HUMAN FACTORS
With regards to a strong safety culture, a free flow of information about risks and hazards and how to handle them to minimize threat and risk is essential.
organizational culture, it is more likely that such culture is established and cultivated by top levels of the organizational structure. Nevertheless, it is important to briefly outline the influence of safety culture on AMTs’ performance. Safety communication (Pillar 4.2 of ICAO) includes such things as safety posters and safety alerts (which is only a fraction of a safety communication program), but much more than that — organizations must develop clear, defined procedures to address safety issues from a proactive/generative perspective, which requires open communication. Such communication about safety (e.g., feedback to front line staff about safety issues, including lessons learned), needs to be both explicit and implicit (e.g., an expectation that in case of a problem people are expected to speak up, not take shortcuts just to save time, making sure that actions match explicit messages, encouraging feedback from all levels about safety issues). Explicit messages about safety are needed to help create and sustain a strong safety culture and include such things as safety posters and safety alerts (which is only a fraction of a safety communication program), explicit (person-to-person) communication about safety (e.g., feedback to front line staff about safety issues, including lessons learned). Implicit messages about safety are also important and are needed to help create and sustain
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a strong safety culture. These messages include such things as an expectations that in case of a problem people are expected to speak up, not take shortcuts just to save time, making sure that actions match explicit messages, encouraging feedback from all levels about safety issues. In other words, implicit messages (along with explicit messages) about safety are needed to help create and sustain a strong safety culture. A strong safety culture can help
ensure that both implicit and explicit messages about safety are as effective as possible. Such interaction about safety issues — between and among supervisors, staff, and management — is essential.
SAFETY CULTURE There needs to be effective communication to minimize the silo effect that would impair safety efforts, and to sustain effective SMS/ MSM programs. With regards to a strong safety culture, a free flow of information about risks and hazards and how to handle them to minimize threat and risk is essential. ICAO notes that without an atmosphere of openness, communication dries up, unsafe conditions are overlooked (or knowingly hidden), and unwittingly, the stage is set for an accident. Reinforcing this idea, Sydney Decker, the keynote speaker at 2015 CHC Safety and Quality Summit in Vancouver, indicated that positive cultures are ones that allow the boss
to hear bad news. Voluntary reporting systems for both good and bad news will help keep information about safety flowing. Every employee needs to know that he or she is a part of the safety equation. Effective formal reporting alone, however, is no substitute for appropriate direct explicit and implicit communication about safety issues between and among supervisors, staff, and management. There also needs to be continual training for individual AMTs with regard to effective communication, teamwork, CRM/ MRM, and ASMS, all of which are skills essential to engender and nurture a strong safety culture.
INDIVIDUAL AMT ACTION The following are actions that any individual AMT can take to support and bolster safety communication in the organization. Although any such action takes place within the overall safety culture of the organization, it is imperative that individual AMTs act in a safe manner regardless of how strong or weak the safety culture is. When discussing or considering safety issues, there needs to be a period of introspection. That is, AMTs need to think before they act. Think about the issue itself, and the consequences of any action taken to deal with the issue. All too often we jump into trying to solve a problem without giving it some thought. Even in an emergency, it is best to take a
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