How can you align your process safety audit program with your safety culture?

1 Define your safety culture

Before you start planning your process safety audit program, you need to have a clear and shared understanding of what your safety culture is and what you want it to be. Safety culture is the collective attitude, beliefs, and norms that influence how people think and act about safety in your organization. It is shaped by your leadership, communication, training, policies, procedures, rewards, and feedback systems. To define your safety culture, you can use various methods, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, workshops, or observations, to assess the current state of your safety culture and identify the gaps and strengths. You can also use frameworks, such as the Safety Culture Maturity Model or the Process Safety Culture Framework, to benchmark your safety culture against best practices and standards.

2 Align your audit objectives and scope

Once you have defined your safety culture, you can align your process safety audit objectives and scope with your safety culture vision and goals. Your audit objectives should reflect what you want to achieve from your audit program, such as verifying compliance, identifying risks, improving performance, or enhancing learning. Your audit scope should cover the critical elements of your process safety management system, such as hazard identification, risk assessment, operating procedures, emergency response, incident investigation, or management of change. You should also consider the frequency, duration, and level of detail of your audits, depending on your risk profile, resources, and priorities. You should communicate your audit objectives and scope to your audit team and stakeholders clearly and consistently, and ensure that they are aligned with your safety policies and expectations.

3 Select and train your auditors

Your auditors are the key actors in your process safety audit program, and their skills, knowledge, and attitudes can influence the quality and outcomes of your audits. Therefore, you should select and train your auditors carefully, based on their technical expertise, auditing experience, and interpersonal skills. You should also ensure that your auditors understand and embody your safety culture values and principles, and that they can communicate and interact with your auditees effectively and respectfully. You should provide your auditors with adequate training and guidance on the audit standards, criteria, methods, tools, and reporting formats, as well as on the safety culture aspects, such as the behavioral indicators, the feedback techniques, or the learning opportunities.

4 Conduct your audits and reviews

When conducting process safety audits and reviews, it is essential to follow a systematic and consistent process that covers the planning, execution, reporting, and follow-up stages. Additionally, you should apply the principles and practices of your safety culture throughout the audit process. This includes engaging and involving auditees and stakeholders in the planning and preparation of the audit, as well as collecting evidence and data through interviews, observations, document reviews, or walk-throughs. Furthermore, you should provide auditees and stakeholders with timely, accurate, and transparent reports on your audit findings, recommendations, and actions. Lastly, you should support and monitor the implementation of audit actions and improvements while recognizing and rewarding the achievements of auditees and stakeholders.

5 Evaluate and improve your audit program

Finally, you should evaluate and improve your process safety audit program regularly, to ensure that it meets your objectives and expectations, and that it contributes to your safety culture development and enhancement. You should use various indicators and measures, such as the audit coverage, frequency, quality, results, actions, or feedback, to assess the performance and impact of your audit program. You should also seek and incorporate the feedback and suggestions of your auditors, auditees, and stakeholders on the strengths and weaknesses of your audit program, and identify the opportunities and challenges for improvement. You should communicate and share your evaluation results and improvement actions with your audit team and stakeholders, and celebrate and acknowledge your achievements and learnings.