Safety Culture ToolKit

Demonstrable (senior and line) management commitment to health and safety

Visible (senior and line) management commitment, leadership and involvement in improving health and safety performance is vital for building a positive safety culture.  The interest in, and priority placed on, safety by management needs to be ‘felt’ by the organisation and demonstrated in a variety of ways:  

  • Management role modelling of safe behaviours (‘walking the talk’)  
  • Good quality and effective communications        
  • Management’s attention to, and interest in health and safety – via safety tours, involvement in health and safety activities and events, what’s talked about, what managers choose to spend their time on        
  • Allocation of resources by the organisation
  • The priority given to health and safety issues (compared with commercial) and how it deals with short term conflicts between priorities

For more information, see:

The role of managerial leadership in determining workplace safety outcome. HSE Report 044 (2003).

Leadership for the major hazard industries. Effective health and safety management. HSE.