Safety Culture: What is It? Can You Measure It?
Safety Culture – What is it?
“Safety Culture” has been a topic of increasing interest since the term was first used in the report on the Chornobyl accident.
In 2004, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) published “Principles for a Strong Nuclear Safety Culture.” It outlines INPO’s interest and commitment to maintaining a strong safety culture in the nuclear industry.
According to the INPO report, the principles for a strong nuclear safety culture are:
- Everyone is personally responsible for nuclear safety.
- Leaders demonstrate commitment to safety.
- Trust permeates the organization.
- Decision-making reflects safety first.
- Nuclear technology is recognized as special and unique.
- A questioning attitude is cultivated.
- Organizational learning is embraced.
- Nuclear safety undergoes constant examination.
These are similar to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s work on nuclear safety culture. See that documentation HERE. Or the PDF educational resource from the picture at the start of this article.
Here are the NRC’s traits of a positive safety culture…
Problem Identification and Resolution (which includes root cause analysis) is my favorite safety culture topic. The NRC’s Policy Statement says:
“Problem Identification and Resolution –
Issues potentially impacting safety are promptly identified,
fully evaluated,and promptly addressed and
corrected commensurate with their significance.”
Outside the nuclear industry, safety culture has also been a topic of interest.
The Baker Panel Report on the BP Texas City explosion was critical of the BP safety culture.
How Do You Measure Your Safety Culture?
Different people have different approaches to measuring safety culture. We suggest a technique taught by Brian Tink, one of our contract TapRooT® Instructors. He will teach the course – Analyzing and Fixing Safety Culture – on September 29-30 in Knoxville, TN, just before the 2025 Global TapRooT® Summit (October 1-3). CLICK HERE to register for the course. Or, CLICK HERE to register for the course and the Summit and SAVE $300 OFF the course registration fee.
During the course, each participant will complete a Human Synergistics Organizational Cultural Inventory© Survey and a Human Synergistics Organizational Cultural Inventory© Ideal Survey. These tools will help you gain detailed insight into your company’s culture and, more importantly, what organizational outcomes this culture will cause. Utilizing the knowledge gained from these surveys, corrective actions will be developed utilizing root causes and cultural attributes. At the end of the session, breakout groups will use their examples and cultural results to work through the TapRooT® process and create corrective actions.
How Do You Demonstrate a Good Safety Culture?
How do YOU demonstrate a good safety culture? First, you might think about the NRC’s Continuous Learning positive trait:
Opportunities to learn about ways to ensure safety
are sought out and implemented.
Where could you go to learn about safety improvement ideas? I would suggest the Safety and Risk Management Best Practices Track at the 2025 Global TapRooT® Summit. It has been organized by Ken Reed, a retired Navy Nuke and Vice President at System Improvements.
Here are the nine sessions in that track:
Do those sessions sound interesting? That track is one of the eight Best Practice Tracks at the 2025 Global TapRooT® Summit. The complete track list is shown below…
When you register for the Summit, you can choose a particular track or sessions from several tracks to customize your Summit experience. For those interested in demonstrating a positive safety culture and going beyond the Safety and Risk Management Track, I would recommend seeing the details of the:
- Investigations & RCA Best Practices Track,
- High-Reliability Organization Best Practices Track, or
- Human Performance Best Practices Track
All the tracks might have something of great interest to you so, CLICK HERE for details about all the tracks.
For the Problem Identification and Resolution portion of the NRC’s positive safety culture, you:
- Maintain your investigation skills
- Remain knowledgeable of industry RCA standards and root cause analysis best practices
- Learn new innovative performance improvement best practices
Do you do this ONLY in your industry (nuclear, refining, oil exploration, mining, utilities, …), or are you looking across sectors (various industries) to find best practices?
The Global TapRooT® Summit is known for
- Helping investigators maintain their investigation skills (especially in the optional pre-Summit 2-Day Courses),
- Sharing information about the latest root cause analysis best practices, and
- Sharing innovative performance improvement best practices used by industry leaders.
Plus, the Summit is known for the wide variety of industries that attend the Summit (see examples HERE). This helps you get new, innovative ideas from industries other than your own.
Demonstrate Your Commitment to a Strong Safety Culture
Demonstrate your efforts to maintain continuous learning and to support problem identification and resolution by attending the:
Those who have attended past Summits and one of the pre-Summit courses know that it’s a great place to maintain and advance your skills, network across industries, and learn best practices from around the world.
Therefore, attending the Summit is a great way to show that you support a strong safety culture.
Don’t contribute to a bad safety culture by having a lack of a questioning attitude … REGISTER for the Summit today.
Click on the graphic below to download the eight-page 2025 Global TapRooT® Summit brochure.
