Organizational culture is critical to the safety effort. It's the basis for support, attitude and, ultimately, performance. If the culture of your organization isn't right, you'll need to try and effect changes. This is a big challenge but one you can meet if you know the right steps. Last week, we outlined five of the nine things you can do to change an organization's safety culture. Let's continue with the final four.

6. Provide Management Meaningful Data

Most managers receive daily reports about productivity, quality and costs. So why is it that safety directors provide data to management on a monthly basis? I recommend that you report to management every day on matters such as regulatory contacts, critical safety concerns, injuries, property damage and near misses. You should also submit monthly reports but use them to concentrate on long term matters such as rates, progress toward project completion and activities like training, inspections and audits. All reports should follow a standardized form and be accurate, clear and easy to read.

7. Hold Management and Supervisors Accountable

Make sure that the individuals whom you count on to perform safety functions are held accountable for the way they carry out those functions and control what they're supposed to control - employee attendance at training sessions, timely and accurate accident investigations, audits, etc.

8. Recognize Safety Achievements

Go out of your way to give credit to those who deserve it. Thank them for their efforts. Expressing appreciation is the best way to ensure that you get the same level of effort the next time.

9. Gain Access to Top Management

It goes without saying that without the support of top management, all efforts to change organizational culture are bound to fail. To garner support, you need to gain access to management. How? By providing the information management needs to stay informed. The reporting process naturally creates lines of communication. These lines of communication in turn create opportunity to deepen communication. Implicit in all of this is that you need to seek out management and not try to avoid them. Show me a safety director who ducks into a rest room when he sees an Executive VP walking down the hallway and I'll show you a safety director who's bound to fail.

Conclusion

The task of effecting cultural change is ill-suited for those of you who require instant gratification. Understand that changing an organization's safety culture is a slow process. It requires persistence and patience on your part. But while they won't do it overnight, these nine steps will eventually penetrate and make a decisive difference. Stick with it and you'll see your frustration melt and your organization's safety performance improve. The safety culture will change even if the people who make and are affected by the change don't even realize that it's taking place.

IN A NUTSHELL

The 9 Steps to Change Your Safety Culture

1. Practicing What You Preach (and Vice Versa)

2. Meeting Regulatory Standards

3. Building a Base of Support

4. Promoting the Company Line

5. Training Your Supervisors

6. Providing Management Meaningful Data

7. Holding Management and Supervisors Accountable

8. Recognizing Safety Achievements

9. Gaining Access to Top Management

TEST YOUR SAFETY IQ

Bird Flu

Bird Flu

By Glenn Demby

Like everybody else, you've been hearing a lot about "avian influenza" and "pandemics" in recent months. Although it has a wide range of meanings in academic circles, in common usage "avian influenza" - or bird flu - refers to an illness in humans by a kind of virus that usually just infects birds. There are only a few strains of bird flu viruses that can infect humans. The main threat comes from a strain with the catchy name of H5N1. A "pandemic" occurs when the bird flu spreads from human to human. Here's a quick quiz to test your understanding of bird flu and pandemics.

1. The threat of H5N1 first became evident in 1997 when it began infecting domestic chickens and the humans who worked with them in:

a.  Taiwan
b.  Beijing
c.  Hong Kong
d.  Singapore

2. The disease is most likely to spread to North America by way of:

a.  Human-to-human contact
b.  Imported poultry
c.  Wild, migratory birds

3. Of the few individuals to have contracted H5N1 bird flu, what percentage have died?

a.  25
b.  50
c.  75
d.  100

4. How many bird flu pandemics were there in the 20th century?

a.  None
b.  3
c.  8
d.  11

5. The immunity agents the human body relies on to protect against viruses comes from:

a.  Red blood cells
b.  White blood cells
c.  The liver
d.  The thyroid gland

6. The most reliable vaccine against bird flu is a product commercially known as:

a.  Prilosec
b.  Thoroflu
c.  Tamiflu
d.  Flu-B-Gon

7. Public health authorities face the following obstacle(s) in fighting the disease:

a.  Developing a proven vaccine
b.  Manufacturing the vaccine
c.  Stockpiling the vaccine
d.  Distributing the vaccine
e.  All of the above

8. Bird flu can be spread from one human to another via all of the following methods EXCEPT:

a.  Shaking hands
b.  Kissing
c.  Sneezing and coughing
d.  Bumping elbows

ANSWERS

1) c
2) c
3) b
4) b
5) b
6) c
7) e
d

Rate Yourself:

7-8 right: Closet Epidemiologist
5-6 right: Well informed
4 right: Not bad
Less than 3 right: Need to read up

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