Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Week 5 lecture for class this week on Safety Culture in the Workplace. If you haven't already, please do take a look at the Week 5 overview in Canvas. So this is our last week in the course and in the Week 5 overview you'll note that, while new material is being introduced this week, Week 5, for the most part, is the culmination of all the work that you've completed throughout the course.
So I chose safety culture to lecture on this week because if you implement all the concepts that have been covered in the course, you will undoubtedly have a healthy safety culture. And I will be discussing more about healthy safety culture in the lecture today. So these are the topics that I'll be discussing. So I will start off today by talking about -- what is safety culture?
And then what makes a healthy safety culture? Next, I'll be discussing the benefits of a healthy safety culture and then sustaining a healthy safety culture. And then at the end of the lecture, as always, I do have some additional resource links for you. All right. So what is safety culture? Well, safety culture is also referred to as "safety climate." And the term "safety culture" has been defined many different ways by many different entities.
Really, though, safety culture comes down to an employer's values and beliefs about employee safety and health in the workplace. And also safety culture is about how those values and beliefs are integrated into all of the other business practices within that employer. So then what makes a healthy safety culture? Well, it's all 12 of these aspects that you see here, and it starts with management commitment.
So that's managers, supervisors, executives -- whoever the leaders are within that employer. They have to be committed to doing all that is necessary to ensure employees are kept safe and that they're healthy while they're on the job. And so next is clearly defined roles and responsibilities. And accountability goes hand in hand with this, actually, and so everyone must know who's responsible for what in terms of employee health and safety on the job.
And then open door communication policies are very important as well. So employees need to feel comfortable voicing safety and health concerns, voicing their feedback, and suggestions also to anyone at the employer and anyone that's working at any level at that employer. And so then this piggybacks on employee feedback and suggestion processes. And so employees are doing the jobs every day, so they actually have the best insight on what the actual hazards are and what the potential hazards are.
And so, because of that, they're in a great position to be able to know how to address those hazards. And so, then this leads into employee involvement opportunities. And so employees should always be given the opportunity to participate in safety inspections, incident investigations, and also developing actual solutions to actual problems that need to be solved in terms of employee safety and health. And so then this further leads into rewards and recognition and employees -- they should be regularly rewarded and recognized for their contributions to keeping their workplaces safe and healthy.
And so those contributions could come by way of employee feedback and suggestions or employee involvement. And so that's how all of those are related. So near miss and incident reporting should be encouraged and not discouraged. So one of the glaring signs of an employer who has a poor safety culture is when employees are hesitant to report injuries and near misses, or they're actually even afraid to do so -- to report.
And so that's not good. Reporting should always be encouraged. And so this is so that hazards can be corrected and so that accidents can be prevented. And then effective incident investigations -- we talked about that during Week 3 of the class, and having a team conduct an incident investigation is always better than just having one person. And then, also, incorporating root cause analysis and corrective action and preventive actions into incident investigations ensures that hazards can be corrected and that accidents can be prevented as well.
And so with regular, relevant, and up-to-date training, that's very important as well because employees need to be trained when necessary, but the training needs to be relevant to the employees who are being trained. And the material needs to be current or else the training is not really going to be effective and then it's going to be a waste, you know, of resources and time. And then there's proactive hazard control and prevention and we learned about that during the first two weeks of the course. And controlling and preventing hazards is the number one means of preventing accidents that result in employee injuries and illnesses.
And they can -- with continuous improvement -- so after all of these other aspects have been put in place, they do have to be monitored regularly, and continuously improved upon as the employer grows, as things change. And so that's the continuous improvement piece. But all of these make up a healthy safety culture. So then what are the benefits of having a healthy safety culture?
Well, the number one benefit, obviously, is if you have a healthy safety culture, you're going to have minimal to zero employee accidents that result in injuries, illnesses, and also property damage. And so -- also, though, when you have a healthy safety culture, morale is higher with employees that work for that employer. And so when you have high morale, that, of course, leads to high employee retention. Employees want to stay on the job when they feel safe on the job.
And then, also, you see increases in productivity. When employees feel safe on the job, they're going to work smarter. And then also when you have high morale everyone at all levels seem to be more enthusiastic about doing their part willingly to ensure that their workplaces are safe and healthy. And then, also, organizational reputation is a benefit of having a healthy safety culture.
So with, for instance, business retention and new opportunities, I know of a global chemical manufacturer who has a company philosophy that actually links employee safety to product quality and product safety. And they feel that if an employer does not keep their employees safe, meaning that they have a poor safety culture or they have -- they have high injury and illness rates, that it's likely that that same employer probably doesn't produce safe products. And so, therefore, this manufacturer that I'm referring to -- they don't want to do business with companies who have high injury rates and illness rates just for that reason. And so I think that that mindset is probably pretty common, though, throughout many industries.
So that's just something else to keep in mind -- you know, the organizational reputation is a benefit of having a healthy safety culture. And along those lines, employers can be seen as leaders in their industry and across other industries if they're keeping their employees safe and healthy at work. And then when they're doing that, they can also set the example for other companies who may not have healthy safety cultures, but they're trying to get there. So those are all very important benefits of having a healthy safety culture.
So then how do we sustain healthy safety cultures? Well, we go back to what makes a healthy safety culture and then it's these three aspects that I have the red boxes around and that are highlighted in yellow. It's the management commitment, the accountability, and continuous improvement. And so we can always build a healthy safety culture, but the goal is -- it goes beyond building the healthy safety culture.
The goal is to sustain the healthy safety culture for the long term, and so we must have commitment from management and we must have accountability at all levels. And that's derived from clearly-defined roles and responsibilities. And then we must continuously monitor and we must continuously improve employee safe and healthy pro -- employee safety and health program aspects for our safety cultures to be healthy and sustainable for the long term. So this brings today's lecture to a close.
And these are the additional resource links for the week that I mentioned. And just a friendly reminder that these links are also provided for you directly in Canvas so that you can access them easier. And then these are the sources that I referenced during today's lecture. So as always, please submit any questions or comments that you may have about the material that was covered today via the Canvas inbox messaging feature.
And thank you for tuning in.