C10.7.7.1 How Good is your Organisation’s Sustainability Culture?
Consider the questions below… (again, safety based, but they apply perfectly well to sustainability)…
Management Commitment
- Where is safety perceived to be in management’s priorities (Senior/middle/1st line)?
- How do they show this?
- How often are they seen in the workplace?
- Do they talk about safety when in the workplace and is this visible to the workforce?
- Do they ‘walk the talk’?
- Do they deal quickly and effectively with safety issues raised?
- What balance do their actions show between safety and production?
- Are management trusted over safety?
Communication
- Is there effective two-way communication about safety?
- How often are safety issues discussed :What is communicated about the safety programme of the company?
- With line manager/subordinate?
- With colleagues?
- How open are people about safety?
Employee Involvement
- How are people (all levels, especially operators) involved in safety?
- How often are individual employees asked for their input on safety issues?
- How often do operators report unsafe conditions or near misses etc?
- Is there active, structured operator involvement e.g. workshops, projects, safety circles?
- Is there a continuous improvement / total quality approach?
- Whose responsibility is safety regarded to be?
- Is there genuine cooperation over safety – a joint effort between all in the company?
Training and Information
- Do employees feel confident that they have all the training that they need?
- How accurate are employees’ perceptions of hazards and risks?
- How effective is safety training in meeting needs (including managers!)?
- How are needs identified?
- How easily available is safety information?
Motivation
- Do managers give feedback on safety performance (& how)?
- Are they likely to notice unsafe acts?
- Do managers (all levels – S/M/1st) always confront unsafe acts?
- How do they deal with them?
- Do employees feel they can report unsafe acts?
- How is discipline applied to safety?
- What do people believe are the expectations of managers?
- Do people feel that this is a good place to work (why/why not)?
- Are they proud of their company?
Compliance with Procedures
- What are written procedures used for?
- What decides whether a particular task will be captured in a written procedure?
- Are they read?
- Are they helpful?
- What other rules are there?
- Are there too many procedures and rules?
- How well are people trained in them?
- Are they audited effectively?
- Are they written by users?
- Are they linked to risks?
Learning Organisation
- Does the company really learn from accident history, incident reporting etc?
- Do employees feel confident in reporting incidents or unsafe conditions?
- Do they report them?
- Do reports get acted upon?
- Do they get feedback?
Source: HSE, HSE Leaflet ‘Common Topics, Safety Culture’.
…How good is your organisation’s sustainability culture?
Take a few minutes to consider what you could do to help improve it…