Safety Climate: A dimension of Safety Culture in Aviation Climate_Flannery_Carrick_Nendick.pdf ·...

19/05/2003Flannery J. A., Carrick K. & Nendick, M. D. 1

Safety Climate: A dimensionSafety Climate: A dimensionof Safety Culture in Aviationof Safety Culture in Aviation

John Flannery, Civil Aviation Safety Authority, Canberra Australia.

Kirstie Carrick, The University of Newcastle, Australia.

Michael Nendick, Civil Aviation Safety Authority, Canberra Australia


Safety - why measure

• Accidents in Aviation can havecatastrophic results.

• Accidents are rare events and not a goodindicator of safety performance



• “A low accident rate, even over a period ofyears, is no guarantee that risks are beingeffectively controlled…This is particularly true inorganizations where here is a low probability ofaccidents but where major hazards are present.Here the historical record can be an unreliableor even deceptive indicator of safetyperformance”. (Thomas, 2001)



• In Aviation there is a need to proactivelymeasure safety performance to avoidaccidents.


Safety – what is it?

• Difficult to define and measure

• “Just make sure people don’t get hurt” (Hudson,2001)

• Must include acceptability of risk (Wood, 1996)

• The quality of a system (Systems SafetyEngineering & Management)

• A characteristic of a system?


Safety – A definition

• A characteristic of a system with the goalof injury free operations that does not

permit unacceptable risks to beundertaken.


Safety Culture - What is itCULTURE

Values, beliefs, rituals, symbols andbehaviours we share with othersthat help define us a group (Merrit& Helmreich, 1996)

The collective programming of themind which distinguishes themembers of one group fromanother (Hofstede, 1980)

Culture

Organisationalculture

Safety culture


Safety Culture - What is it

ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

A system of shared values,assumptions, beliefs and normsthat join organisational members(Smircich, 1988)

Culture


Safety culture



SAFETY CULTURE

The product of individual andgroup values, attitudes,competencies, and patternsof behaviour that determinethe commitment to, and thestyle and efficiency of anorganisation’s Health andSafety program (UK Health &Safety Commission, 1993)

Culture


Safety culture



SAFETY CULTURE

Organisations with a positive safetyculture are characterised bycommunication founded on mutualtrust, by shared perceptions of theimportance of safety, and byconfidence in the efficacymeasures (UK Health& Safety Commission,1993)

Culture


Safety culture


Culture

Nationalculture

Organisationalculture Vocational

culture

Safety culture

Values

Beliefs Rituals

Symbols

Norms

Assumptions

Behaviours

Defined or manifestedH

eira

rchy

Intrinsic elements Extrinsic elements

The individual The group

Sum

Figure 2: Traditional Concept of Safety Culture


Pathlogical

Bureaucratic

Generative

Negative (-)

Safety culture

(+) Positive

Figure 1: Organisational evolution tied to its Safety Culture, adapted from Hudson 2001, ShamRao 1999 & Westrum 1995.

Passivecompliance

ActiveCompliance

Behavioural

Reactive

Proactive


Fleming (2000) Zohar (1980) INEEL (2001) ICAO (1992)

Management commitment andvisibility

Strong management commitment toSafety

Management commitment toSafety

Senior management placing a strongemphasis on safety

Communication The existence of open communicationlinks and frequent contacts betweenworkers and management

Senior management’s willingness toaccept criticism and an openness toopposing viewsEmphasising the importance ofcommunicating relevant safetyinformation

Industrial relations and jobsatisfaction

A stable workforce and older workers Job satisfaction

Training Emphasis on Safety training Training, equipment, Physicalenvironment

Ensuring staff are well educated andtrained so that they understand theconsequences of unsafe acts

General environment control and goodhousekeeping

Staff having an understanding ofhazards within the workplace.

Learning organisation Distinctive ways of promoting Safety Organisational commitment Senior managements fostering aclimate that encourages feedback.

Participation Worker Involvement

Shared perceptions about Safety Co-worker support

Safety resources Performance management

Trust Personal accountability

Productivity versus Safety The promotion of realistic andworkable safety rules.


PERSONPersonal-commitment

Perceived RiskJob-Induced Stress

Role AmbiguityCompetenciesSocial Status

Safety KnowledgeAttributions of Blame

Committment to OrganisationJob-satisfaction

PERSONPersonnel-selection

Person-Job FitTask Training

Safety TrainingCompetencies

Health AssessmentsCommittment to Organisation

Job-satisfaction

PERSONGoal-commitment

Organisational PositionSocial Status

Safety KnowledgeDisposition/Personality

Job-satisfaction

JOBRequired Workplace

Standard Operating ProceduresInvolvement in Decision-making

Man-Machine InterfacingWorking environment

Working PatternsHousekeeping

JOBRisk Assessments

Required WorkplaceStandard Operating Procedures

Team-WorkingInvolvement in Decision-making

Man-Machine InterfacingWorking environment

Working PatternsHousekeeping

JOBTeam-Working

Task-ComplexityTask StrategiesGoal-Conflict

Involvement in Decision-makingWorking environment

Working Patterns

ORGANISATIONManagement Commitment

Management ActionsCommunications

Allocation of ResourcesEmergency Preparedness

Status of Safety Personnel



Allocation of ResourcesEmergency Preparedness

Status of Safety PersonnelPolicy/Strategy Development

PlanningStandards

MonitoringControls

Co-operation



Performance IndicatorsRecruiting Observers

MonitoringGoal-Setting

FeedbackSafety Champion

Safety Climate Dimensions

Safety Management System Dimension Behavioural Dimensions

Context

Person

Situation Behaviour

Reciprocal Model of Safety Culture (Cooper 1999)


Reciprocal Model of Safety Culture(Cooper, 1999)

Safety ClimateDimension

Safety ManagementSystems Dimension

BehaviouralDimension

Context

Person

Situation Behaviour


Comparison of Cooper (1999) and Zohar (2000) regarding the threemajor dimensions of Safety Culture.

Cooper (1999) Zohar (2000)

Safety Climate (broad definition)

Safety Climate(narrow definition)

Behaviours Assumption that perceptionstranslate into behaviours

Safety ManagementSystems

Acknowledged in the paper notingthe work by James and Jones

(1994) but not the focus of thepaper


Comparison of Cooper (1999) and UK HSE Safety ClimateMeasurement User Guide and Toolkit regarding the three majordimensions of Safety Culture .

Cooper (1999) Safety Climate Measurement User Guide and Toolkit

Safety Climate Manifestation: Employee,Contractor and External

perceptions.

Behaviours Manifestation: Employeecommitment, attitudes,

responsibility, behaviour etc.

Safety ManagementSystems

Manifestation: Safety Policy,Systems and Processes, Structures,

Reports.


Safety Climate - what is it?

• The general attitude and prevailingopinions of a group of people (MacquarieDictionary)

• A summary of molar perceptions thatemployees share about their workenvironments (Zohar, 1980)


Perception – is it important?

• Academics are impractical fools thatwouldn’t know how to apply butter tobread.

• Perception is reality for the individual andwill influence their behaviour.


Are employees perceptions regarding howtheir organisation views safety, important?

YES


Is an organisation’s safetyclimate shaped by it’s polices,practices and procedures?

YES


Can organisational policy, practices &procedures get one bent out of shape?

YES


The distinction - climate vculture

• Safety Climate encompasses theperceptions of employees about thesafety management of their organisation.

• Safety Culture encompasses not onlyperceptions but the behaviours and thephysical systems of the organisation


Safety Climate is an elementof Safety Culture

• Recall that we want to measure SafetyCulture as a predictive indicator ofpotential safety performance.

• The best Safety Culture measurementwould be multi-modal and assessorganisations systems, behaviours andperceptions.


Safety Climate is an elementof Safety Culture

• Practicalities dictate that multi-modalmeasurement will not readily occur.

• A resource efficient measurement is theSafety Climate survey.


Who uses Safety Climatesurveys?

UK Health and Safety Executive Safety Climate Measurement UserGuide and Tool kit.

NASA’s Safety Performance Survey (management and employee).(NASA, 1998)

Johns Hopkins University Safety-Climate Questionnaire (Moore, 2000).

USA Nuclear Regulatory Commission Safety Culture and ClimateSurvey (NRC, 1998).

Operators Flight Safety Handbook Safety Surveys (GAIN, 2000).

National Safety Council of Australia Safety Climate survey (NSCA,1997).

Airline Safety Culture Index (Edkins, 1999).


What sort of questions doclimate surveys ask?

• Employees are given enough training todo their work tasks safely.

• Safety within this company is generallywell controlled.

• Employees usually report any dangerouswork practices they notice.

Airline Safety Culture Index (Edkins, 1999)


Summary so far

• Safety Culture is an important predictorof potential safety performance.

• Safety Culture has 3 key dimensions:

• Systems

• Behaviours

• Perceptions


Summary so far

• Best measurement of Safety Culture is multi-modal.

• Safety Climate measures employees (andmanagements) perceptions regardingorganisational safety.

• Perceptions are important and influencebehaviour.

• Safety Climate is a dimension of Safety Culture


Summary so far

• Safety Climate measurement will give anindication of Safety Culture

• Safety Climate is measurable by survey

• Safety Climate Surveys are relativelyresource efficient.


From Theory to research

• Developed a Safety Climate Survey– Management Commitment– Training– Communication– Safety rules and procedures– Hazard Identification and analysis– Personal responsibility/employee commitment



• Weighted the factors in the AviationSafety Climate Survey– Using a panel of industry experts.– Using the Delphi technique– Over three rounds



• Invited organisations to participate– 5 orgs participated.– A organisation using the BASI indicate

system supplied a previous survey that wasnormalised to fit into the set.


What were we testing

• Hypothesis 1 – The organisations havinga strong safety culture would have scoreslower (better Safety Climate) than theaverage safety climate


What were we testing

• Hypothesis 2 – As safety climate scores moveaway from a positive\good Safety Climate thegap between the scores of management andemployees would increase

• Hypothesis 2a - As Safety Climate scores moveaway from a positive/good Safety Climate scorethe gap between the factors of ManagementCommitment and Personal Responsibility, asviewed from the perspective of the employee,increases.


100

200

300

400

500

Score

Organisation

Total weighted scores by organisation

Score 197.35 201.94 214.514 228.79 244.55 268.428

A B C E2002 D E2001

Forward


100-199

Collectively respondents strongly agree that the organisation has a positive/good Safety Climate

200-299

Collectively respondents agree that the organisation has a positive/good Safety Climate

301-

400

401-

500

Collectively respondents strongly disagree that the organisation has a positive/good Safety Climate

Collectively respondents disagree that the organisation has a positive/good Safety Climate

Collectively respondents neither agree nor disagree that the organisation has a positive/good Safety Climate


Total scores


Figure 8. Difference between Management Commitmentand Personal Responsibility scores (Gap) from theemployee perspective.

Gap increase

-0.20

0.20.40.60.8

1

A B CE20

02 DE20

01

Organisation

Gap Difference

Linear (Difference)


Figure 9. Scatter diagram depicting the relationshipbetween Safety Climate score and the gap between thefactors of Management Commitment and PersonalResponsibility.

Score to Gap

180190200210220230240250260270280

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8Gap

Scor

e

ScoreLinear (Score)


Research conclusions• There is support for the position from the literature

review that Safety Climate is a dimension of SafetyCulture and a measure of Safety Climate, that via asurvey, will give an indication of an organisation’sSafety Culture and therefore have predictive valuein avoiding organisational mishaps. The supporthowever is not conclusive.

• There is support for the hypothesis that as SafetyClimate scores move away from a positive/goodSafety Climate score the gap between the factors ofManagement Commitment and PersonalResponsibility, as viewed from the perspective ofthe employee, increases. Again the support is notconclusive.


Research Conclusions• There were two significant negative

findings in the survey. They werethat employees perceived:– Managers do not often praise

employees they see working safely(2.9), and

– Managers fail to recognise whenemployees are working unsafely (3.0).


Research Conclusions• There were significant positive findings in the survey. They

were that employees perceived:– Employees do all they can to prevent accidents (1.74).– Everyone is given sufficient opportunities to make

suggestions regarding safety issues (1.79).– After an accident has occurred, appropriate actions are

usually taken to reduce the chances that a similar eventwill occur in the future (1.86).

– In my work area, there are mechanisms in place for meto report safety deficiencies (1.89).

– Employees often encourage each other to work safely(1.94).

– In my work area, there are procedures to follow in theevent of an emergency (1.96).


Overall conclusion• The positive findings in the survey

suggest that organisations areadopting safety mechanisms such asreporting systems and are takingpositive actions after events.Additionally employees perceive theyhave a proactive safety approach.The negative findings suggest thatmanagers may need to do more toreinforce safety practices andimprove their organisation’s SafetyCulture.


Take Home Chiasmus

• Don’t ask how your organisation definessafety but rather how safety defines yourorganisation.

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