What’s the peer-to-peer attitude about safety? Do you trust the company? Are there enough safety resources?
These are the types of questions you’ll find on the Health and Safety Climate Tool that Jeff Lyth is describing at Bridging the Gap. Jeff is a senior safety advisor for the BC Construction Safety Alliance, and he’ll be at the 2015 construction safety conference November 12 and 13 in Richmond, BC, Canada.
The Safety Climate Tool was created by the UK’s Health and Safety Executive Laboratory in 1997 and has evolved into an online product that informs employers about their employees’ perception of safety culture in their workplace. It includes 40 questions – for workers, supervisors, and managers – and a detailed summary of their responses.
The BCCSA has surveyed nearly 2,000 workers from 20 companies so far in 2015. Many are in the Certificate of Recognition (COR) program, but it’s open to any construction firm in BC.
“The response has been hugely favourable as a diagnostic,” Jeff said. “The software really does a good job of measuring responses and interpreting the results… The first overture to the conversation around safety is to ask the questions. The results actually beg more questions, and good companies are continuing the dialogue with their workforce.”
The tool is useful for other industries, too.
“Whatever the industry you work in or the size of your organisation, the Safety Climate Tool gives you an objective measure of your safety culture – the ‘way things are done’ in your organisation when it comes to health and safety – as the starting point for improvement,” reads the HSE website.
Bridging the Gap will look at falls from elevation, exposure to asbestos, and other issues identified in WorkSafeBC’s Construction High-Risk Strategy. Pre-conference courses on fundamentals of rigging, accident/incident investigations, and fall protection will be held on November 12.
This annual conference is designed for industry managers, supervisors, trades workers, OHS officers, coordinators, safety committee members, and anyone else who advocates for construction safety. Thanks to Jeff for telling me about this valuable tool for building safety culture.
