Organizations face numerous barriers preventing them from attaining safety performance excellence. One of the barriers is the fact that senior managers aren't demanding excellence and therefore are not committed to or involved in the safety management process. As a result of this, the organizations managers and supervisors don't accept responsibility for worker and workplace safety and are not held accountable for performance. One of the largest barriers is that rules aren't being rigidly or consistently enforced. Those same organizations do not communicate consequences for violating rules and procedures. Consequently, employees challenge compliance regularly. In most organizations, managers, supervisors, and employees are not involved in constant hazard recognition and remediation. Employee risk-taking is condoned/encouraged and employees aren't held personally responsible for their own performance. Another barrier is that the root causes of hazards and accidents are rarely identified and addressed. Finally, goals, objectives, and accountability measures are ineffective or non-existent, and poor organizational safety performance is tolerated. In these organizations, work output, quality and cost issues strongly overshadow safety performance. However, the biggest hurdle for most organizations is finding a way to fix all of those things that is successful, sustainable, and achievable.
Many organizations know what they must do to improve their safety culture, but have difficulty making it happen. When attempting to improve their safety culture, most organizations get stuck somewhere between theory and application.
For management and employees at all levels to engage in any safety improvement process, it must be simple and cannot be overly time-consuming. Time is a most valuable commodity in any organization.Management-Based Safety is a simple process designed to help organizations get beyond theory and into practical application of safety management system concepts. The Management-Based Safety is a comprehensive streamlined safety management system designed to support: OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program Criteria, ISO 18001 certification and ANSI Z- 10 Safety and Health Management System compliance.
In 2005, U.S. scheduled air carriers had 10.9 million departures. They flew more than 18.7 million flight hours. During this time they experienced a remarkable safety record of 32 total accidents with 3 related fatalities. That translated to 0.171 accidents per 100,000 flight hours and 0.0016 fatal accidents per 100,000 flight hours. Conversely, in 2004, U.S workplaces experienced 4.2 million OSHA Recordable Injury & Illness Cases. U.S. workers had 1.2 million Lost Workday Cases and suffered 5,702 traumatic workplace fatalities. Tragically, four of every 100,000 workers died on the job in 2005. 4.6 of every 100 workers suffered OSHA recordable injuries and 2.4 employee injuries per 100 were classified as lost time. Furthermore, it is estimated that tens of thousands of other workplace deaths can be attributed to chronic occupational diseases each year. Although traditional workplaces have improved their safety performance over the years, they are still considerably worse than the in-flight safety performance logged by U.S. air carriers.
