Safety culture is the element of organizational culture which is concerned with the maintenance of safety and compliance with safety standards. It is informed by the organization's leadership and the beliefs, perceptions and values that employees share in relation to risks within the organization, workplace or community.[1] [2] Safety culture has been described in a variety of ways: notably, the National Academies of Science and the Association of Land Grant and Public Universities have published summaries on this topic in 2014 and 2016.[3] [4] [5] [6]
A good safety culture can be promoted by senior management commitment to safety, realistic practices for handling hazards, continuous organisational learning, and care and concern for hazards shared across the workforce.[7] Beyond organisational learning, individual training forms the foundation from which to build a systemic safety culture.
The Chernobyl disaster highlighted the importance of safety culture and the effect of managerial and human factors on safety performance.[8] [9] The term "safety culture" was first used in INSAG's (1986) "Summary Report on the Post-Accident Review Meeting on the Chernobyl Accident", where safety culture was described as: