ORGANISATION
In order to turn fine words into action, organisations need to involve their staff. A positive health and safety culture involves competence of staff, control through the allocation of health and safety responsibility to staff who are committed to improving the health and safety performance within the organisation, co-operation between individuals and groups and verbal, written and visible communication on health and safety matters. These factors are often termed the 4Cs of positive health and safety culture.
According to the Health and Safety Executive: "The safety culture of an organisation is the product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organisation’s health and safety management. Organisations with a positive safety culture are characterised by communications founded on mutual trust, by shared perceptions of the importance of safety and by confidence in the efficacy of preventive measures".
In Successful Health and Safety Management (HS(G)65), the Health and Safety Executive outline the following simply diagram to illustrate the relationship between risk, competence and supervision:
Put bluntly, the higher the risk due to the lack of competence of the individual involved, the greater the degree of supervision that is required. Even experienced staff can lose their competence when faced with new equipment, new systems of work etc. Until their competence is restored, through experience or training, they will require greater degrees of supervision.