Elite - Professional Training & Development

Safety management systems, permits and procedures are necessary, but they do not by themselves prevent incidents. Many serious events happen in organisations with good written systems, because production pressure is allowed to win, supervisors tolerate small deviations, people fear blame for reporting errors, and leaders rely on injury rates that say little about major hazard risk. Culture change initiatives then fail because they are launched as campaigns, not managed as long-term change.

This programme treats safety culture as something leaders can assess, influence and measure. It moves from understanding what safety culture is and how it is shaped, to human factors and why people make errors or break rules, to assessing the current culture, to leadership and supervisory behaviours that change it, and finally to planning and sustaining an improvement programme.

Built on recognised practice. The programme references ISO 45001 requirements on leadership, worker participation and consultation, the UK Health and Safety Executive guidance on human factors (HSG48), the Hearts and Minds safety culture maturity approach published by the Energy Institute, and just culture principles developed from James Reason's work on human error. They are used as practical tools rather than theory.

Decisions this programme improves. Which cultural weaknesses to address first; how to respond fairly when a rule is broken; which leading indicators to track alongside injury rates; how to involve the workforce and contractors; and how to allocate time and budget to culture change so that it is sustained after the launch.

How it is delivered. Twenty hours across five sessions, built around one running case: an operating site with a recent serious near miss, a strong compliance record on paper and signs of normalised shortcuts. Participants analyse the event using human factors tools, interpret a culture survey, practise safety conversations and build a twelve-month culture improvement plan.

In-house option. For organisations, the programme can be tailored to your own HSE management system, incident history, workforce profile and contractor arrangements, and can include a facilitated review of your own culture survey or assessment results.

Who Should Attend

Line managers and supervisors: operations, production and site managers and frontline supervisors

Engineering and maintenance leaders: production, process and maintenance engineers and managers

HSE professionals: HSE managers, safety advisers and process safety engineers

Human resources professionals: HR managers involved in performance, training and employee relations

Senior leaders: general managers and department heads responsible for operational risk

Objectives

Explain what safety culture is, how it forms and how it differs from safety climate and compliance

Assess the maturity of an organisation's safety culture using recognised maturity models and survey tools

Analyse human error and violations and identify the organisational factors behind them

Apply just culture principles to decide fair responses to unsafe acts

Demonstrate leadership behaviours that build trust, reporting and speaking up

Conduct constructive safety conversations and observations with frontline staff

Design meaningful leading and lagging safety indicators, including for process safety

Engage the workforce and contractors in hazard identification and improvement

Develop a step-by-step safety culture improvement programme with clear owners and milestones

Evaluate cost-effective interventions for influencing behaviour and sustaining change

Course Outline

What Safety Culture Is and Why It Matters

Safety culture, safety climate and compliance: the differences
How culture shapes behaviour when nobody is watching
Lessons from major accidents: normalisation of deviance and production pressure
Personal safety and process safety: why injury rates can mislead
Culture maturity models, including the Hearts and Minds ladder
The business case for culture improvement

Human Factors: Why People Make Errors and Break Rules

Types of human failure: slips, lapses, mistakes and violations
Performance-influencing factors: workload, fatigue, design and procedures
Why procedures are not followed and how to make them usable
Risk perception and decision making under pressure
Human factors in incident investigation
Just culture: fair accountability without blame

Assessing the Current Culture

Safety culture surveys: design, administration and interpretation
Interviews, focus groups and site observations
Reading incident, near-miss and audit data for cultural signals
Leading and lagging indicators
Contractor and multi-national workforce considerations
Presenting assessment results to leadership

Leadership and Supervisory Behaviours That Change Culture

Visible, felt leadership and management commitment under ISO 45001
Safety conversations, walk-throughs and positive feedback
Creating psychological safety and encouraging speaking up
The supervisor's role in daily risk decisions
Workforce participation and consultation
Recognition, consequences and consistency

Planning and Sustaining Culture Improvement

Setting priorities and a realistic improvement roadmap
Choosing cost-effective behavioural and organisational interventions
Integrating culture work into the HSE management system
Using digital reporting tools and data to track progress
Avoiding campaign fatigue and sustaining momentum
Action plan: a safety culture improvement programme for your organisation

Competencies

Safety culture concepts and maturity models

Human error and violation analysis

Just culture decision making

Safety culture assessment and survey interpretation

Leading and lagging safety indicators

Safety leadership and supervisory behaviours

Safety conversations and workforce engagement

Behavioural and organisational intervention selection

Safety culture improvement planning

Roma

Elite Academy can deliver its complete portfolio of professional training programs in Rome. With a major European capital combining government, business and international institutions, the destination suits both scheduled learning and tailored arrangements for organizations or individual professionals. As an Elite Academy training destination, Rome provides access to our full portfolio rather than a city-specific set of specializations. The city is a major European capital combining government, business and international institutions, creating a suitable environment for organizations developing their teams and for professionals attending independently. Upcoming scheduled courses are listed on this page, while any other Elite Academy program can also be requested for delivery in Rome, subject to scheduling and delivery requirements. Explore the schedule or browse our training areas to find the right option.

Developing an Effective Safety Culture