Good morning everyone I'm Rodrigo, I'm a psychologist, and in this video I'm going to talk a little with you about what Safety Culture is. Incredibly, defining culture is not an easy task It's one of those things that everyone knows what it is but when it comes to setting a definition on paper a big difficulty emerges. The most precise words are missing and everything that is proposed is usually correct but not complete. In this video we're going to use the simplest definition of all Culture is the organization's way of being It is the social group characteristics
and behaviors that define it and also make it differ from others, If the company were a person culture would be that person's personality The sum of everything that makes it what it is and how it is And the safety culture is part of that It is how the organization and the people who are part of it deal with safety issues at work The value they place on safety the importance it has in their daily lives, practices, work routines the priority it has for management All this is the safety culture For some time now this term
has been widely used by large companies But where did that come from? The concept of safety culture emerged after the big industrial accidents of the 1980s in particular Bophal, in India, Chernobyl, in the Soviet Union and the Challenger spacecraft, in the United States The amount of errors that these accident’s investigations found was so big and in so many practices and systems that a wider and more comprehensive explanation was needed The explanation they made was 'lack of a safety culture' In these organizations, security was not important it was not a priority it was not everyone’s value
Safety culture was born that way a negative concept, defined by the lack of something that was supposed to be there. Only later came the culture maturity studies that proposed the classification in stages and defined what would be the traits of an improved and evolved culture Today we see many companies and leaders trying in so many ways to improve their organization's safety culture But culture can't be bought it doesn't come ready-made, it's not a pack It does not change by decree or act of will even if it comes from the organization’s highest leadership Safety culture is
a collective construction and the entire group is involved Everyone's thoughts, values, behaviors and omissions sum to the culture And you can't change it overnight, it simply doesn't work that way Culture is the stable part of a group's characteristics It is the way of being and doing, it is what remains and characterizes the group It's how we're used to doing it it's what feels right to do in this place it's what 'everyone here does' It is true that these characteristics and behaviors can change but they do not change easily They were developed over time were consolidated
over time and take time and require a lot of will and effort from everyone to change It is important to understand that as bad as an organization's safety culture may seem it represents the best way this group has found to deal with all the pressures and needs it faces It is not the way it is by chance negligence or malice It is the result of a collective construction in which everyone tries to cope with what is required with the resources available The 1980s NASA did not launch a defective spacecraft because they wanted it to explode
in front of the TV’s cameras The Soviet government did not build a Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine Ukraine to it suddenly explode and spread radiation over the entire world These facts are the consequence of a series of small decisions that analyzed one by one are logical consequences of the pressures of the moment they were taken They were not the only alternative to action but they were understandable alternatives at the time Understand that the existing culture is not an accident it did not fall from the sky nor is it a work of negligence or vandalism is
fundamental if you want to change it And it’s also important to understand that change takes time it requires a lot of trial and error, and a lot of effort from everyone involved Any expectation of an easy or quick change is nothing but self-delusion That was the message of this video In the next one, we'll look at how culture is formed and how it can be changed If you liked this video click on "Like" down there subscribe to the Segurança Positiva channel and share this content with your friends and colleagues Thanks to those who watched until
the end and a safe job to all!
