Dr. Bob Baron presented on building a strong safety culture. He defined safety culture as the enduring value and priority placed on safety by everyone in an organization. He discussed attributes of an unsafe culture such as profit before safety and ineffective leadership. He outlined steps to building a strong safety culture, including implementing a safety management system, demonstrating management trust through a non-punitive reporting system, and ensuring safety is transparent. The presentation concluded by emphasizing that building a safety culture requires buy-in from all levels of an organization's leadership.

1. BUILDING A STRONG SAFETY CULTURE
Presented by: Dr. Bob Baron, Ph.D
The Aviation Consulting Group
tacgworldwide.com
Copyright © 2018

2. • Approx. 60 min. presentation
followed by 30 min. Q&A
• Prefer to take questions at conclusion
• Slides will be made available after
presentation
Dr. Bob Baron, Ph.D
President/Chief Consultant
The Aviation Consulting Group
Myrtle Beach, SC, USA

3. Safety
Culture
Defined
Safety culture is the enduring value and
priority placed on safety by everyone in
every group at every level of an
organization ~Wiegmann (2002)

4. Outcome of a poor safety culture

5. One-Two-GO Airlines Flight 269

6. Unsafe Culture
Attributes
• Profit Before Safety-
• Productivity always comes before safety, as
safety is viewed as a cost, not an
investment
• Fear-
• Problems remain hidden as they are driven
underground by those trying to avoid
sanctions or reprimands
• Ineffective Leadership-
• Leadership, and the prevailing corporate
culture, prevents the recognition of risks
and opportunities

7. Unsafe Culture
Attributes
• Non-compliance-
• To standards, rules and procedures by
managers and the workforce
• Miscommunication-
• Critical safety information not relayed to
decision-makers and/or the message
becomes diluted
• Ignoring Lessons Learned-
• Safety critical information is not extracted,
shared, or enforced

8. Measuring Safety Culture

9. Measuring
Safety
Culture
• Typically done through surveys
• Can be supplemented by objective
interviews and observations
• Ancillary measures
• Various SPIs, such as-
• Voluntary safety reporting intake
• Safety newsletter number/frequency
• Safety meeting number/frequency
• CPA closure times
• Etc…

10. Results?

11. Regardless of Your Results…
•You can always improve your safety culture!
• Generative safety culture-
• Great!
• But it takes effort to keep it that way (you can downgrade pretty
quickly)
• Safety complacency is possible
• Pathological safety culture (lots of work to do)-
• No safety culture exists
• Accident is imminent
• Trigger pullers

12. Steps to Building a Strong Safety Culture

13. Line Personnel
Supervisors
Middle Management
Senior/Upper Management
President/CEO
It all starts at the top!

14. However…
• You will not, and cannot, build a
healthy safety culture if you have
leadership that-
• Is blind
• Clearly puts profit before safety
• Doesn’t listen to line personnel
• Doesn’t understand the relationship
between production and safety
• Is toxic (toxic CEO/President)
Frank Lorenzo
CEO- Eastern Airlines (and others)
Udom Tantiprasongchai
CEO- Orient Thai/One-Two-GO
Airlines

15. Line Personnel (trigger pullers)
Supervisors
Middle Management
Senior/Upper Management
President/CEO
It all starts at the top!

16. Assuming There is Proper Leadership
• The biggest challenge
has been overcome!

17. Steps to Build/Strengthen Your Safety Culture
• Implement a Safety
Management System (SMS)
• An effective SMS is the heart of
a healthy safety culture

18. • Management trust
Steps to Build/Strengthen Your Safety Culture

19. • Non-punitive, confidential
reporting system with
feedback and action
• Employees are comfortable
reporting things they see, as
well as their own errors
• Management trust
Steps to Build/Strengthen Your Safety Culture

20. • Demonstrable buy-in from top
management
Steps to Build/Strengthen Your Safety Culture

21. • Everyone has a responsibility
and accountability for safety
(top-down)
• And they know it!
• Beliefs, perceptions, and values
about safety are aligned, at
every level of the organization
Steps to Build/Strengthen Your Safety Culture

22. • See something, say something
Steps to Build/Strengthen Your Safety Culture

23. • Safety is transparent
• Things are not being hidden or
covered up
Steps to Build/Strengthen Your Safety Culture

24. • Risks are being managed using
the ALARP principle
• Issues are being closed in an
appropriate amount of time
Steps to Build/Strengthen Your Safety Culture

25. • Safety meetings are conducted
regularly
Steps to Build/Strengthen Your Safety Culture

26. Thank You!
Bob’s direct contact info:
bbaron@tacgworldwide.com
Skype: bob.baron4
TACG conducts safety culture assessments
Let us know if we can help!
tacgworldwide.com/Consulting/Safety-Culture-
Assessments
Articles, papers, presentations
tacgworldwide.com/TACG-Papers