(80b) Safety Leadership & Implementation – Independent of Culture

The workforce in industries today, is multi-cultural. Benefits to having such a diverse workforce can bring knowledge and practices to the worksite that can be utilized to benefit production. Some cultural difference, however, can be a challenge while creating and implementing a common safety culture. A few conflicting differences are:

• Contractor companies may have safety rules that are not in alignment with those of the managing company.
• Mandatory safety rules could be considered suggestions or guidelines in some cultures.
• Certain groups may encourage risky behavior because not doing so is seen as socially undesirable.
• Symbols and colors on warning signs might have multiple meanings depending on individual cultures.
• Selected cultures may follow very stringent, non-flexible hierarchical structures that are not very open to change

There are several leadership concepts that preach and practice safety as something which needs to be owned and considered by everyone on duty. The respective managements need to take into account cultural differences and work towards understanding the different rationales and expectations of a multi-cultural workforce in order to best develop safety practices. This paper will discuss how safety leadership can consider cultural differences when implementing a safety plan for a diverse workforce. Management can encourage the workers to “own” safe behaviors and empower employees to take action when they see unsafe behaviors.  Also, educating employees about off duty activities that can lead to unsafe acts at work is also valuable and helps to manage risk in the workplace is also important.