Safety

Column: Your Safety Culture Has a Virus

We can long for things to return to "normal," and they may to some extent. But the changes in our culture that the pandemic brought will have a lasting impact.

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I have worked with clients for the past 25+ years who desired to improve their safety culture. Some blamed their culture for less-than-stellar safety performance, and others viewed cultural improvement as a pathway to excellence. Still others saw attention to culture as the latest fad in safety and wanted to be perceived as savvy to current trends. Few truly understood what a safety culture was or how to improve it, at least at first. Among the greatest realizations in this learning curve was the discovery of underlying influences that shaped the culture.

Many leaders described culture as "what people do when I am not watching" or "the way we do things around here." But that is not culture; it is common practice. Culture is a byproduct of other factors that form the reasons why common practice is what it is. These factors are often referred to as influences. Influences shape perceptions, beliefs, values, focus, and mindsets. When the influences are common with a group, they shape the culture. In general, to change a culture you must change the influences. Sometimes, the influences change themselves.

We have just experienced such an influence. We called it the COVID-19 pandemic. It changed our perceptions of risks, our beliefs of what is important, our values and priorities, our focus and mindset. These, in turn, changed many of our common practices. We can long for things to return to "normal," and they may to some extent. But the changes in our culture that the pandemic brought will have a lasting impact. The world may return to something resembling its previous condition, but the people in it will not do so completely. They will have been changed in ways that will continue to influence the culture into the future.

Before discussing some of the potential changes to be considered, remember that all cultures are unique. That means these changes will affect different cultures in different ways and to different extents. Unfortunately, that means that the culture will need to be assessed to determine how it has changed and its current condition. Even if the organization assessed the culture in 2019, it should not be assumed that the culture will automatically revert to its old self. This is not a phenomenon unique to COVID. Cultures can change over time, and especially after significant events, and need to be assessed periodically even during normal times. Unlike the usual safety culture assessment, post-COVID assessments need also to address specific areas that have a high likelihood of being affected by the pandemic. 

Read the full column here.