Safety culture

Safety culture is any organizational culture that places safety as the primary priority driving the way employees perform their work.

.(1)Knowledge about complex systems alone only goes so far in mitigating human error. To combat error, an organization must teach not just how error may be avoided, but also it must adopt attitudes that promote safety above all else. Various researchers call these attitudes an organization’s safety culture and identify top-level organizational support as the main predictor of a positive safety culture. Put briefly, in order for an organization to create and perpetuate a positive safety culture, senior management must take certain actions, such as:(a)Setting standards and expectations and providing resources to meet them.(b)Developing and enforcing standards that emphasize safe work practice.(c)Setting up meaningful incentive programs that reward safe and reliablebehavior either monetarily or through other means such as days off, or awards ofrecognition for a job well done.(2)An MRM training program provides personnel with the tools to assess andchange their own behaviors to work safer and reduce human error. Unlike other safety 9/28/00AC 120-72Par 8Page 9programs, MRM is most effective when ALL employees are oriented toward a positivesafety culture. Therefore, employees of all levels (upper-level managers included) areencouraged to participate and are trained alongside maintenance personnel.(3)MRM trains personnel to use the resources of their positions to encouragesafe operations. For example, managers learn that a positive safety culture can only befostered if line employees are provided the necessary resources to do their jobs correctly.Line employees must be given the tools that teach them how to do their jobs withouterror. As an example, upper-level managers provide and control resources such as thenumber of aircraft serviced at one time, the selection of employees to do the work, andthe tools with which to perform the necessary tasks. Safety itself, however, is rooted inthe actual behaviors of maintenance personnel in the hanger (or on the line). MRMtraining teaches employees what behaviors are best to use. MRM training also helpsmanagers understand how their own choices affect which behaviors are ultimately used .In this way, the entire organization becomes oriented towards safe, error-freeperformance.