Temperature check – assessing cultural maturity

Safety culture is no exception. As understanding of the importance of occupational safety and health (OSH) has evolved from a basic compliance matter to a value-generator, influencing culture has become a board-level issue.

Executives know that informed stakeholders in a business now look for a level of sophistication in managing risk, nurturing talent and being socially responsible as evidence of the overall quality of the organisation’s management. It gives corporate customers confidence in a company as a resilient link in their supply chain and investors a sense that their capital is well placed for dependable returns.

Focusing on safety culture at the highest level is also the only way to deliver the highest levels of protection. Building safety management systems around employees and operations are essential, however, they only succeed up to a certain point. While an OSH management system can be implemented without workforce buy-in, having a strong OSH culture is necessary for it to be effective.

The most common safety maturity models, including IOSH’s model of safety, the Bradley Curve and Patrick Hudson’s Safety Ladder, all have as their desired end-state a culture in which understanding of the value of protection spreads from senior management to the whole workforce and becomes a joint endeavour.

In a fully mature safety culture, the “integrated” stage in the IOSH model of safety, everyone from the boardroom to the shop floor cares about their own and each other’s safety and is empowered to do something about it. This demonstrates those shared attitudes and beliefs about health and safety. At this level of development, OSH is seen as a strategic enabler, a plank of corporate sustainability and is promoted throughout the organisation’s supply chain.

Another variant on these models is the “safety wave”, which shows equipment, technology, processes and rules as the main levers to reduce work-related accidents, incidents and ill health in the early stages of OSH maturity. But, as with the other models, it highlights a point where these inputs alone lead to a plateau in the number of incidents. The only way to restart the downward trend and to embed continuous improvement is to focus on engaging people and changing behaviour.

External expertise

Company boards trying to develop a mature system and a robust safety culture need a means to assess progress and their level of maturity, whether it is for internal purposes or to show their endeavours to other stakeholders. There are strong arguments for bringing in external expertise to carry out cultural assessments. It brings in independence and a more objective view, avoiding the drawbacks that come from the company marking its own homework without an outside eye.

The classic “three lines of defence” schema of risk management, adopted by the Institute of Internal Auditors, relies on:

• a governing group, such as the executive board, providing oversight and direction
• management working to achieve organisational objectives and control risk day to day, and
• internal audit to assure the systems are working.

But alongside the three lines the model specifies a role for external assurance providers. External audit is important to back up the findings of internal audit and provide an extra layer of assurance to the board and stakeholders that the organisation’s risk controls are working as they should.

But many organisations are still not alive to the value of external cultural assessments. A poll of more than 700 attendees at a recent safety webinar found that of the responses only 14 per cent used third-party assessment to measure their cultural maturity. Almost half relied on internal indicators, while 17 per cent had no other measure than “gut feeling”.

Self-assessment

To support businesses in measuring safety cultural maturity, IOSH for Business has developed a business assurance model with a diagnostic tool. This tool – the business assurance tool – allows organisations to self-assess their current maturity levels. The business assurance tool is intended for continual use, to measure the impact of improvement activities and measure progress towards their maturity goals.

An IOSH associate will, at the organisation's request, conduct an evidence-based validation assessment of the business assurance tool content. IOSH will then award a confirmed level of OSH maturity – the business assurance certificate.

All organisations must have arrangements in place to manage their health and safety. Formal management systems and frameworks, such as ISO 45001:2018, can be used to help organisations manage health and safety.

ISO 45001 provides a model and the principles for a robust OSH management system. There are also opportunities to have ISO 45001 third-party certified, if organisations wish to adopt this standard and to seek third-party assurance. At this point, in the early stages of their OSH maturity, organisations are primarily looking to comply with legal and other requirements and to develop, implement and monitor their OSH management systems. This is when ISO 45001 certification is beneficial at an operational level.

The IOSH business assurance certification goes beyond compliance to understand, at a strategic level, the OSH attitudes, beliefs and behaviours and therefore the ethical tone set at board and senior management level.

Boards and their senior decision-makers play a crucial role in driving social sustainability in organisations. They are responsible for setting the strategic direction and ensuring that social sustainability is integrated into business practices.

Shareholders and investors are increasingly interested in social sustainability and cultural assessments because they recognise that companies with strong social responsibility practices tend to be more resilient and deliver long-term value. Additionally, investors are increasingly factoring environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria into their decision-making, as these factors are linked to sustainable growth and reduced operational risks

The IOSH business assurance certification process helps identify areas of strength and opportunities for improvement within the company's OSH culture, such as leadership effectiveness, governance structures, employee engagement and ethical behaviour.

It allows businesses to track their progress over time, ensuring that efforts to improve OSH culture are having a measurable impact. It provides external validation and highlights a company’s efforts to continuously evolve and improve, leading to stronger reputational standing, better talent retention, and enhanced organisational performance.

These factors are assessed at four levels of maturity: embryonic, active, proactive and integrated, in line with the IOSH model of safety. Each of these levels has three sub-divisions. “We broke down each level into three parts purely so that companies can then look at them and see progression, even if it's just on an annual basis, because full maturity can take years and isn’t necessarily a linear journey,” Gray notes.

Any organisation using the model will start by assessing its own maturity against the different levels for each of the three modules. After that the background materials provide suggested ways to develop the culture further. Once it is confident it has made enough progress, it can approach IOSH for a formal culture assessment and business assurance certification accreditation.

Gray, who previously held safety leader roles at Howdens joinery and Carlsberg breweries, stresses that the independent assessment and certification is a marker in the process of OSH cultural evolution, not an end point. “As a foundation, you have that certification,” she says, “but it's about providing assurance to the board and stakeholders that you are moving on your performance and your culture in a positive way.”

Long-term thinking

She says the maturity assessments can directly inform an organisation’s OSH strategy and planning. “They can continue to use the business assurance tool to signpost to them,.” added Gray. “To decide what they are tackling in the strategy for the next year, the next two years, the next three years.”

IOSH has aligned business assurance certification with its existing models and services. “So, for organisations that are using our safety suite of training: Leading Safety, Managing Safety, Working Safely, then you're already on that journey,” says Gray.

In focusing on the leadership and cultural elements of an organisation’s OSH management, the business assurance tool is also aligned with the movements that have grown over the past 10 years, inspired by theories such as “Safety II” formulated by Erik Hollnagel and “Safety Differently” by Sidney Dekker. These models emphasise the importance of the inputs needed to create safe and healthy organisations, and the positive fostering of safe environments and safe behaviour, rather than solely on reducing accidents and bad outcomes.

Multinational athletic brand Nike is encouraging its tier 1 manufacturing partners to gain business assurance certification accreditation to help them raise levels of safety governance and leadership. The first to achieve certification was Changshin. The South Korean manufacturer was recently assessed for certification a year-and-a-half after first checking its maturity against the IOSH model and then working with the institution in the intervening period to identify and fill the gaps in the sustainability of its arrangements to protect and nurture employees and encourage safe and healthy behaviour. Post assessment, the company is now continuing its cultural maturity journey

“We were keen to gain independent verification of the work we’ve done to build a mature safety and health culture throughout our operations. IOSH’s business assurance certification process was the perfect way for us to do this,” explains Changshin’s Assistant Director RSM Grace Ko. “Staff at all levels engaged with this work and it provides clients with extra confidence of our commitment to worker safety.”

Changshin’s commitment to external validation and to engaging its employees’ support is typical of companies striving for high levels of cultural maturity. The business assurance tool and business assurance certification are important strands in IOSH for Business’s programme to support organisations and the boards that govern them to gain the full value of top-flight OSH provision and culture in maximising profitability and making them ready for whatever the future holds.