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PalletCentral • May-June 2022 27 1. Leadership Safety Values & Actions: Leaders must demonstrate their commitment to safety in decision-making and in their personal behaviors. 2. Problem Identification & Resolution: Promptly identify problems impacting safety, evaluate, address and correct commensurate with their significance. 3. Personal Accountability: All individuals must take personal responsibility for safety, and this includes ensuring that supervisors are both "talking the talk" and "walking the walk" when it comes to safety practices, wearing appropriate personal protective equipment, refraining from substance use on the job, etc. 4. Work Processes: A collaborative approach can ensure that work activities are planned and controlled so safety is maintained. 5. Continuous Learning: Companies with a strong safety culture should seek out and implement new ways to improve safety and health in the workplace, including continual training/retraining and encouraging professional development in the safety arena such as having supervisors complete the OSHA 10 or 30-hour training course. 6. Environment for Raising Concerns: Whistleblower protections are a priority with OSHA now and instructing workers on their rights has become part of every OSHA inspection and investigation. A strong safety culture will also ensure that workers know their rights to report safety and health concerns internally, free from harassment/ retaliation, and that they also have the right to report hazards and to refuse work that is unsafe until conditions have been corrected. 7. Effective Safety Communications: Companies can satisfy this element by ensuring that all training is done in a language and vocabulary that all workers understand, and can include safety items in all communications with workers – including starting meetings with a "safety moment" or reminder. 8. Respectful Work Environment: A strong safety culture must include basic trust and respect among workers and between workers and supervisors. OSHA now considers harassment and bullying to be part of "workplace violence," and actionable under the agency's General Duty Clause. In addition, the U.S. Department of Labor, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the National Labor Relations Board, entered into a cooperative agreement in late 2021 to assist each other in prosecuting cases involving harassment or discrimination against workers (including with respect to workplace safety and health). So the likelihood of prosecution against companies with poor safety cultures that include retaliation or discrimination has gone up significantly. 9. Questioning Attitude: e final element of a strong safety culture discourages complacency and always strives for continual improvement. Everyone on the work team should be encouraged to make suggestions on safety and health improvements, or to point out instances where they feel work practices are ineffective. What are the roles of each layer in a company when it comes to supporting a strong safety culture? Four unique safety cultures are prominent in today's business culture. What does your company's safety culture look like in comparison? iStockphoto.com/ALotOfPeople

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