Three pillars of a positive health and safety culture

Building a positive health and safety culture is crucial to any occupational safety program. And it’s a challenge that many multinational organizations struggle with. Working with myriad clients across industries and jurisdictions, we’ve learned that culture starts with how you approach compliance in the first place. For people to comply with an occupational health and safety program (OHS), they need to believe in it. Not just that they must do it, but that it truly matters. And doing so depends on how you see, show, and share compliance in your company.

In this article, we’ll break down three of the most pivotal steps companies can take to enhance their health and safety program, positively engage staff, and promote a strong compliance culture.

1. Prepare for occupational health and safety requirements before they’re in place

First up, your occupational health and safety culture can’t survive too many surprises. As priorities change (or, more appropriately, increase), people are more likely to get on board for new protocols when they have more lead-time to do so.

Today, multi-national corporations must meet more requirements than ever before. It’s a regulatory landscape that’s expanding more and more, and for your culture to stay consistent with it, you need to stay ahead of it. Since 2022, occupational health has been high in the charts for our Compliance Intelligence service, as one of the topics with the most annual regulatory developments. And there’s no sign of it slowing down.

We see the beginnings of many big changes in occupational health and safety regulations. Common challenges like teleworking risks and safeguarding workers’ mental health and wellbeing are impacting companies and their employees all over the world.

All of this comes together in a regulatory landscape that continues to become wider. As it does, so must your view of what new requirements could come into place. Shift to a more proactive approach to health and safety compliance management to set your culture up for success. Prioritize forecasting alongside following existing rules to give your team a head start on staying compliant in the future.

2. Factor in human behavior before measuring (or communicating) failure

If you’re struggling to build a strong occupational health and employee safety compliance culture in your organization, the solution might just be going back to the heart of your program. Consider enhancing the foundation of your risk management and safety monitoring by doing the following:

1. Complete a comprehensive risk assessment of your operations
2. Use the results to overhaul any safety measures that flag as falling short of expectations
3. Implement and regularly train staff on safety protocols and control measures to reduce accidents
4. Monitor your workplace safety performance more attentively with more complete compliance metrics

The way you track compliance metrics from the start can drive better outputs in the end. For instance, tracking only output metrics, such as penalties, puts the focus on what’s gone wrong. If you build your program purely on that baseline, you run the risk of increasing underreporting rather than engagement. Employees will associate infractions with being judged or punished — and the idea of culture goes out the window.

Conversely, encouraging employees to raise safety concerns — and then promptly addressing them — personifies and instills a proactive “safe workplace” mindset. Employees will begin to respect and follow safety procedures more ardently, including spotting and reporting potential hazards before they become actual hazards.

Of course, event outcomes like penalties, injuries, releases, and exceedances will always be important to monitor. But they only show part of the picture. Instead, you can overcome many human behavior obstacles by including a broader perspective on measuring what happens in your facilities. Factor in preventative measures, such as training or safety meetings, to complement the way you monitor your compliance efforts. Show your employees that more than mistakes matter, and more of them will be inclined to engage.

3. Choose occupational health and safety training that caters to employees’ needs

Training is one of the most important pillars in your company’s compliance culture. It’s what keeps staff informed of issues and in touch with your program. It’s where they learn the protocols and processes in your company — and how to play their part. If you want your company to have a positive occupational health and safety culture, employees must have a positive experience when learning about health and safety.

As workforces change and technologies advance, choosing the right kind of training for employees has become tricky. Some workers get more out of in-person, day-long training sessions than they do from a virtual setting, while others prefer virtual or short, succinct sessions. Sometimes it relates to age and experience — but not always. Get the formula wrong, and you start your culture off on the wrong foot, leaving some team members out rather than including all of them.

The most successful training programs will continually evolve to not only meet regulatory requirements, but also provide effective, impactful training, for example:

• Combine virtual and in-person elements to meet more needs throughout
• Consider asking employees directly to share which topics they want to learn more about
• Provide information in a format that matches your workforce
• Nurture engagement for the long term, with recap and reminder sessions

Occupational health and safety culture starts before protocols

When it comes to building a positive occupational health and safety culture, seeing is believing. So is showing and sharing. That is, to truly engage your employees, you’ll need to see compliance information from the right perspective, show it in a complete picture, and share it in a way that connects with your workforce. As you continue to progress your OHS management to keep pace with today’s regulatory developments, make sure that your culture is in step with what teams need to step (and stay) on board.