Safety Cutture

Recently,  more attention has been given to the importance of behavioral and cultural aspects of safety management in organizations, as investigations of major accidents such as Piper Alpha and Chernobyl showed that despite all the engineering and protection factors used, Severe, in high-risk industries, there is still the potential for major diasters. The more important issue is that these mistakes do not merely appear in the form of a person's error, but often appear in the form of an incomplete behavioral culture. Therefore, we must strive to increase the level of safety culture, which is the system of beliefs and values shared by an organization, in order to make behaviors safer. After explaining the structure and status of safety culture in the organization in Dafak Shomal Steel Complex , strategies for promoting safety culture and how it is deployed are considered.
The workforce of every country, especially in the developing countries, is considered an important part of it and is one of the foundations of economic and social development . Undoubtedly  Without a healthy workforce, the prosperity and self-sufficiency of the economy and industry will certainly not be possible. Therefore, protecting and improving the workforce’s health and work environment  is of great importance. Statistics released by various countries and international associations indicate that in both large and small industrial centers, millions of people lose their lives or become disabled, every year due to work-related accidents  and this tragic procedure still continues to this day .

The emergence of such problems has exacerbated the need to learn and adhere to the principles of safety and health and has prompted individuals to seek fundamental and scientific solutions to maintain human health. Accordingly, industrial safety topics, occupational safety systems, as well as various safety theories such as Domino theory, Multidisciplinary theory and so on were formed. Its health and safety units deal with work environment  safety and health issues in industrial societies and helped reduce accidents.

1. What are the causes of accidents and how can they be prevented or reduced?
Accidents are caused by unsafe behavior and conditions, and often refer to unsafe behavior which is the reflection of the organization's safety culture. If the safety culture of an organization is high, people's behaviors are safer and as a result fewer accidents occur and consequently the damage is significantly reduced. Therefore, it is an obligation, to strengthen the safety culture and this can be investigated and implemented in different ways.
Usually following the shock of an accident, the management of industrial units and technological systems decide to root out the factors that cause it. If this evaluation is not execute correctly, the cause of the accident will remain unchanged in the system and later   the combination of specific operating conditions , Hardware failures , human error will cause another form of incident .

2. New Approach to Safety (based on approaches which are used in the Complex) :
Considering that safety culture has a special place in the modern attitude of safety, Providing motivation, a sense of ownership, responsibility and accountability, the practical commitment of managers to the principle of safety priority over other aspects such as production, are characteristics of an organization with a safety culture. In this organization, the roots of small events which cause accidents are identified and ineffective. There is a spirit of criticism and questioning for the staff and an environment far from blamed for human error among all the personnel .

3. Organizational culture and safety culture:
According to existing definitions of corporate culture, it is the combination of values, beliefs and behavior patterns shared by members of an organization which ultimately represent the personality and behavior of that organization. In other words, the behavior and attitudes of the members of the organization are a function of the culture. The purpose of this definition is to identify a similar and related concept called safety culture.
The term safety culture came into play after the 1986 Chernobyl accident. An accident that occurred due to a weak safety culture and errors and violations that disrupted the operational processes and ultimately the catastrophe. It is obvious from its definitions that the safety culture is part of the overall culture of the organization which influences and directs the behaviors and attitudes of the members towards safety.

- Safety culture is a common part of group ‘s thought in the organization at any level.
- Safety culture is an effective area in the safe behavior of employees at work.
- The safety culture is reflected between the incentive system and the immune function.
- The culture of safety in organizational desires , learning from errors and consequences , accidents and to extend these findings to the organization has an effective role.
- The safety culture is relatively tolerant and resistant to the changes.

4. The place of safety culture in manufacturing environment .
In manufacturing establishments, observing safety regulations is more important than other activities. So that preventing and controlling accidents before taking any action is a kind of safety culture itself. Working in a securely manner is a human and cultural attitude, which means that when a safety culture in an organization is optimally expanded, the attitude of the organization's personnel toward the need to adhere to safety principles is ideally driven. The weakness of the culture of industrial safety in organizations results in enormous financial and human costs and losses.

5. Strategies for successful performance of safety culture .
Implementation of the HSE culture platform is emphasized at Dorfak Shomal Steel Complex. The following are some of the factors that are effective in creating and promoting an occupational safety and health culture:

- Safety Instructure:  
Preparing complete and basic standards and guidelines ,is forming the core of an immune system in an industry or organization. An administrator  by using these instructions verifies the integrity of different activities. The instructions make the training program easier and simpler  . In this complex, all instructions are always reviewed according to OHSAS 18001, as well as the operation control guidelines, information sheet and Production material and other related documentation..

- Safety principles training:
The role of occupational safety and health education in increasing the level of knowledge of employees' safety, awareness of physical and mental health, awareness of the symptoms and how to deal with them, preventing accidents and creating and promoting a safety culture is necessary. Training can enable a person to engage in a right time, by using safety guidelines. In this Complex, the risks identified in the outputs of the risk identification and assessment process are taught to all staff, therefore the training at different time points, requires a variety of knowledge levels.

- Formation of HSE committees
The purpose of the HSE committee is to oversee the entire HSE system to ensure that the production operation is performing correctly and injuries and diseases are reducing. It also coordinates all activities and projects that impact safety, health and the environment. The HSE’s overall activities, including identifying potential and actual safety and health problems, proposing plans and activities to improve safety, increasing monitoring of employee health and safety awareness, and receiving feedback and suggestions from supervisors and staff. is. These meetings, which are held on monthly, have at least one representative from each member department. Each member presents specific activities , programs and problems related to the  department; it is essential that each member is in touch with all of the departmental groups to ensure that all issues are mentioned.

- Unit performance monitoring system:
Performance monitoring, as it is seen at all levels of management, is essential for the progress of the business.  Managers should insist that safety monitoring is the first issue to be discussed in the report of any operational unit. Whether it's a company annual report or a weekly report. The safety monitoring system seeks to determine how much each individual or unit of the company is on the intended target and the standard of the organization, or how far it deviates from its strengths, and for further enhancing the operation, it offers solutions and suggestions.

- Visual management through signs and posters:
Another mean used to improve occupational safety and health is the use of HSE posters. Signs and posters neither make employees safe nor cause them to work securely, but as the culture of safety within the organization grows, signs and posters can remind employees of the importance of occupational safety and health at the factory. They can also remind employees that management is concerned about their safety.

- Maintenance and Safety:
The basis of the activity of each industrial unit is its equipment and machinery, and any failure in the operation of the machinery of an industrial unit means the disruption of that unit's activity. On the other hand, the dependence of the performance of different machinery and stages of production processes on each other is one of the preventive approaches in the field of maintenance.

- Management support for safety:
The Managers of Complex are supporting the plans and by reviewing all financial matters (change management approach), advertising, meetings, attendance, encouragement and rewards (identifying individuals or units with positive performance through Monthly evaluations or through HSE unit reports, have helped to create, promote and sustain a safety culture.

6. Characteristics of safety culture:
Some of the characteristics of a safety culture that are derived from the general characteristics of a culture are as follows:
- Safety culture is a kind of learning; therefore, one of the major causes of inadequate safety culture is the low level of awareness of people, and accordingly one of the strategies to promote , is to increase the awareness through a variety of training.
- Safety culture is dynamic, transformative and unchangable, although ,Inappropriate aspects of the safety culture can be changed over time.
- Safety culture is a tool for expressing people's creativity in the field of safety and promotion and is an effective step in promoting safety culture by creating a collaborative platform.
- Safety culture is a social issue. In other words, cultural habits have social roots which are shared by organizational staff. Group habits from which cultures emergeو form norms or patterns of behavior.
- About 80% of accidents are rooted in human factors and return to human error. Therefore, in order to achieve a safe and healthy environment, and maintaining the workforce and thus to achieve a dynamic industry that is a key factor in sustainable development, the incidents must fundamentally tackled and their root causes eliminated. A very important factor that can help us in this way is the culture of safety.