A matured culture of safety, that is invested in by all involved, is the best way to make meaningful safety improvements.
Creating, developing or nurturing a culture of safety can feel superficial. Like it is just jumping on the latest middle-management buzzword train.
But if taken seriously, a good culture of safety can add value to a business along with other benefits that can be both direct and indirect.
Setting the platform for a culture of safety
Although much of the talk around cultures of safety centres on the choices and actions of those undertaking the work itself, the reality is that true safety requires buy in and proactive involvement from the entire chain.
This includes the site owner or developer, all the way down through the layers of contractors and subcontractors before finally reaching the individual workers.
Think of it this way – if the leaders on a project do not buy into the idea of making sure that safety is always kept front of mind, how can they expect others to?
For everyone involved in a project there really needs to be an embedded believe in the notion that the standard you walk past is the standard you accept.
How that is put into practise differs depending on the individual roles of those involved.
Building a culture of safety
What each party to a job site brings when it comes to building a culture of safety is different depending on their role within the wider structure of the workplace.
Ultimately, the culture is going to be built from the top down.
Site owners and developers must be making sure that their contractors and builders are incorporating best practice safety into their work. Much of this boils down to understanding where differences in proposal costs come from.
Lower-priced bids mean that savings have been calculated based on reducing the time needed to complete the work, reducing the number of workers required to complete the work or utilising cheaper equipment that may not be fit for the intended purpose.
Although the owner or developer is would not be expected to be across the minute detail of how work is undertaken, they should be familiar enough with the process to identify why one proposal may be substantially cheaper than another, and then to understand how that has come about and what that can mean for the safety culture should they proceed down that path.
For contractors and employers, building a culture of safety can be more complicated. They are in the middle – receiving feedback from employees and teams about improvements to safety that can be made, as well as being pressured by owners and developers to keep within agreed times and budgets.
To build a good safety culture, employers and contractors need to be incredibly honest. They are the ones that are proposing to do the work, they are across the details and should know exactly what is required, how long it will take, and the size of team needed to complete it.
Timelines and budget proposals should be based on what is realistic, not what is ideal. These different angles often result in two entirely different outputs. Throw in a competitive market and knowing that there is always someone out there that is going to quote the same job cheaper, and it is easy to see what the result is.
Being proactive and having buy in to having a proper, meaningful culture of safety across the entire project is the only way it works.
Once that safety culture is embedded in the project then the natural state is for people to want to do the safer thing, and to see others do the safer thing.
As that starts to happen, the benefits can start to be seen.
Benefits it can bring
Having a strong and sustained culture of safety brings with it benefits for all involved. Some are direct and can be evidenced very clearly, while others are more intangible but also incredibly valuable.
Most obviously, having a strong culture of safety will reduce the number of incidents and accidents that occur. This flows on to a reduction in unplanned downtime that can result from workplace accidents. It can also lead to reduced insurance premiums.
This is turn means that the realistic time needed to complete a project can be safely reduced, while reduction in overhead costs contributes to more competitive pricing down the road.
Less directly, a good culture of safety over time will improve the reputations of everyone involved. Paired with the ability to deliver a more competitive quote and it means more successful bids and tenders.
