A Survey of Safety Culture

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A Survey of Safety Culture

• DOE ISM Best Practices Workshop
• Lettie Chilson,
• West Valley Nuclear Services Company

September 13, 2006
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Presentation Topics

• Decision to conduct the survey
• Development and logistics
• Analysis
• Sharing Results
• Actions/Improvements
• Lessons Learned

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Why a Workforce Survey?

• Safety Survey has been conducted every year since
  1995.
• Safety performance at WVNSCO was at record levels
  (TRC and Dart near 0, 4 million safe work hours)
• Site metrics cant measure attitudes/feelings
• Being Safe and Feeling Safe are not the same.

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Survey Development

• Used ISM draft attributes that focused on
  behaviors, perceptions and feelings
• 24 statements or questions
• One yes/no question
• Range 5 Strongly agree 1 Strongly Disagree
• Senior management and represented labor reviewed
  the survey prior

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Logistics

• All employees were given a copy by their
  supervisor
• Each survey had a ticket to tear off for an
  incentive drawing
• Individual survey responses were held in
  confidence

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Analysis

• Total Respondents 173 of 334
• Percent 51
• The following percentages of those responding
  are
• Hourly 23
• Supervisors 7
• Exempt 24
• Managers 5
• Non-Exempt 12
• Did not Identify 30
• The survey demographics aligned very closely
  (within 1 of each category) to actual company
  demographics

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Analysis
The average of all responses was slightly above 4
(4.01) which indicates that overall a positive
safety culture exists at WVNSCO.
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Analysis

• Questions were reviewed by groupings.
• The questions with the higher average response
  (gt4)
• individual accountability
• understanding of safety program responsibilities.
  
• This indicates that in general employees
  understand their role in safety and feel they
  positively contribute to making work safer.
• The Questions with the lower overall averages
  (lt4)
• related to the actions of others in accepting or
  valuing employee input
• communicating appropriate feedback.
• Comments generally indicated employees understand
  their rights and want to contribute to effective
  safe work but feel their contributions are not
  always being considered by work planners or line
  management.
• This was not unexpected and was consistent with
  other indicators and management observations.

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Analysis

• Generally curves follow each other
• Management/Supervisors closely match
• Hourly and non-exempt closely match
• Focus on understanding and reducing the distance
  between the lines.

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Individual Questions

• Question 2 Overall 3.71
• Workers are actively involved in identification,
  planning, and improvement of work and work
  practices for the project

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Comments

• All Comments were sorted by question and stripped
  of identifying information.
• Examples of Comments from Question 2

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Sharing Results

• Results presented to employee based safety
  committees
• Safety Success
• Mutli-disciplined group with line supervisor as
  lead
• Central Safety
• Senior Management and Union Leaders meet monthly
  with safety program managers
• ISMS Annual Review

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Actions / Improvements

• Communication
• Represented labor presence at 730 morning
  planning meeting
• Increased communication of company issues and
  status of work/contract
• Senior management emphasis daily on worker
  involvement and team accountability
• Human Performance tools/techniques added to
  senior management and supervisor briefings

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Action / Improvement

• PPE
• action was taken to ensure specific PPE comments
  were addressed
• Availability
• Site wide PPE policy
• Tooling Availability Review
• Results provided to Integrated Assessment Council
  for assessment planning
• Weekly Talking Points issued to Supervisors to
  discuss with workers address most critical
  issues including contract status, first aids,
  benefits, etc.

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Lessons Learned

• Workers provided input on survey questions
• Wording
• Number of questions
• Baseline year should be established and
  improvement measured annually
• Confidentiality is key
• Incentives Make safety/company related
• Trust.135 incentive tickets returned

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Conclusion

• Survey can provide a good relative measure of
  safety culture
• Its not all about statistics.one comment can
  open a door of big improvement opportunity
• Dont be afraidthe answers represent feelings
  that can help open communication