As Hank explains, when it comes to building a safety culture, talk is cheap. Actions represent the true measure of organizational commitment. And as Hank will explain next week, commitment must come at all levels of the organization, including and especially the top. How can you determine if your management is truly committed to and exercising leadership in building a safety culture?

Here’s a self-assessment quiz you can take based on a 2004 U.S. Navy study listing 15 safety activities that management will support when it’s serious about creating a positive safety culture. If management supports the activity, put a check in the box; if it doesn’t, leave the box blank:

Does your organization’s management provide leadership and support in: [Lincoln: Please list a box next to each entry

1. [ ] Ensuring that policies for worker safety and health are defined and communicated to all workers
2. [ ] Helping to establish goals for the safety program
3. [ ] Helping to establish results-oriented objectives for meeting those goals
4. [ ] Ensuring that goals and objectives are communicated to and understood by all workers
5. [ ] Establishing clear lines of communication with workers
6. [ ] Setting an example of safe and healthy behavior
7. [ ] Allowing reasonable access to management
8. [ ] Ensuring that all workers, including contractors, get the same high quality health and safety protection
9. [ ] Clearly defining employee responsibilities in writing
10. [ ] Assigning appropriate authority to those with safety responsibilities
11. [ ] Providing adequate resources to support safety activities
12. [ ] Evaluating managers’ and supervisors’ safety performance at least once a year
13. [ ] Holding managers, supervisors and workers accountable for their health and safety responsibilities
14. [ ] Operating a documented system to correct deficiencies
15. [ ] Including safety and health in the overall management planning process, including an annual evaluation to judge success and make improvements

RESULTS

13 to 15: Your management is fully committed to safety culture building

10 to 12: Your management is committed but can and should do more

7 to 9: Your management needs to do more to demonstrate commitment to safety culture

6 or less: Your management is all talk, no action

Source: This quiz is original but the questions are based on the findings of a study for the U.S. Navy by Dolfini-Reed & Streicher, “Creating a Safety Culture,” Center for Naval Analyses (CNA Corporation), Sept. 2004, p. 15, http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/osh/shore/downloads/cna04.pdf

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