The Role of Senior Leadership in the Process of Improving Maturity in a Safety Culture

摘要

Mining continues to be perceived as a high-risk activity. The Mining Industry has advancedsignificantly over the years in controlling risks and reducing injuries and fatalities. However, suchadvances have occurred unevenly, between companies, and countries, with different resultsassociated with variances in culture, technology, and regulatory environments. While many of themore advanced countries, and companies, have made improvements in many health and safetyindicators, they have consistently struggled to eliminate fatalities, and this has been a focus for theindustry. Making further improvements in safety requires understanding the factors at a site thatimpact on safety.In this article we argue that the individual and collective behavior of people in operations is highlydependent on organizational culture, and that changing that behavior collectively needs to beaddressed with a change management perspective, specifically in how an organization, and thegroups inside it “do things” related to safety. Safety culture is then about “organizational collectivepractices” a view more practical to effect change (Hopkins, 2005 in Stemn, 2019). To bring change tothe safety culture and move an organization forward on what we conceptualize as a “journey”, weconsider a practical view that allows change and the enabling role of Senior Leadership to introduceand sustain such change.