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Safety in an organization does not happen by accident. To be successful, an organization or company needs to build an intentional culture of safety that becomes embedded into its day-to-day operations and thinking. In order for this culture to be realized, safety must become part of an organization’s foundation, supported from the top, and owned by all staff members.

Building a culture of safety requires clear focus from the executive level and needs to be held up among the highest values of an organization. It must be clearly understood at all levels that safety will not be compromised.

Intentional commitment to safety 鈥� not only in planning work, but in mundane daily activities as well 鈥� is critical to the success and strength of the culture. Indeed, work needs to get done, but not at the expense of exposing people to unmanaged risks. Safety in the daily conversation and 鈥渕essaging鈥� raises awareness of potential risks so people are empowered and motivated to act. Focusing on continuous improvement regarding safety performance must be demonstrated through direct action with clear procedures, safety protocols and accountability.

At the Port of Portland, safety performance is a metric that is monitored as a strategic area of focus. The loss control manager provides a monthly update to the executive management group of any recordable and lost-time injuries, and the manager of a person who suffers a lost-time injury must file a report, meet with the executive group to explain the circumstance, and provide a plan for avoiding future incidents.

Safety can be built into a system, but it is essential that a safety mindset also is carried by all employees through their daily activities. It is clearly in everybody’s best interest to be safety-minded to ensure that each person is able to work and go home at the end of the day.

However, there are far too many examples in this industry where serious accidents occurred because somebody opted to take a shortcut in work or neglected to pause, step back or stop a task when the person’s inner voice, or gut, told him or her to do so. This is a common message from motivational speakers who talk about safety, many whom suffered serious injuries due to their own decisions to bypass safety protocols.

Likewise, there are many injuries 鈥� even minor incidents 鈥� that would have been avoided if the first impulse was toward safety instead of expedience or complacency. This goes well beyond safety vests and hard hats. It must include awareness, attentiveness and ownership.

An example of a cultural shift to embrace safety in the general population is the use of seat belts in automobiles. Many of us grew up not using seat belts, as members of large families that piled children into cars without requiring their use. The culture has changed due to creation and enforcement of laws, awareness of the risk and the desire to protect our families. Today it would feel odd to be in a car and not have a seat belt on. It is now part of our modern civic culture. Safety in the workplace needs to be embedded and embraced in similar fashion so it becomes central to how work gets done.

An element that is crucial in building a culture of safety is creating an atmosphere of empowerment and ownership. It requires an environment where people are trained so they are equipped to identify safety risks and are knowledgeable of how to respond to a given situation.

In such an environment people are able to recognize a safety risk and are empowered to take action. This could mean that someone tells a co-worker to stop an activity that poses a risk, even though that person may occupy a higher level of authority within the organization. It could be as simple as wiping up spilled coffee so that somebody doesn’t slip or reminding a co-worker that texting while walking down stairs is not safe. This also includes cooperation by staff when a safety issue is identified by a co-worker and they are told to stop their activity due to an identified risk. In such a culture, all members of the organization take ownership of safety for themselves and for their co-workers, and take action when they see something that poses risk.

For an organization to embrace safety as a cultural element, safety needs to become a natural response to the environment as well as an intentional focus of the staff. It requires broad support across all levels and needs to foster ownership and action by each individual in identifying and addressing safety risks.

We are very good at constructing buildings and systems. We should also be attentive to building a culture of safety that allows our industries to remain viable and protects workers in delivering those systems and services.

Greg Sparks is a registered professional electrical engineer with over 30 years of experience designing and operating industrial manufacturing and power systems. He is the project development manager for the Port of Portland and a member of SafeBuild Alliance 鈥� a nonprofit organization working to achieve incident-free construction projects through the transformation of workplace cultures. For more information or to join, visit www.safebuildalliance.com.