Safety Message: Promoting a Positive Safety Culture

1. Reporting safety concerns, issues and potential safety improvements

Safety issues can only be addressed if they are known, which is why reporting safety concerns and potential safety improvements is so important. Below is a non-exhaustive list of good practices, how they promote a positive safety culture, along with some factors that act as barriers. Ultimately, the effectiveness of reporting is dependent on the quality of information and what is done in response.

Good practices:

• Have a clear definition of what should be reported and a process for obtaining safety improvement suggestions.
• Ensure the process for reporting is transparent. It should deliver clarity in relation to:
  • how the report will be actioned
  • who is responsible for managing the safety concern
  • what happens to the report if it is confidential in nature
  • how decisions and actions are determined
  • how outcomes are communicated to staff.
• Proactively provide opportunities for staff to report and make suggestions e.g. ask employees:
  • what could we do better to make your job safer, easier, more efficient, more effective?; and/or
  • have we set you up for success in your work?
• Make reporting and providing suggestions easy by:
  • Having different means of reporting, e.g. email, online form or app, or a phone call to a reporting line or person responsible.
  • Providing free text boxes within forms so the person can easily explain the issue and add any and all relevant details.
  • Pre-filling digital forms where possible. On paper forms, remove unnecessary fields (such as employee number or other fields that could be obtained later).
• Have immediate managers and those in leadership positions also report safety issues.
• Give employees time to complete reports and make suggestions for improvements during work hours rather than requiring them to do it out-of-hours (or without being paid).
• Ensure staff that need to be informed about safety issues, improvements and outcomes (of actions taken) are informed in a timely manner.

How this promotes a positive safety culture?

• When reporting and making safety improvement suggestions is made easy, more people are encouraged to discuss safety.
• When reporting becomes widespread in your workplace and results in actions to improve safety, it helps create a reporting culture where the organisation learns from incidents.
• New starters who observe that reporting is encouraged and occurs, learn to submit their own reports, further contributing to a reporting culture.

Barriers to good practice:

• Not being clear about what to report and what sort of safety improvements suggestions are encouraged.
• Reporting processes that are unnecessarily complicated, take a long time to complete, or are difficult to find.
• A lack of, or untimely, responses to staff reporting or making suggestions.
• Punitive actions taken in response to reports.

If silence or lack of reporting becomes widespread, it becomes part of the operator’s culture. This can lead to safety issues being dismissed or hidden, operators being reactive in their safety management approach or lead to incidents.

2. Just culture vs always blaming the worker

When a work culture is fair and just, it distinguishes between mistakes or errors, and deliberately unreasonable acts. Creating a just culture is important as it can encourage safety improvement. Below is a non-exhaustive list of good practices and how they promote a just culture.

Good practice:

• Policies and procedures acknowledge that mistakes are ‘human’ e.g.
  • staff will not be punished for mistakes or errors; and
  • procedures or policies can’t foresee all contingencies which workers deal with.
• If mistakes result in incidents, controls are reviewed, revised or put in place to improve safety.
• Procedures or policies clearly outline how staff:
  • must take reasonable care of themselves and others
  • must not intentionally or recklessly place others at risk
  • must not misuse anything provided in the course of their work. (The consequences of these rare actions should also be clear).
• Procedures and policies are objective and clear about how mistakes are handled.
• Procedures and policies are implemented fairly, transparently and in the same manner regardless of who is managing the incident.
• Procedures and policies are not used as a tool for performance management, discrimination or favouritism.
• Staff who are involved in an incident are treated with dignity, respect and fairness.

How this promotes a positive safety culture?

• Staff will feel comfortable to raise and report safety issues if:
  • they know they won’t be blamed for making a mistake or error; and
  • the incident is treated as an opportunity to improve safety.
• When staff know that deliberately unreasonable acts are not tolerated, they are more inclined to call them out and less inclined to undertake such acts.
• When the above views become widespread in your workplace, it creates a just culture - a culture where staff are clear on what practices are acceptable and what’s not, and the organisation learns from incidents and improves safety.

Barriers to good practice:

• If staff know they will be blamed or penalised for a mistake or error, they will be unlikely to report an issue or problem for fear of repercussions.
• If they know that reckless actions are acceptable, they may not call them out.

Where workers are blamed unfairly, it can lead to under-reporting of incidents due to fear of repercussions, which can ultimately lead to incidents.

3. Communication and consultation on safety issues

Communication and consultation ensures safety issues and problems are known and can be rectified. Below is a non-exhaustive list of good practices and how they promote a positive safety culture.

Good practices:

• Acknowledge that reports or suggestions regarding safety issues have been received.
• Let staff know the plan to address issues raised via updates, e.g. even ‘no update’ is still an update.
• Consult and provide staff the opportunity to provide input when making changes, e.g. new or revised controls or procedures.
• If something has been updated or changed as a result of what was reported, communicate what has changed and why.
• Communicate outcomes of safety issues not only to those involved in the reporting, but also to relevant staff who may experience similar issues, e.g. contractors, maintenance staff, drivers on other routes.

How this promotes a positive safety culture?

• When the operator communicates and provides feedback, staff know that their safety concerns will be addressed and taken seriously.
• When staff actively contribute to finding and suggesting solutions to problems, they are more likely to adopt them.
• When good communication and consultation practices become widespread in your workplace, it creates a culture where everyone is encouraged to communicate safety information and work together to find solutions.

Barriers to good practice:

• If operators don’t let staff know what they are doing about their reported issue or concern, they might think the operator is not doing anything to address their issue.

A lack of communication and consultation may lead staff to believe that their organisation does not take safety seriously.

Key documents and actions