze the results. All employees were offered the survey during their annual employee refresher training and we had return rates of 75 to 80% on the survey. The survey was very helpful in gaging safety culture and employee morale.
 

DanteCaspian

Quite Involved in Discussions
Re: Company Safety Culture Assessment

The first step is to be a certified safety rep. with the proper accredited training program to meet best business practice and local laws. Such essential training will teach all of what you need to know and are asking here.
 
P

palmer

Re: Company Safety Culture Assessment - How should I structure the Surveys & Intervie

I have attached a behavioral safety audit and an employee safety survey. The audit is from a company I used to work for that is no longer open. The survey is from the same company.

I am currently a safety supervisor for my company and was heavily involved in safety at the other.

I do not have a degree or training. I have over 30 years of manufacturing experience at all levels. You don't necessarily need training if you have experience in the environment and do a some research as time goes on.

You can get into all sorts of safety issues in mfg. The company has to have a top down approach. However management engages safety is how employees will engage it.

I've been in harsh safety environments where if you were caught not wearing PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) you were given a week off without pay and the 2nd offense you lost your job.

I've also been lax safety environments where shortcuts are taken in the name of production and not employee safety.

A good company is in the middle. If you have any influence, you need to steer your company in that direction but it comes from the top......:2cents:

I hope these help.
 

Attachments

  • Behavioral Safety Audit Form.doc
    55 KB · Views: 410
  • Employee Safety Survey.doc
    84 KB · Views: 386
I

inovacast

Re: Company Safety Culture Assessment - How should I structure the Surveys & Intervie

It has been observed at the OSHA VPP sites and confirmed by independent research that developing strong safety cultures have the single greatest impact on accident reduction of any process. It is for this single reason that developing these cultures should be top priority for all managers and supervisors.
 

Steve Prevette

Deming Disciple
Leader
Super Moderator
Re: Company Safety Culture Assessment

We are about to embark on a new "Safety Conscious Work Environment" survey with several other contractors and the government at my worksite.
 
K

kgott

Re: Company Safety Culture Assessment - How should I structure the Surveys & Intervie

I like Steve Prevette's answers but I've never really understood the safety climate/culture survey intentions. To my way of thinking, if management want to know this, its for the wrong reasons.

If management put more effort into implementing and continously improving the safety management system looking upon the work force as the customers of the safety management system, they would get the culture they want as a by-product.

I cant help but think that safety culture surveys are linked to this horrible thing called behavior based safety.

http://www.mocalinc.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/whatswrongwithbehaviorbasedsafety.pdf

After working in safety for 20 years I have become a big fan of this article and its author.
 
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