II.3- Reasons for assessing level of safety culture:
A safety culture assessment allows an organisation to better
understand how its people perceive safety and the company's approach to health
& safety management. It allows the organisation to identify both
strengths and weaknesses that then enable it to continuously monitor and
improve its approach to health and safety. The most important reason for
understanding a company's safety culture is because it has a direct impact on
the safety of its employees, contractors and the public. Several high
profile accidents in the rail and other industries have highlighted the
consequences of poor safety cultures. The benefits of an improved safety
culture, in other words, a positive safety culture; are improved safety
performance and reduced accidents. Still from this source, the improved
management processes and attitudes to work involved in developing a good safety
culture will also have other benefits which are external to safety namely
improved reliability and performance, as well as reduced costs due to the
reduction of errors. Erreur ! Référence de lien
hypertexte non valide. (Oct 212).
According to the referential OHSAS 18001:2007,
a safe and healthy workplace through the provision of tools that allow
the organisation to consistently identify and control its health and safety
risks, minimizing the potential for accidents. As such this enhances safety
culture.
It is said that the British Standards Institute developed the
Occupational Health and Assessment Series version 2007, to provide guidance to
organizations desiring to improve their health and safety performance prior to
their certification. This document is then utilized as a risk assessment model
to determine the level of risk an organization has as regards its health and
safety hazards and risks, and to implement methods to continually improve the
health and safety performance of the given organization.
One will often hear the following statement from companies or
organisations «we have never had a serious employee injury, why do
we need OHSAS 18001:2007?»
In fact, OHSAS 18001:2007 is a proactive management system
designed to assist an organization in the developing of programs which will
actually improve their employee health and safety performance. The simple fact
of having not experienced a serious accident does not mean the organizations
are the best stewards of the health and safety of their workforce. It also
assists the organization in developing a holistic approach as to how it manages
its' activities which can have a serious risk to the health and safety of its
employees.
OHSAS 18001 demonstrates Legal and Regulatory Compliance and
commitment to improving the health and safety performance of the organization;
instills a culture of prevention through the systematic evaluation of the
health and safety risks of the organization. A real time analysis is performed
and controls implemented thus reducing the risk of an accident. Also by
establishing and certifying the organization's health and safety management
system to the above standard, it joins a unique group of companies who have
committed their organizations to health and safety excellence. A continuous
state of readiness is established. On the other hand, by implementing and
maintaining an OHSAS 18001:2007 based management system; the organization will
improve its profitability. As the organization reduces the safety risks, many
of the more expensive costs such as workers compensation claims in terms of
down time due to accidents, ill health and insurance premiums will be reduced
significantly. The nature of the management review, defined roles and
responsibilities and internal assessments will make the organization more
transparent, accountable and sustainable. Furthermore, through the management
review process, top management becomes more readily aware of resource
requirements.
In our research, notions on safety culture, Safety culture
assessment criteria and indicators as well as Safety culture measurement tools,
shall be provided.
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