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26 PalletCentral • May-June 2022 palletcentral.com Safety By Adele L. Abrams, Esq., ASP, CMSP W hen you hear a business colleague say that their company has a "strong safety culture," what does that mean to you? Do you think YOUR company has a strong safety culture? Is this the same as making safety "a priority"? No, because priorities shift daily. Is this making safety "a value"? In part, but the concept of safety culture, and effective fostering of a strong safety culture, involves much more. e term "safety culture" was first used in 1986, as part of the INSAG "Summary Report on Post- Accident Review Meeting on the Chernobyl Accident." at report described safety culture as: "at assembly of characteristics and attitudes in organizations and individuals which establishes that, as an overriding priority, nuclear plant safety issues receive the attention warranted by their significance." In more recent years, the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) also tried to define it: "Safety cultures consist of shared beliefs, practices, and attitudes that exist at an establishment. Culture is the atmosphere created by those beliefs, attitudes etc. which shape our behavior." When I ask clients what they think constitutes a "safety culture," responses include: "Part of organizational culture"; "e way we do things here"; or – probably most accurately in some ways – "What people do when no one is watching." e approach taken by a company in setting out its safety culture and programs supporting it will surely impact how employees respond to initiatives and whether they are onboard or will resist efforts to improve safety. e Society for Human Resource Management analyzed different approaches, and found there were four primary types of safety cultures, some more successful than others. ese were: • Forced Culture: is approach uses bribes and threats to motivate employees (incentives versus discipline) and emphasizes code enforcement. is results in a "safety police" or "gotcha" mentality, and encourages employees to hide issues instead of proactively disclosing them and working in tandem with management to identify solutions. • Protective Culture: is approach involves implementation of safety programs for workers, but the endless "policies & procedures" can confuse employees and lead to "average" performance. is also is a retro approach, because programs often are benchmarked to outdated OSHA standards and regulations. • Involved Culture: In this approach, there are high levels of training provided to workers but these sessions are not attended by management, who might otherwise be able to hear first-hand the safety and health issues concerning workers, and engage in a collaborative manner in problem resolution. With this model, the manager is less interested in monitoring behaviors, and tends to focus on performance – which can lead to placing production goals over safety requirements. • Integral Culture: is is the ideal approach, as discussed below, and includes high levels of training for workers, attended by top management. It is also critical to a strong safety culture that occupational health and safety officers have both budget and authority to mitigate identified safety and health issues in a timely manner, and to value safety over production. Beyond the aspirational framework for the corporate safety culture, how does this get implemented in the real world? e following elements are all critical to maintaining a strong safety culture. In particular, watch for patterns of thinking, feeling and acting that emphasize safety, particularly where they conflict with production, scheduling or cost goals, and how such issues are resolved. Building a

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