Spotlight On – Positive health and safety culture

Positive health and safety culture

We often talk about a company’s health and safety culture, and how important and beneficial a positive health and safety culture can be.

First of all, it’s important to understand what a health and safety culture is. The HSE define it as ‘the way we do things around here’. It forms the context within which people judge the appropriateness of their behaviour, and influences decisions and performance in the workplace.

Some features of a positive health and safety culture can include:

• Having a clearly defined policy
• Providing  employees with adequate information, and ensuring they know how to access it
• Having a health and safety improvement plan in place
• Undertaking relevant training programmes
• The provision of written instructions and procedures
• Regular checks on premises and equipment
• Encouraging the reporting of hazards
• Encouraging employee involvement in health and safety decisions and planning
• A strong policy for accident reporting, investigation and follow up.

A company’s health and safety culture can have an important influence on safety outcomes, and whilst it may take several years to see a complete transformation, the sooner this process begins, the sooner it will be achieved.

Having a positive health and safety culture can result in several health and safety benefits, many of which are listed in our article here.