Developing an effective safety culture

James Roughton has been in touch with me having seen my blog. He runs a couple of blogs himself, including GotSafety which provides an ever expanding set of articles about accidents and safety news, mostly US based.

Having looked around James' sites I can see he has some really useful content. I particularly like his presentation on Developing an Effective Safety Culture. Some key points include
* Safety should not be a priority because priorities change. Instead it needs to be a core value installed in all parts of the organisation
* We are still using traditional approaches relying on signs and rules, lagging indicators and holding individuals responsible. A more proactive, integrated approach is required.
* A culture is about building relationships with employees.
* If you do what you've always done your get what you always got (Demming).
* To improve your culture you need to know where you want to get to. "If you don't know where you are going, the chances are you will get somewhere else" (Yogi Berra)
* Good leaders are accessible, available, believable, creative, reliable, and trustworthy.
* Sometimes we make things look so easy, we tend to forget the risk and their related hazards.
* Sometimes it’s the trivial things that results in a major “event.”
* Sometimes we do things wrong so often they become right….
* Accident statistics are basically a measure of luck.

James' page here is well worth a look

Andy Brazier