Published in June 2006 Australian Longwall Magazine

The safety performance of most mines has continued to improve over many years. There has been concern that in some areas this performance improvement, as demonstrated by outcome measures such as Lost Time Injuries or Recordable Injuries, has slowed or plateaued. Alongside equipment and systems strategies, the climate or culture of the mines has been the subject of improvement efforts.

All of us who have worked in more than one organisation recognise there are intrinsic differences between organisations in how people interact and the values that are reflected in their work. However, few people interested in improving safety fully understand how culture influences safety and how to make changes in culture.

The organisational culture diagnostic instrument

In order to determine safety climate and important characteristics of the safety culture, BST Inc researched and developed a diagnostic and predictive tool – the Organisational Culture Diagnostic Instrument (OCDI). The instrument is used to profile current climate and culture; create a baseline for comparison over time; and assist in the design of culture change interventions.

The elements of the OCDI are organised into groups of items that measure a particular aspect of organisational functioning.

Organisational factor:

Procedural Justice addresses perceived fairness in actions by first-level supervisors that impact on employees.

Leader-Member Exchange measures beliefs about the strength of employees’ working relationships with the supervisor, such as the supervisor’s willingness to “go to bat” for the employee.

Management Credibility measures perceptions about management’s judgment, honesty, consistency, fairness, and openness in dealing with workers.

Perceived Organisational Support measures perceptions of the organisation’s concern for the needs and interests of employees, and the availability of support.

Team factor:

Teamwork measures the perceived effectiveness of work groups to function as an effective team.

Work Group Relations measures perceptions about the degree to which co-workers treat each other with respect, listen to each other’s ideas, help one another, and follow through on commitments made.

Safety specific factors:

Organisational Value for Safety measures perceptions of the extent to which the organisation values safety as represented by the priority of safety compared to other concerns and how informed management is about safety issues.

Upward Communication measures perceptions of the quality and quantity of upward communications about safety, the extent to which people feel encouraged to bring up safety concerns, and the level of comfort in discussing safety-related issues with the supervisor.

Approaching Others measures beliefs about the likelihood that workers will speak up to a co-worker whom they think is at risk for injury and pass along information about safety.

Additional scales:

Social Efficacy measures beliefs about the ability of workers to relate effectively with others, to advocate a position within the workgroup, and to stick to their point of view despite opposition.

Incident Reporting measures tendency of workers to report injuries and incidents, and the general climate around reporting.

Diagnosing culture in underground coal mines

For this study, the OCDI was used in six underground coal mines in NSW, including five longwall mines, from 2003-06 and 827 people were surveyed. Most of these mines have operated for many years and have well-established workforces and ways of going about their business.

The results using the raw scores showed substantial challenges for the industry in the perceived credibility and support of senior managers and the company. Not surprisingly, managers held more positive views on credibility, company values for safety and organisational support than other employees.

Supervisors/deputies tend to hold views not dissimilar to the rest of the employee population. This is not surprising, given the employment origins of most supervisors as well as the close nature of the working relationship and environment of the underground crews.

When compared with other groups of employees from industry around the world, it was found underground coal employees had a lower perception of “my company” and “my supervisor” elements. On the other hand, a common finding was that the “mateship” culture of underground mines; strong perceptions of teamwork, work group relations and social efficacy but a reluctance to report all incidents using company systems and relative resistance to engaging in constructive feedback with workmates about safety.

The benefits of this finding should of course be promoted – reliance of the team on each and every one of its members in the underground environment is the greatest reason for the development and promotion of an interdependent safety culture.

In feeding this information back to the workforce, additional insights have been obtained into the reasons employees give for the perceptions identified in the OCDI. This feedback has been used to design climate/culture interventions at every level of the workforce. Using BST behavioural techniques, risk-e has worked with each of these mines to change and secure the degree to which the culture supports safety. In one example, following culture change interventions at one of these mines over 20 months, substantial improvement in key areas of weakness was recorded. This paralleled steady and sustained improvement in safety performance.

Interventions have been implemented that focus primarily on improving the relationship between employees and the company; better equipping supervisors for their leadership role; helping employees give each other regular feedback about safety; and reporting all incidents. It is noteworthy, however, that Incident Reporting remains a challenge for most mines.

Conclusion

Understanding and managing both climate and culture is critical to achieving and maintaining excellent safety performance. Diagnosing the climate/culture of the organisation is an essential first step before a logical strategy designed to change in favour of sustained safety performance improvement can be implemented.

Strong safety leaders understand the behaviour and other factors that influence climate and use the culture to help drive safety performance rather than being slaves to the unwanted manifestations of culture.