Promoting a Positive Health and

Safety Culture
 Objectives
– Identify how workplace injuries or illnesses can
affect your everyday life.
– Identify common symptoms, aches/pains, illnesses
and injuries that are associated with your work.
– Identify and recognize the exposures and hazards
linked to work-related illnesses and injuries.
– Develop solutions and strategies to address these
identified hazards.
 Culture
• A culture is a way of doing things that is
shared, taught or copied.
• Everyone in a particular culture tends to do
things in a similar way, which they would
consider to be the norm.
 Safety culture
– How people feel about safety (the safety climate),
– What they actually do,
– What are the policies and
– The Procedures the organization has.
 Elements of Safety Culture
– Working practices and rules for effectively controlling
hazards
– A positive attitude towards risk management and
compliance with the control processes
– The capacity to learn from accidents, near misses and
safety performance indicators and bring about
continual improvement.
 Safety Culture Benefits
• Reduction in Accidents
• Fewer Injuries
• Cost Savings
• Lower Insurance Rates
• Increased Productivity
• Improved Public Relations
• 80-90% of all industrial accidents are
attributable to 'human factors'
 Pre-requisite for a positive safety
culture
• A prerequisite for a positive safety culture is
good information.
• In order for the information to flow, the
workforce needs to be willing to participate
and be prepared to report their mistakes, near
misses and accidents.
 What are our safety rules?

Follow safety instructions

Wash your hands
Wear Personal Protective Equipment
 What do you do if someone gets
hurt at work?
Tell your team leader/Lab Engineer
Follow the safety rules
Get help
 What does working safely
mean?

Following the safety rules

Wearing the right protective equipment
Keeping the work area safe
 Knowing about
workplace hazards
 What are hazards?
A hazard is anything that could hurt you or make you
sick.

What could hurt you or make you sick where you work?
A hazard is
anything that
can

cut you
A hazard is
anything that
can

trip you
A hazard is
anything that
can

burn you
A hazard is
anything that
can

crush you
A hazard is
anything that
can

hurt your
hearing
 A hazard is
anything that
can
hurt your
eyes
 A hazard is
anything that
can
make you
sick
 A hazard is
anything that
can
cause you
pain
Find the hazard
 Keeping your work area
safe
What would
you do if this
was you?
Make your workplace
safe
 Keeping your work area safe

What is wrong here?

Which picture shows the safe workplace?
 CHEMICAL & DUST
HAZARDS
(cleaning products,
pesticides, asbestos, etc.)
BIOLOGICAL ERGONOMIC
HAZARDS HAZARDS
(repetition, lifting, awkward
(mold, insects/pests,
communicable diseases, etc.) postures, etc.)
WORK
ORGANIZATION
HAZARDS
Things that cause STRESS!

SAFETY HAZARDS PHYSICAL HAZARDS

(slips, trips and falls, faulty (noise, temperature
equipment, etc.) extremes, radiation, etc.)
 Hierarchy of Controls
Elimination/Substitution
Most Effective Requires a physical
change to the
workplace

Requires worker or
employer to do
something
Requires
worker to
wear
something
Least Effective
 CONTROLS: Engineering
CONTROL AT THE SOURCE!
Limits the hazard but doesn’t entirely remove it.

Other Examples:
Mechanical Guards
Wet Methods for Dust
Enclosures/Isolation
Dilution Ventilation

Image: by JohnRH4's photostream

Local Exhaust
Image: by Kare_Products

Proper Image: by purpleslog’s photostream

equipment Re-designed Tools

 CONTROLS: Administrative
Aimed at Reducing Employee Exposure to Hazards
but Not Removing Them!

 Changes in work procedures such as:

 Written safety policies/rules

 Schedule changes, such as:

 Lengthened or Additional Rest Breaks
 Job Rotation
 Adjusting the Work Pace

 Training with the goal of reducing the duration,

frequency and severity of exposure to
hazards
 CONTROLS: PPE
Personal Protective Equipment
Control of LAST RESORT!

 Special Clothing

 Eye Protection

 Hearing Protection

 Respiratory Protection

CONTROL IS AT THE WORKER!

31