EASA Part CAMO - Safety Culture & Organisational Factors

Sofema Online www.sofemaonline.com considers issues related to SMS Culture & Organisational Factors within an EASA Part CAMO Organisation.

Safety Culture & Organisational Factors

Safety Culture is the set of enduring values and attitudes regarding safety issues, shared by every member of every level of an organization. Safety Culture refers to the extent to which every individual and every group of the organization is aware of the risks and unknown hazards induced by its activities; is continuously behaving so as to preserve and enhance safety; is willing and able to adapt itself when facing safety issues; is willing to communicate safety issues; and consistently evaluates safety-related behavior.

To support the assessment and management of Safety Culture, the six main components (called "Characteristics") of Safety Culture are described:

○ Justness/Trust
○ Commitment to Safety
○ Adaptability
○ Awareness
○ Behavior
○ Information

Justness / Trust

Justness reflects the extent to which safe behavior and reporting of safety issues are encouraged or even rewarded and unsafe behavior is discouraged.

Under “Just Culture” conditions, individuals are not blamed for 'honest errors', but are held accountable for willful violations and gross negligence. People are less willing to inform the organisation about their own errors and other safety problems or hazards if they are afraid of being punished or prosecuted.

Commitment to Safety

Commitment reflects the extent to which every level of the organization has a positive attitude towards safety and recognizes its importance. Top management should be genuinely committed to keeping a high level of safety and give employees motivation and means to do so as well.

Management commitment to safety is the commitment from managers, particularly business owners and Nominated Persons, to ensuring their employees and anyone impacted by their operations are not exposed to unacceptable safety risks.

Adaptability

Many people use the terms adaptable and resilient interchangeably. However, they mean different things. When we are resilient, we find ways to persevere (Maintain Continuity) especially in the face of challenges.

When we are adaptable, we see that the “organisation” reality has changed. (In our context related to “Safety System Objectives”) We accept this new reality and we develop new methods and business processes to manage our responses to changes in the world.

Essentially adaptability reflects the extent to which employees and management are willing to learn from past experiences and are able to take whatever action is necessary in order to enhance the level of safety within the organization.

Awareness

Awareness reflects the extent to which employees and management are aware of the risks for themselves and for others implied by the organization’s operations. Employees and management should be constantly maintaining a high degree of vigilance with respect to safety issues.

When fully realized, safety awareness is understood as personal as well as group or team responsibility, commitment, or even an obligation. To strive to hold a constant awareness regarding our human – workplace – machine interfaces and to be able to recognize and “measure” hazards with a willingness to report when we identify any unacceptable level of “Risk”.

 

Behaviour

Behaviour reflects the extent to which every level of the organization behaves such as to maintain and improve the level of safety. From the management side, the importance of safety should be recognized and everything needed to maintain and enhance safety records should be put in place.

Ultimately, safety culture is the link between behaviour (errors and violations) and the effectiveness of the SMS. An SMS will not be effective unless there is a positive safety culture, which in turn determines how your people will contribute to the SMS and what they think about it.

Information

Information reflects the extent to which information is distributed to the right people in the organization. Employees should be encouraged to report safety concerns. Work-related information has to be communicated in the right way to the right people in order to avoid miscommunication that could lead to hazardous situations.

Safety Information and the means whereby it is communicated throughout the organisation is of critical importance to the success of the Safety System.

Effective communication is the key to a healthy, safe and productive workplace. It is needed to develop an understanding of the various hazards and to ensure roles and responsibilities are understood; to identify exposures and to determine the level of risk and develop appropriate mitigations warn against dangers; to avoid unsafe practices and to promote critical emergency response and particularly to learn about (and from!) the concerns and hazards that workers encounter.

Next Steps 

Please see Sofema Aviation Services www.sassofia.com and SofemaOnline www.sofemaonline.com for details of available EASA, FAA & other regulatory & vocational compliant training.

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