What is Safety Culture

Why Safety Culture Evolves Differently Across Organisations

Revised March 2025.

Safety culture refers to the collective values, beliefs, and behaviors that shape an organization's approach to workplace safety. It is defined by four key elements:

Safety culture is not an isolated concept—it exists within a dynamic ecosystem of leadership culture, regulatory culture, operational culture, and other influencing factors. These elements interact constantly, either reinforcing or challenging the organisation’s safety values.

How Safety Culture Evolves

Safety culture is shaped by interactions between different workplace cultures, much like how atoms interact in motion. Some interactions strengthen safety values, while others may weaken or reshape them.

The most immediate changes occur at the outer layers, where behaviours and actions are influenced first. Over time, deeper changes occur, affecting assumptions and, ultimately, the core principles of safety culture.

Key Takeaway: Safety culture is not simply created by leadership intent. It is an ongoing, evolving process, influenced by leadership actions, workplace practices, and external factors.

Historical Evolution of Safety Culture

One of the earliest formal definitions of safety culture came from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in response to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The IAEA initially defined safety culture as:

"...that assembly of characteristics and attitudes in organisations and individuals which establishes that, as an overriding priority, nuclear plant safety issues receive the attention warranted by their significance."

Over time, the IAEA evolved its definition to focus on the practical application of safety culture, introducing the concept of Culture for Safety. This concept emphasizes safety as an integral part of an organisation’s overall culture:

"...a concept describing the priority and value put on safety by the members of an organisation’s overall culture."

This shift in perspective highlights that safety culture is not static; it evolves through leadership actions, employee engagement, and continuous improvement efforts.

Subcultures Affecting an Organisation’s Safety Culture

1. Financial Culture

Financial culture shapes safety by determining how budgets are set, resources are allocated, and cost pressures are prioritised. Underfunded safety programs often reflect deeper organisational values about risk and investment.

2. Innovation Culture

Innovation culture influences safety by introducing rapid change, new technologies, and experimentation. Without agile safety systems, innovation can outpace risk controls and expose teams to unanticipated hazards.

3. Operating Culture

Operating culture reflects how daily work is structured, managed, and repeated. When discipline and precision are strong, they can reinforce safety—but rigid routines may also conceal blind spots.

4. Performance Culture

Performance culture prioritises targets, deadlines, and measurable output. When results are valued above all else, safety can become secondary, with frontline staff under pressure to cut corners or stay silent.

5. Risk Culture

Risk culture defines how comfortable an organisation is with uncertainty. Whether risk is embraced or avoided, this mindset drives how hazards are perceived, reported, and addressed—or ignored.

6. Leadership Culture

Leadership culture sets the tone for how seriously safety is taken. When leaders engage visibly and consistently with safety issues, they build trust and reinforce accountability across the organisation.

7. Stakeholder Culture

Stakeholder culture reflects how organisations respond to clients, investors, and partners. Pressure to please external audiences can lead to compromised safety decisions, especially when speed or cost is prioritised.

8. Regulatory Culture

Regulatory culture is shaped by how authorities enforce safety laws. Punitive regulators can trigger defensive behaviours, while supportive ones foster transparency, learning, and ongoing improvement.

9. Media Culture

Media culture influences how incidents are communicated and perceived. When media scrutiny is high, organisations may hide problems or sanitise messages, weakening trust and distorting learning opportunities.

10. National Culture

National culture shapes how safety is interpreted at a foundational level—through values like hierarchy, individualism, or consensus. These cultural roots affect everything from reporting habits to decision-making.

Safety culture refers to the collective values, beliefs, and behaviours that shape an organisation's approach to workplace safety.

Within an ISO 45001 safety management system, safety culture is not a standalone clause but is embedded throughout the standard—particularly through requirements for leadership, worker participation, communication, and continual improvement.

A strong safety culture doesn’t replace systems—it enhances them. It works best when supported by engaged leadership, open communication, and aligned values.

Safety culture is reflected in daily choices—whether employees report hazards, whether leaders follow safety procedures, and how safety messages are communicated.

Supportive behaviours include:

Safety culture exists whether an organisation actively develops it or not. A weak or negative culture still influences behaviour—often in unsafe ways.

Modern safety standards and regulators increasingly expect organisations to demonstrate a healthy safety culture, especially in high-risk industries.

While culture is not directly measurable like temperature, indicators can be used to assess it:

Measurement helps identify areas for improvement and track cultural changes over time.