Safety culture
Safety culture
Health and safety culture is simply the attitude about safety that pervades throughout the whole organisation, from top to bottom, and is the norm of behaviour for every member of staff, from directors down to the newest junior. It can be identified, measured, improved and, if neglected, allowed to deteriorate. It is of paramount importance in the prevention of accidents in any organisation.
‘Organisations with a positive safety culture are characterised by communications founded on mutual trust, by shared perceptions of the importance of safety, and by confidence in the efficacy of preventive measures.’
HSE’s Advisory Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (ACSNI: HSC, 1993)
Workplace Law Safety Culture Toolkit
Workplace Law has developed a safety culture toolkit, which will analyse the following areas:
Procedure and compliance culture
Are safety controls and procedures perceived as being valid and justified?
How effectively have any new procedures been incorporated into your safety management system?
Awareness and attitude
How much do individuals take ownership for health and safety in the workplace?
How often are employees asked for their input into safety issues?
Communication about safety
How well are your safety messages received and understood by the workforce?
How open are your employees about safety?
Is there effective two-way communication about safety?
Management issues
What is the belief, amongst the workforce, regarding management commitment to health and safety?
What is the balance between safety, quality and productivity?
Resources and morale
What strategies are used to encourage safe behaviour? Is this applied over numerous sites?
Is the workforce pressured to work long hours or take safety shortcuts to improve productivity?
Following the completion of the survey, Workplace Law will:
produce a comprehensive report of our findings;
identify any key patterns and trends at site and organisation level; and
- prepare and deliver a presentation at board level, showing the outcome of our findings.
Why choose Workplace Law?
Workplace Law provides a high quality, personal service at very competitive rates. We place great emphasis on the training and approach of our consultants, which gives you the reassurance of a thorough, competent and reliable service:
- Our health and safety consultants are highly qualified professionals who are qualified to the level of Technical Safety Practitioner, as a minimum.
- All of our health and safety professionals have a health and safety managerial background and therefore recognise the importance of developing a risk assessment with specific and pragmatic solutions.
Benefits
- As well as helping you comply with legal requirements, we can help you develop a positive health and safety culture where risks are managed sensibly, which can reduce accidents and ill health, plus their related costs to your business.
- Reducing accidents and ill heath will also bring about improvements in overall efficiency, quality and productivity, which means you can meet customer demands.
- As well as consultancy and support services we can also offer training to your staff where required, meaning you can use one provider for all your health and safety needs, reducing time, costs and confusion.
Case studies
"In 2009 Chaps Ltd recognised that it needed to improve its health and safety systems. We changed our Health and Safety consultants to Workplace Law in order to give us a fresh approach towards our management of health and safety and to gain specialist construction advice.
"By using their expertise and experience Simon and Maria have guided us into developing a health and safety system that has achieved CHAS accreditation and given our customers and principle contractor’s confidence in our management of health and safety. They have always been available to offer advice when needed and to provide independent site inspections and audits which are often required by our customers.
"Both Simon and Maria continue to support Chaps Ltd and have become an important, integral part of our Health and Safety Management System."
Suzanne Jackson, HR Director, Emprise:
“Workplace Law has made a difference to the quality of the service we can provide to our staff. And because of the customised service from Workplace Law, the costs have come down.
“We’re now into the second year and we’re pleased with the level of service which is always turned around quickly with any queries being answered straight away.”
Martyn Ball, Head of HR at Akkeron Hotels:
“It’s not just telephone advice that we’ve come to rely on, Workplace Law consultants are also happy to attend our meetings in person and Jayn Bond has regular catch ups with us to discuss any HR related issues. Working with people you can trust is important to me and I value the personal relationship that we have developed with the team at Workplace Law.”
“The accreditation enhances our client services, evidences the robustness of our processes and demonstrates the passion and professionalism of our staff on every level.
“The exceptional support and input from the team at Workplace Law and in particular Simon Toseland, has ensured that the highest safety standards have been implemented and these are to be continually assessed and tested externally."
