Workplace safety culture is defined by the shared beliefs, perceptions, and values an organization has about safety. When not everyone shares the same attitude towards safety, important safety initiatives can be a struggle to implement and manage, leading to an increase in injuries. To avoid this, companies must have a very good understanding of their safety culture which begins by determining how mature that culture is.
When a company is struggling with compliance or some other aspect of safety, the typical response is to dive into endeavors they believe will reverse negative trends only to find out later that pervasive cultural issues are inhibiting progress. Companies sometimes go years without realizing it’s not the endeavors which are failing—it’s the culture.
To compound matters, the longer this is allowed to persist, the harder it becomes to turn things around. Eventually, this constant pattern of failure takes its toll and results in a disinterested and resentful workforce, and coming back from that isn’t easy. Avoiding this requires introducing the right activities at the right time and for the right reasons, something that is very difficult to do without a profound understanding of the existing culture, its origins, and the ability to envision not just the path but also the requisite steps for its realization.
Assessing where your company stands in terms of safety culture maturity can be a challenging task. To support companies in this effort, we've developed the EHS Insight Safety Maturity Model & Assessment, outlining what we consider the five most common levels of cultural maturity and their typical traits.
This model provides insights into the behaviors and mindsets of each level and presents optimal activities for implementation at each stage, accompanied by guidance on execution—whether utilizing our software solutions or not.
This resource begins as a quick assessment, where we will ask a few questions regarding how your organization thinks about and handles various aspects of safety. The assessment will then correlate your responses with a maturity level using a scale of one to five—one being the lowest level of maturity and five being the most mature. Following the completion of our Safety Maturity Assessment, you will uncover your result and gain access to the corresponding section of our exclusive EHS Maturity Model document.
Each section of the document will tackle a different maturity level, offering tailored suggestions for improvement at each stage, along with guidance on execution. We will also introduce EHS Insight modules you may not be familiar with, and how they can be used to help move your safety culture to the next level.
Regardless of whether your organization is at a reactive, responsive, or proactive stage, there are targeted approaches and solutions available to enhance your safety program.
Let the EHS Insight Safety Maturity Model help you understand your organization's safety culture and discover all the ways it can be easily improved!