Safety Culture ToolKit

Participation, involvement and workforce attitudes to health and safety

Good safety cultures require everyone in an organisation to take personal responsibility  for health and safety and to contribute to improving safety performance.  An essential part of building this lies in the active participation of employees in health and safety.  Taking personal responsibility for safety means that staff at all levels accept they have a role to play in making sure their behaviour and decisions do not endanger others.  Individuals (peers and managers) should feel comfortable to intervene and challenge unsafe behaviour, but this should be done from a facilitative, coaching (not a blame) perspective.  In general, the higher the degree of employee involvement and active participation in safety initiatives and improvements, the stronger the safety culture.