1. Presentation by Mark Stephens and Jason Edwards
Theory into Practice:
Safety Culture
Presentation by Mark Stephens and Jason Edwards
&

2. UnitingCare Queensland
Blue Care, UnitingCare Community, UnitingCare Health
UCQ is one of Australia's largest not for profit provider of community health and residential aged care.
Over staff and volunteers
2200 vehicles
Over 5000 fleet drivers
Average 1000 drivers paid kilometer allowance (Grey Fleet)
Travelling 32 Million Kilometres per year
10,000 client visits per week
Australian Regional and Remote Care Services (ARRCS)

3. The Motivation Behind The Program
Drivers with multiple crash history
High incidents of reversing crashes
At fault crashes with third parties that was well above industry averages
Increasing rate of traffic infringements and a relationship between drivers with infringements and crashes
Vehicles delivered to auction in poor condition resulting in reduced residual values
Increasing insurance costs

4. Our Objectives
To achieve a desired high level of best practice in fleet safety and instil a culture of road and vehicle safety by;
providing drivers with the knowledge to be safe and courteous drivers
implementing systems that identify risks and gaps in the operation of vehicles, drivers and cost centres
developing interventions to address and reduce identified risks
To achieve a high level of sustainability both for staff and fleet operations through;
safe and responsible drivers
low emission fleet
cost effective fleet operations
Ensuring “duty of care compliance” through;
Policies, procedures and training in vehicle and driver safety
Strategies to identify emerging Duty of Care responsibilities
In line with our organisational Values to spread the road safety message to staff, volunteers and the community

5. The Journey in Facts – Blue Care

6. Management Support
No significant change to practice or policy will succeed without unequivocal executive and centre management support. Before we commenced this program we made sure we had support from:
Management with the commitment to achieve the objectives
All levels of the organisation for the objectives
and
The authority to develop and implement change
That costs of the program would not be a barrier to achieving our objectives

7. Methodology Education methods used to raise awareness
Development of unique resources that Blue Care staff would relate to including safe driving handbooks, posters, dash stickers etc
Awareness campaign including internal magazine articles, messages, newsletters group orientation sessions and media releases.
Training programs using contracted trainers targeting groups or individuals
Use of Data to Identify focus areas
Fleet management system
Insurance register
Infringement register
Complaints register
How managers and staff encouraged to participate
Education in why the need to participate in driver safety awareness training
Fleet funding of trainers, travel and venue hire

8. Partnerships
The journey of developing and implementing a road safety program has involved a number of stakeholders both internal and external which was essential in achieving the objectives and the ongoing success of the program.
RACQ
CARRS-Q
Queensland University of Technology
Smartfleet
Pickles Auctions

10. Distracted Drivers are Dangerous
DO NOT USE YOUR MOBILE PHONE WHILE DRIVING
Place any mobile devices out of reach to avoid temptation

15. Thank You

16. Overview of Safety Culture Theory
Early origins – Chernobyl
Growth in popularity
Still little agreement over what it is
3 broad views of safety culture (Edwards, Davey & Armstrong, 2013)

17. Functional
Interpretive
Pragmatic
Domain
Theme
What is culture?
Measurement
Responsibility
Goal

18. Functional
Interpretive
Pragmatic
Domain
HR and Psychology
Theme
Any organisation should seek to have a strong/good safety culture
What is culture?
Good management practices
Worker perceptions and attitudes
Measurement
Safety climate surveys
Safety attitude surveys
Responsibility
Management
Goal
Safety as the top priority

19. Functional
Interpretive
Pragmatic
Domain
HR and Psychology
Sociology and Anthropology
Theme
Any organisation should seek to have a strong/good safety culture
All organisations have a culture which can influence safety
What is culture?
Good management practices
Worker perceptions and attitudes
Shared beliefs, attitudes and values (not necessarily about safety)
Measurement
Safety climate surveys
Safety attitude surveys
Spend time observing and talking to workers
Responsibility
Management
No one can control culture
Goal
Safety as the top priority
Understand culture to understand how to manage

20. Functional
Interpretive
Pragmatic
Domain
HR and Psychology
Sociology and Anthropology
Management
Theme
Any organisation should seek to have a strong/good safety culture
All organisations have a culture which can influence safety
We have a problem. Someone is doing something wrong
What is culture?
Good management practices
Worker perceptions and attitudes
Shared beliefs, attitudes and values (not necessarily about safety)
Patterns of behaviour
Measurement
Safety climate surveys
Safety attitude surveys
Spend time observing and talking to workers
Rates of near misses, incidents and injuries
Responsibility
No one can control culture
“Who cares, what can we do”
Goal
Safety as the top priority
Understand culture to understand how to manage
People acting safe

21. Overview of Safety Culture Theory
Different but all have merits
Shared beliefs and values, and management practices are meaningless unless we can reduce safety problems
Management practices, and attempts to fix behaviour won’t work if it goes against the beliefs and values of our workers
Low incident rates don’t necessarily indicate good management. There may be a disaster waiting to happen
Management practices and other contextual factors are interpreted by workers based on the beliefs and values they hold, leading to patterns of behaviour (Edwards et al. 2013; Guldenmund, 2010)

22. Typical Application
In definitions the interpretive perspective is most common
In practice and research, the functional and pragmatic approaches are most common

23. Typical Application
Assumption:: A company recognises a problem, and is able and willing to change
These companies usually either take a simple management approach or a functionalist approach
Consistent with management of other issues
Best practices are considered best practices for a reason
Known to work
Easy to find
Easy to implement

24. UCQ UCQ identified a problem (too many crashes and near misses)
Took an early management approach
analysed the problem with the available data to work out how to fix it
Determined a need to go further
Need to developing a good culture (functional approach)
Implemented a range of best practices, tailored to their organisation
Major improvement in incident rates, but also positive feedback from drivers.

25. UCQ
Done a great job applying the management and HR/Psychology approach.
However, no evidence of applying a more interpretive/sociological understanding of culture
It is not unusual for this approach to not be applied
Could see further improvements by adding this to existing strategies
By understanding the existing culture of a workforce, methods of safety intervention delivery, and well as unique approaches to solving problems can be developed resulting in further benefits to safety.

26. Thank you!
Edwards, J., Davey, J., & Armstrong, K. (2013) Returning to the roots of culture: A review and re-conceptualisation of safety culture. Safety Science, 55,
Guldenmund, F. (2010). (Mis)understanding Safety Culture and Its Relationship to Safety Management. Risk Analysis, 30(10),