Health and Safety Culture Flashcards

In the context of HSE culture, 'felt leadership' refers to:

Answer: The degree to which employees perceive that management genuinely cares about their safety

Felt leadership describes employees' subjective experience of whether leaders authentically care about their wellbeing, which is a strong predictor of safety culture strength.

Which cultural characteristic distinguishes 'chronic unease' as a safety concept?

Answer: Maintaining a state of watchful awareness about what could go wrong even when things appear normal

Chronic unease is a hallmark of high-reliability organizations — a mindful alertness to the potential for failure even during periods of routine success.

An organization seeks to shift from a reactive to a proactive safety culture. Which action would most directly support this transition?

Answer: Implementing predictive hazard identification processes using employee walk-throughs and risk assessments

Proactive safety culture focuses on anticipating and eliminating hazards before incidents occur through structured identification methods rather than responding after the fact.

Which of the following best explains why senior management 'walk-arounds' are considered an important safety culture tool?

Answer: They demonstrate visible commitment to safety and create opportunities for direct safety dialogue with workers

Management safety walk-arounds signal that leaders value safety enough to invest personal time, and direct conversations with workers reinforce open communication norms.

The term 'safety silos' in an organization refers to:

Answer: Isolated safety departments that fail to integrate safety across all business functions

Safety silos occur when safety is treated as a separate department's responsibility rather than being integrated into every function, weakening overall cultural commitment.

Which factor most strongly predicts whether employees will intervene when they witness a coworker engaging in an unsafe act?

Answer: Whether the organizational culture normalizes peer-to-peer safety intervention

In cultures where peer intervention is expected and encouraged, employees are far more likely to speak up, whereas in cultures where it is taboo, silence prevails.

An organization implementing behavior-based safety (BBS) should primarily use observation data to:

Answer: Identify trends in at-risk behaviors and guide targeted safety interventions and coaching

BBS observation data is most valuable when used to identify systemic behavioral trends and inform coaching conversations, not as a disciplinary or competitive tool.