What is a safety culture? How is this safety culture achieved? How do you handle adversity while trying to obtain this culture? What do you mean by building a safety culture from the ground up?

These are the some of the questions that I have received recently when talking with people that have reached out to me through different facilities of the hiring process or just casual conversations that strike up between myself and other safety individuals. 

You may be wondering why they are asking me these types of questions. Well, see I decided to place on my description section for my current role that I was tasked with building a safety culture from the ground up. Was this a bad thing? Had I really been prepared to answer what a safety culture meant to me? I can tell you the first time I was asked this question, I was not prepared! Boy did I look like the fool....

However, it got me thinking. I had listed something on my description section that I felt passionate about but hadn't put much stock in how to describe this to others. This caused me to take a deep dive into myself and what other safety professionals I knew felt about what a safety culture was to them. I received many answers from an organized written program to employees doing what is expected of them even to having a great program to where employees share their near misses and injuries with ease.

Employee's share their experiences on the floor with ease? That’s it I thought! We need the employees to be the culture. I had been doing something and felt passionate about this and never thought of it in this way. We need employees to be the culture through expectations, reporting, and training others. Well how do we do that!

How do we as safety professionals build that culture!!!! 

I believe we do this through our everyday interactions on the floor. We must take the time to build relationships with the people we work with. As that relationship is nurtured and grows, the culture then grows. As one individual buys in and begins to nurture the same relationship with others you will then see a domino effect within the work force. As this occurs you will see everyone's kayaks begin to turn around and flow with the current instead of against the current. This is how we achieve a positive safety culture that will lead to compliance!!


Safety Culture??

I may be a newcomer here, but I'm not new to Safety.  I've been in this field close to 10 years and by accident at that.  When i graduated from college with my Bachelor's in Biological Sciences, I never gave even the slightest thought of what I'd be doing with that degree.  Fast forward after a year of unemployment, and I got my foot in the door with an alternative energy company in charge of their environmental health and safety compliance.

While my first position was mostly clerical and administrative, I learned bits and pieces of the EHS program, and received 4 years of on-the-job experience before moving on to manufacturing; where i spent the next 6 years.

In ten years, there's been many highs and lows; and while I can't say for certain where my career will take me, I wanted to take a second to highlight one of the biggest frustrations I have with the field.

The job of ensuring the safety of employees in the workforce has become one of the most delicate dances out of any career I've held a position in.  Especially when you're an army of one.  On one hand, you're tasked with holding employees accountable to safety rules - which they often don't want to do.  On the other hand, you're also tasked with holding fellow management peers/superiors accountable for decisions which impact the safety of employees.  The latter is easily the harder of the two responsibilities.  Even with companies who preach "Safety First" profitability is the number one concern - after all, businesses have to make money in order to exist. While I could drag this point out, I'll leave it open ended with the intention of providing some individual case studies later on in the platform.

For those looking to enter the field, be mindful that despite your best calculated safety decisions - safety initiatives will often get crushed by higher authorities within the company due to: Cost, difficulty of implementation, or some other business concern.  Don't let it get you down, it's the profession - not you.  Some days will be harder than others, but at the end of the day it's worth it, because your efforts will make a lasting impact on the lives of those you interact with.

The Burden of EHS Management

Colors. Not generally something safety professionals give much thought to in the field. However we as humans make constant subconscious associations with specific colors, especially in the workplace. Think about basic signage in your facility: red means danger, yellow and orange mean warning, and green means good. Now take a second to think about that. We are able to convey powerful messages simply by exploiting different colors. These colors are ubiquitous in the workplace: signs, labels, emails, floor markings, drawings, the list goes on. Even though we may not actively think about colors, our brains are certainly responding to them.

Here are some general associations with each color:

Beyond these general associations with different colors you can abstract out even further and combine them to convey even more messaging. This concept is used constantly by artists, web designers, marketing gurus - so why not safety professionals?

Think about everything you do at work that uses color. Putting together a training for example. Typically when we put together a training we will choose from one of the default PowerPoint templates provided by Microsoft, and from there our creative energy is focused on content. But if you really want to get crazy and elevate your training slides try selecting a color theme based on the content of the training. RCRA training? Try green, blue and a little orange - sustainability/environment themed, with some orange to liven it up. Think of what messages your training is trying to convey, and select your colors accordingly.

No they do not, but some do. My advice, use the internet:

This platform can help guide you to choose the right colors based on what message you’re trying to convey. In your next company email, select a color scheme based on the tone of your email. Don’t get too crazy - keep it dark font/white background, but try selecting pictures (if the email includes them) that match the color theme.

If you’re looking to learn more about color theory here are a few sites to get you pointed in the right direction:

John Shrewsberry

Safety Culture??

The Burden of EHS Management

Color matters in the workplace.