There has been much discussion in this space, and elsewhere, about the concept of safety culture.

And in many ways, rightfully so. After all, it is a culture of safety that generates overall safety numbers that are the envy of many companies. It is going above and beyond the protocols, procedures and measurements. It is an attitude, if you will, that permeates the entire workplace, whether it’s a small machine shop of one or two people or whether it’s Google with thousands of employees.

[Image courtesy of The Natural Step Canada from Flickr via a Creative Commons license]

[Image courtesy of The Natural Step Canada from Flickr via a Creative Commons license]

Safety culture has been a vital point of consideration in many companies and industries over the last 20 to 30 years.

But while there is a safety culture in many places, is there a safety climate in other places? And is there really a difference?

Safety Climate vs. Safety Culture

In certain corners of the safety world, there seems to be very little distinction between the words “culture” and “climate” when it comes to safety; many people use the words as synonyms. While the two words can be seen as synonyms, in a way, Dr. Linda Goldenhar of The Center for Construction Research and Training, said there is a definite distinction between the two words, which she addressed in a recent Q&A with Professional Safety magazine that was published in January 2016.

Goldenhar tackled this question by making a very clear line – that climate and culture are all about perception vs. reality. In short, Goldenhar said that a safety culture is what is projected by the company through its actions, words, procedures, values and mission when it comes to safety, and climate refers to how the employees themselves perceive those values in their everyday work. The challenge is, in effect, to bring culture and climate into alignment, which essentially is turning the theory of safety procedures and values on paper into action on the job site that workers can tangibly sense.

How to Know Culture, Climate are Aligned?

As climate and culture are closely aligned but are not synonymous, it is important to do the work necessary to move safety from theory (culture) to practice (climate). But while you, as management, may feel like you have a safety culture in place, the bottom line is that without some actual indicators of a climate of safety, then your culture is really just theory.

At the Safety Culture/Climate Workshop in 2013, several prominent members of various interest groups developed a list of eight leading indicators of the presence of a quality safety climate that was closely aligned with the safety culture that was encouraged.

Goldenhar presented these eight indicators for all of us to use to assess our worksites and whether our safety culture has become climate:

  1. Showing commitment by management through actions, not just thoughts or rules.
  2. Making safety an actual value in the company’s mission and goals.
  3. Accountability – at every level of the company, from the floor up to the C-suite.
  4. Taking steps to improve the leadership of supervisors.
  5. Getting workers engaged and empowering them.
  6. Communication improvements, which of course is a two-way street, do not forget.
  7. Providing training at all levels of the company, and training that is appropriate for each level.
  8. Encouraging engagement from the owner and even from clients/vendors.

It is one thing to have a culture of safety on the job site; it is entirely another to have a climate of safety that permeates everything you do. The important step to having the highest safty standards is to take safety one step further, from the theory of a culture to the practice of a climate. Once workers on the floor perceive an emphasis on safety through tangible actions, then it becomes easier to fold them into the climate and turn them into ambassadors for your safety culture to others.