Understanding Safety Culture Maturity Models

Since the conclusion of the investigation into Chernobyl’s melt-down event, several models to diagnose the level of the safety culture of a given organization have been developed.  

The Bradley curve generated by Vernon Bradley in 1995. It basically describes the relationship between incident rate and the organization behavior, from Reactive to Dependent to Independent to Interdependent (see Graph 1 for definitions). Based on this behavior, questions are developed into surveys for employees to respond. The results will provide the basis for the creation of an executable action plan for leaders and managers which allows them to improve the overall safety culture of the company. As it is a simplistic model, it can be easily applied across all types of industries of any size.

Graph 1. DuPont Bradley Curve Infographic (Source: www.sustainablesolutions.dupont.com)

Later in 2000, a different type of model, the Hudson Safety Maturity Model, was developed. The Hudson Model provided a more in-depth analysis at the level of the employee impacted by the safety culture – or lack thereof. Although it became known within a few industries, notably Oil & Gas, it was not officially published until 2005. This model framework establishes five stages of maturity (see Graph 2 for definitions):

1.    Pathological

2.    Reactive

3.    Calculative

4.    Proactive

5. Generative

Graph 2. The Hudson Safety Culture Maturity Model (Source: Lawrie, Parker, Hudson, Investigating Employee Perceptions of a Framework of Safety Culture Maturity, Safety Science, 2005)

These stages stipulate the degree of commitment felt by the workers toward safety. It also reveals the degree of trust employees manifest in their leaders and managers. If gaps are identified to reach the Generative stage, an action plan shall be developed to improve the safety culture.

The Hudson Model has become the de-facto standard for developing the safety programs and initiatives implemented by major oil and gas companies.

During the same time, The Keil Centre developed a similar model which was adopted by the United Kingdom Health and Safety Executive (UK HSE). Personally, I prefer this maturity model because it is more detailed and prescriptive than the previous two models. The UK HSE Safety Culture Maturity Model also addresses 5 stages (see Graph 3 for definitions)

1.    Emerging

2.    Managing

3.    Involving

4.    Cooperating

5.    Continually Improving

The UK HSE also uses 10 Elements of behavioral approaches for safety improvement:

1.    Management commitment and visibility

2.    Communication

3.    Productivity versus safety

4.    Learning organization

5.    Safety resources

6.    Participation

7.    Shared perceptions about safety

8.    Trust

9.    Industrial relations and job satisfaction

10. Training

Graph 3. The UK HSE Safety Culture Maturity Model (Source: The Keil Centre for the Health and Safety Executive, 2000)

Although it is clear that the survey questions generated for each model will accommodate some industries or companies of a certain size better than others, the most important thing to consider is the action plan to be developed after the results of those surveys. The actions requiring the greatest commitment of action by management will have been clearly identified as gaps. Managers will see where and what is required to improve the safety culture. Whether it is active management engagement, development of new procedures or new management systems, provision of appropriate personal protection equipment, or training, etc., the actions needed to be taken are clearly identified.

Finally, the UK HSE Model provided a continuous improvement loop via survey. When companies decide to issue a survey based on these models, their commitments shall go all the way until the closure of all the actions in the plan. Then, the survey shall be repeated in 1-2 years to once again assess the safety culture maturity improvement and to identify new gaps.

The Safety Culture maturity level desired will depend on the vision of the company and the leadership of the management team.

Thanks to Michael Green (linkedin.com/in/michael-t-green-62a7652) for his review and editing of this article.