What is a Safety Culture Assessment?

A safety culture assessment is an organized and systematic approach to evaluating an organization’s culture of safety in the workplace. It aims to ensure that a workplace has the right safety regulations, identify safety risks, and make the necessary adjustments to keep both facilities and workers protected.

Importance

Safety culture can be defined as a culture that prioritizes employee safety above all else. Not only does a safety culture pertain to safety procedures in place, but it also includes having safety-centered beliefs, conducting regular conversations on safety, and encouraging employees to have a positive attitude towards safety.

Safety in the workplace is not merely about adhering to regulations and rules; it is a fundamental aspect of an organization’s culture. A strong safety culture can prevent accidents, reduce injuries, and boost employee morale, ultimately leading to higher productivity and lower operational costs.

To measure safety culture and all the efforts that go into it, an assessment is often done in the form of a survey, questionnaire, checklist, or observational report. With a safety culture assessment, you can inspect if your organization and workplace are ensuring a culture of safety as intended and if there are any points of improvement.

What to Include in a Safety Culture Assessment Form

Different organizations and types of workplaces will have different safety cultures. However, they all typically assess the same things, including but not limited to the following:

• Policies in place

• Duties of specific workers to ensure workplace safety

• Health policies

• Risk management and control

Thus, a typical safety culture assessment form contains fields for assessing the following:

• Status of policies in place

• Communication procedures for policies, rules, and regulations

• Allocation of responsibilities to the right personnel

• Purchasing requirements and controls

• Contractors’ status and relationships

• Health and safety in the workplace

• Risk management procedures

• Processes for:

  • Manual tasks

  • Hazardous substances and their handling

  • Plants

  • Equipment

• Workplace environment and stress management

• Training practices

• Accident and injury reporting and investigation

• Emergency planning and procedures

Here is a sample safety culture assessment form in use:

Safety Culture Assessment Sample Report | SafetyCulture