Safety Culture

Without it, SMS just doesn't work

Safety Culture Empowers an SMS

The SMICG defines safety culture as the set of enduring values, behaviors and attitudes regarding safety, shared by every member at every level of an organization.

In a positive safety culture there is a sense of shared responsibilities towards achieving the organization’s safety objectives. Accountability for safety is promoted and everyone is continuously striving to preserve and enhance safety. People are willing and able to adapt when facing safety issues and are also willing to communicate safety issues.

A positive safety culture relies on a high degree of trust and respect between the workforce and management. This is why the safety culture assessment process needs to listen to the views and perceptions of both managers and the workforce.

An effective SMS empowers a positive safety culture and a positive safety culture empowers an effective SMS.

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Safety Culture Characteristics

Each of the six characteristics represents a cornerstone on which an organization’s safety culture is built.

Commitment
The extent to which every level of the organization has a positive attitude towards safety and recognizes its importance. Top management should be genuinely committed to maintaining a high level of safety and motivating the workforce to do so as well.

Justness (“Just Culture”)
The extent to which safe behavior and reporting of safety issues are encouraged or even rewarded and unsafe behavior is discouraged.

Information
The extent to which information is distributed to the right people in the organization. Work-related information must be communicated in the right way to the right people.

 

Awareness
The extent to which the workforce and management are aware of the risks for themselves and for others implied by the organization’s operations. The workforce and management should be constantly maintaining a high degree of vigilance with respect to safety issues.

Adaptability
The extent to which the workforce and management are willing to learn from past experiences and are able to take whatever action is necessary in order to enhance the level of safety within the organization.

Behavior
The extent to which every level of the organization behaves to maintain and improve the level of safety. From the management side, the importance of safety should be recognized and everything needed to maintain and enhance safety should be put in place.

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Safety Culture Maturity Levels

For the evaluation of an organization’s safety culture, the three intermediate safety culture maturity levels of Hudson’s safety scale are used: Reactive, Calculative, and Proactive.

It is expected that organizations active in the aviation industry have safety cultures that range between the reactive and proactive level.

Reactive
In a reactive safety culture, safety is generally regarded as a burden that is imposed by the Authorities. Action is taken only to satisfy the regulations, or after a safety event and often consists of identifying and punishing the responsible person(s). Only in the case of significant events does it become a topic of communication and actions are taken to prevent recurrence. Managers perceive that

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the majority of accidents are solely caused by the unsafe behavior of front-line staff. Unsafe behavior is accepted to get the job done.

Calculative
In a calculative safety culture, safety is considered as a factor that has to be accounted for. Safety is taken into account in management’s decision making, but in itself safety is not a core value. Managers recognize that a wide range of factors cause accidents and the root causes often originate from management decisions.  

A safety reporting system is installed to meet legal requirements and is only used for gathering information. There is a general awareness of the safety risks induced by the operation, and the organization is willing to take action if these become too large. There are situations in which unsafe behavior is accepted to get the job done, but in general there is a mutual expectation of safe behavior.

Proactive
In a proactive safety culture, safety is considered a core value. Safety plays an

important role in decision making at management level as well as in day-to-day operations. The safety reporting system is not only used for detecting significant safety issues, but also for issues with less or no obvious impact on safety. The operations are regularly assessed and safety actions are evaluated after implementation. After a safety event, the main objective of management is to prevent recurrence. There is a general awareness of the safety risks associated with the operation, and action is taken to reduce them as much as possible.

Flight Leader Program
Addresses Culture

WYVERN’s Flight Leader Program is a way to attain and maintain Wingman and SMS certification via assessments and coaching, an alternative to audits. 

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