Organisational culture, climate

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Organisational culture, climate stress

• Emma Wadsworth

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What is organisational culture?

• Shared beliefs, attitudes, values, and norms of
  behaviour
• the way things are done around here, and the way
  things are understood, judged, and valued
• Safety culture describes
• Shared attitudes, values and beliefs in relation
  to safety within an organisation

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Why is safety culture important?

• Poor safety culture has been associated with
• Industrial disasters (Chernobyl, Columbia,
  Clapham Junction)
• Workplace accidents injuries

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How is safety culture measured?

• Most often measured using an employee climate
  survey to give a snapshot of current safety
  culture
• Safety climate is a current-state reflection of
  underlying safety culture

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What does a climate survey measure?

• Employee perceptions of
• Organisational commitment to safety
• Line management commitment to safety
• Supervisors role
• Personal role
• Workmates influence
• Competence
• Risk taking behaviour
• Obstacles to safety
• Reporting accidents
• General job satisfaction
• From HSE Climate Survey Tool

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Findings from a recent study
Safety culture
Safety performance
HS advice
Funded by
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Participants

• Two groups of workers completed safety climate
  questionnaires
• 1752 from 33 UK firms
• 475 as part of a general workers sample

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How much stress?

• Described their job as very or extremely
  stressful
• Firms sample 15
• Range 0 to 31
• General sample 18
• Overall 16

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Safety culture and stress

• Work stress is linked to
• Safety culture overall
• Specific aspects of culture including
• Management approach to safety
• Individual (own others) behaviour
• Job satisfaction
• Factors also linked to sickness absence

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Safety culture stress
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Conclusions

• Work stress is linked to organisational culture
  or perceptions of the way we do things round here
• Work stress is also linked to other factors e.g.
  job demand
• Perceptions vary at an individual level within
  organisations or sections

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Implications
Line management
Job satisfaction
Risk taking
Culture

• Improvements in one area may have significant
  knock-on effects

Support
Control
Demand