2. About CultureSAFE

Programme Overview

CultureSAFE is a free, voluntary programme designed to help your company to:

Understand the state of its workplace safety and health (WSH) culture
Cultivate a progressive WSH culture.

The programme is based on the CultureSAFE Model and Index System, which is reflected in the 5-step CultureSAFE cycle. The cycle starts with a diagnosis and report of your company's existing culture. This is followed by action planning to improve your company's WSH culture. Once you have completed the implementation of your action plan, you will review and evaluate your implementation for further improvement.

Benefits

As a participating company of the CultureSAFE programe, you can:

Use the CultureSAFE model to assess your company's WSH culture;
Join the CultureSAFE community and learn from its best practices; and
Gain industry and public recognition as a participating company of CultureSAFE.

You are encouraged to repeat the CultureSAFE process regularly. For your continual efforts, your company will receive a Certificate of Commendation (PDF) and public recognition as a CultureSAFE Company when you start your second 5-step cycle.

5-step CultureSAFE Cycle

The diagram below illustrates the 5-step CultureSAFE cycle. You are encouraged to sustain WSH culture building by implementing this cycle continuously.

Step 1: Diagnostic

In this step, you identify your company's strengths and weaknesses from a cultural perspective. This will help you to prioritise and target resources for improvement. You may evaluate your company's WSH culture through the following steps:

Steps

Description

1a:Perception survey

Once you have applied for CultureSAFE, you may start the perception survey. The survey is a questionnaire to determine the WSH beliefs, values and practices of managers, supervisors and workers.

To ensure an accurate assessment and allow all employees to participate, the questionnaire is available in:

English (manager, supervisor and worker)
Chinese (manager, supervisor and worker)
Tamil (manager, supervisor and worker)
Bengali (manager, supervisor and worker)
Hindi (manager, supervisor and worker)
Thai (manager, supervisor and worker)
Malay (manager, supervisor and worker)
Burmese (manager, supervisor and worker)

1b:Evidence-based assessment(optional)

Once you have completed the perception survey, you may perform the evidence-based assessment yourself or engage a consultant to complete it on your behalf.

The evidence-based assessment involves the clarification and validation of data from the perception survey through:

Once you have completed this step, your company will be included in our list of CultureSAFE companies.

Step 2: Reporting

We will generate a report on your company's culture profile, and strengths and areas for improvement. The report will include:

Your organisation's attribute profile;
A dimension profile of the attributes;
A job level comparison by dimension (organisation); and
A job level comparison by dimension (job specific).

Step 3: Action Planning

Based on the report from Step 2, you will create an action plan to address areas for improvement. Your plan should include proposed culture building initiatives, and their corresponding performance indicators.

Culture building initiatives

Choose culture building initiatives based on the unique needs of your organisation. Refer to the table below for examples of initiatives that may be useful for your WSH culture building journey. These initiatives have been grouped according to the attributes of the CultureSAFE Model.

Attribute	Sample initiatives
Leadership and commitment	Vision Zero Movement:Your management can demonstrate commitment to WSH through the Vision Zero Movement. The movement calls for the commitment of everyone to embrace a mindset that all injuries and ill-health at work are preventable, and a belief that zero harm is possible.
Governance	Safety Timeouts(PDF): You can practise good WSH governance through Safety Timeouts. These are planned events where companies take time off from daily work routines to review existing WSH systems and work processes. These reviews guide the implementation of system improvements to keep safety practices in check and continually improve good WSH standards.
Work management system	bizSAFE: You can develop management capabilities and WSH Management systems through bizSAFE, a capability building programme. Fatigue management programme(PDF): You can also raise awareness of fatigue-related issues, and manage associated hazards and risks through fatigue management programmes.
Competent and learning organisation	Safety Innovation Teams:You can emphasise continuous learning across your organisation by establishing Safety Innovation Teams. These small teams focus on process improvement, innovation and teamwork to continually improve WSH in the organisation. Total WSH:You can encourage organisational growth and learning through new programmes and approaches such as Total WSH, which looks at work, safety and health together as these areas are closely interrelated.
Ownership and teamwork	WSH Advocate programme: You can create an environment where all levels of staff are motivated and empowered to act on WSH through the WSH Advocate programme. This programme recognises employees that are passionate about WSH and empowers them to engage their peers to improve WSH across the company. Behavioural observation and intervention(PDF): You can also provide opportunities for peers to lead in WSH through behavioural observation and intervention. This initiative helps companies minimise the occurrence of hazardous situations by focusing on at-risk behaviours.
Communication and reporting	WSH Channels:To facilitate organisational learning, you can use WSH channels such as WSH bulletin boards, email notices and visual reminders to serve as decentralised engagement platforms. WSH Events:You can also facilitate organisational learning by organising events such as WSH Day, WSH Convention, WSH Carnival, WSH Open House and WSH Employee Dialogue. Near miss reporting: You can establish good communication channels to respond quickly to WSH concerns by establishing a reporting system. This will enable your company to learn from near misses and improve WSH in your organisation.

Step 4: Implementation

In this step, you will implement your action plan's culture building initiatives. As you execute the action plan, you should include:

Progress and status updates; and
Monitoring schemes for each initiative.

Step 5: Review and evaluation

Finally, you should regularly review the effectiveness and results of your implementation. This will provide feedback on whether your company needs to:

Refine the action plan to ensure its robustness and sustainability; or
Work on other areas of WSH improvements.

You are encouraged to repeat the CultureSAFE cycle regularly. For your continual efforts, your company will receive a Certificate of Commendation and public recognition as a CultureSAFE Company when you start your second 5-step cycle.