In addition to implementing technical, organizational and personnel related safety measures, improving occupational safety demands a strong focus on how people behave – and more importantly – how they think.
That’s because our unconscious thought processes greatly affect how we behave, and in turn how we impact those around us. In practice, this gradual process of cause and effect creates a prevailing safety culture that permeates your organization. So, if you want to transition to safer behaviors and thus achieve a sustained reduction in workplace accidents, your company’s safety culture needs a specific DNA.
Companies that adopt a performance sustainability approach, create lasting change in three ways, by focusing on behavior-based safety, communication, and a safety mindset. In this article we’ll explore one strand of safety culture DNA: the safety mindset, focusing on how to foster safety culture, and how you can promote a mindset that is more conducive to occupational safety.
what is a safety mindset in the workplace?
The way employees approach the topic of occupational safety – that is, their attitudes and thoughts – has a considerable influence on your company’s safety culture. Despite the fact that many of these thoughts are subconscious, the mindset of people in your company can have a direct effect on the number of workplace accidents. This link is illustrated by the Bradley Curve, a graphical representation of research which has been validated through more than two million surveys since 1995.
The Bradley Curve
As the graph highlights, if managers and employees think “Accidents are normal” and “You can’t do anything about them”, they are likely to regard the topic of occupational safety as irrelevant. In this case, the motivation to practice safe ways of working is extrinsic. By contrast, if managers and employees believe zero accidents is an achievable goal, then occupational safety will be regarded as highly relevant. In this case, there is intrinsic motivation.
understanding inhibitory mindsets
In order to change the safety culture in your organization, you will need to distinguish between inhibitory and conducive mindsets. For example, a mindset that inhibits occupational safety might include “I don’t want to get caught” or “Nobody needs occupational safety anyway”. On the other hand, a mindset that is conducive to safety might be “Zero accidents is our expectation” or “We can prevent every accident by working together”.
When the majority of your employees have an inhibitory mindset, it’s likely you are in the early stages of working on your company’s safety culture. To clarify this process, the Bradley Curve depicts four stages of a safety culture. The first two involve extrinsic motivation for employees.
For example, in the first stage, employees believe “Accidents just happen”. In the second phase, they are likely to believe “Zero accidents is unrealistic” and “I don’t want to be caught working in an unsafe manner”. The majority of workplace accidents occur in these first two developmental stages. Instead of feeling responsible for occupational safety here, employees always believe the responsibility lies with others.
In the third and fourth developmental stages, however, they have intrinsic motivation. This is reflected in their mindsets whereby at stage 3, employees and managers assume that achieving zero accidents is possible – and in the fourth stage, it becomes their goal. Companies with a safety culture in one of the last two developmental stages experience few or no workplace accidents, with their employees demonstrating a very high number of safe behaviors.
shaping your company’s safety mindset
If mindsets play such an essential role in occupational safety, one question in particular is decisive: how are mindsets created and how can we shape them for the better?
Primarily, your employees’ mindsets are created by their cultural, family, and social environment, as well as their past experiences with occupational safety. To illustrate just how strong the influence of experiences can be, let’s look at an example:
Erwin is a production worker. The shift foreman tells him to manually pump a hazardous fluid out of an intermediate bulk container (IBC). When he gets to the IBC, Erwin realizes that he has forgotten his safety goggles. He briefly considers going back to his locker to fetch them – but ultimately decides to pump out the hazardous fluid without safety goggles, “just to get it done”. Fortunately, nothing happens to Erwin. The employees nearby see Erwin working without safety goggles but don’t say anything. This fictional situation leads to two experiences, both of which create inhibitory mindsets:
- “Even without safety goggles, you won’t get anything in your eyes.”
- “Unsafe behavior is accepted.”
To illustrate how mindsets are shaped, we can use the idea of safety loops. It always begins with a person having a thought or impulse. In our example, Erwin considers whether to fetch his safety goggles or just empty the container quickly without them. In the second step, there is a physical reaction. In this case, it’s emptying the container without safety goggles. What Erwin took from this experience was that he was not injured and nobody spoke to him about his unsafe behavior. This helps to develop the mindset that working without safety goggles is OK.
If you want to prevent inhibitory mindsets from developing and transform your employees’ thinking into more conducive mindsets, experience is the biggest lever you can pull. Thankfully, this doesn’t mean Erwin has to hurt himself to change his mindset.
Instead, colleagues pointing out his unsafe behavior can be a formative experience. Alternatively, it could be a manager who sees the unsafe behavior and explains in detail why this presents a danger and is not something the company wants to see. The important thing when providing this feedback is to explore the desirable, safe behavior and follow this up repeatedly with positive reinforcement. That could be a pat on the shoulder, a symbolic thumbs-up, or even a round of drinks on the manager.
creating a positive safety culture
If the lost time injury frequency rate (LTIFR) in your company is stagnating or your reported workplace accident figures have plateaued, it may be that you need to change your employees’ mindset to improve your safety culture.
In most cases, the prevailing mindset towards occupational safety is more decisive than you might think. You can use the Bradley Curve to classify and gain a better understanding of the current state of your safety culture. In order to encourage positive mindsets and facilitate a transformation, think about the safety loop of thought-reaction-experience-mindset and leverage the power of experience. Remember: new experiences create new mindsets and can take your company’s safety culture to the next level.
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