Investing in Safety: How Cultivating a Strong Safety Culture Boosts Financial Success

Safety culture in the workplace is not just about compliance; it’s a strategic asset that can significantly impact an organisation’s safety performance and, ultimately, its financial performance ¹. A recent longitudinal study has shed light on this interconnection, providing valuable insights for businesses aiming to enhance their safety protocols and financial outcomes.

Overview

The study, conducted over a span of 14 years (2005-2019), analysed data from European companies across various sectors. It aimed to understand the impact of a robust safety culture on safety performance and how this, in turn, affects financial performance.

The findings were clear: companies that invested in comprehensive safety policies, employee training, and safety management systems not only saw improvements in safety metrics but also enjoyed better financial results ² which is also in line with previous research.^{3 4 5}

Safety Culture as a Financial Lever

The research highlighted that safety culture goes beyond mere accident prevention. It encompasses a proactive approach to managing employee relationships in a safe and socially responsible manner. This approach helps in mitigating workplace risks and protecting the company from reputational damage.

A Comprehensive Approach to Safety Culture

The study advocates for a holistic approach to safety culture, considering technological, organisational, and human factors as interrelated elements. Cultivating a culture of safety requires efforts at both individual and organisational levels, integrating safety into various aspects of operations (Bautista-Bernal et al., 2024). For contractor safety, implementing a health and safety policy within the key aspects of the supply chain was deemed most influential.

Organisations with a positive safety culture are characterised by a collective attitude based on collective commitment, risk awareness, collective learning and trust in prevention. These organisations are distinguished by communication based on mutual trust, a shared perception of the importance of safety and confidence in the effectiveness of preventive measures.⁶

Strategic Implications for Organisations

Organisations are encouraged to prioritise a culture of safety as part of their strategic objectives. The study suggests an incentive-based approach to persuade firms to adopt OHS systems, maintain an employee health and safety team, and develop preventive initiatives to improve safety conditions in the supply chain (Bautista-Bernal et al., 2024), e.g.  rather than focusing on injury classification or the absence of harm, recognise what goes right in the presence of effective controls.

So Where to Start?

There are endless options related to prioritising systems, effective teams, and preventive initiatives to improve safety conditions in the supply chain. Why not ask your employee?

FEFO Consulting often utilise the suit of Health and Safety Index Diagnostic (Dx) tools to seek feedback and prioritise strategic objectives. For those organisations not ready for a staff survey, speak to us about our range of Assessment (Ax) tools that can also be applied in an efficient way to support safety culture improvements.    

Our targeted approach enables us to partner with organisations to develop strategic Objectives and Key Results (OKR), and tailored deployments that cascade throughout the organisations to add value and support improvements.  

Conclusion

This study underscores the importance of safety culture in enhancing safety performance and driving financial success. It provides a compelling case for organisations to invest in safety, not just as a compliance requirement, but as a strategic move that can yield significant financial rewards.

For more information on investing in health and safety strategy, refer to our blog on OKR’s vs KPI’s, our Health and Safety Index or contact us.

References:

1. Hajmohammad & Vachon, S. &. (2014). Safety Culture: A Catalyst for Sustainable Development. Journal of Business Ethics. ↩︎
2. Bautista-Bernal et al., I. (2024). Safety culture, safety performance and financial performance. A longitudinal study. Safety Science. ↩︎
3. Feng et al., Y. (2014). Exploring the interactive effects of safety investments, safety culture and project hazard on safety performance: An empirical analysis. International Journal of Project Management. ↩︎
4. Kalteh et al., H. O. (2019). The relationship between safety culture and safety climate and safety performance: a systematic review. International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics. ↩︎
5. Kundu et al., S. (2016). Effects of Safety Climate, Safety Attitude, and Safety Performance on Firm Performance: A Study of an Automobile Firm. International Journal of Biometrics ↩︎
6. Gadd & Collins. (2002). HSL/2002/25-Safety Culture: A review of the literature. Semantic Scholar. ↩︎