Future sustainability of the sometimes fragile global supply chain must revolve around a fundamental safety culture throughout all operators and organisation involved, determines TT Club.
According to TT Club, in an increasingly risk intense global supply environment, a greater emphasis on safety will help avoid critical incidents such as fire, cargo damage and vessel loss, which further exacerbate shortages, congestion and human suffering.
The importance of culture within an organisation, particularly where safety is concerned cannot be underestimated. Safety is everybody’s responsibility and everybody has a voice in safety matters. A strong safety culture will positively impact safety performance.
… said TT’s Logistics Risk Manager, Josh Finch
Understanding safety culture: What is the Hudson Safety Ladder?
Focusing on safety culture, Hudson developed a theoretical model known as the Patrick Hudson Ladder. The model is described by Hudson as an evolutionary ladder, which plots the development of an organization’s safety culture. The higher the level, the bigger the trust and information sharing. The five levels are:
- Pathological: “Who cares as long as we’re not caught.” At this level, the company makes little to no investment in improving safety behavior.
- Reactive: “Safety is important, we do a lot every time we have an accident.” Here, the company tends to make safety improvements only after things have gone wrong.
- Calculative: “We have systems in place to manage all hazards.” At this stage, the company pays attention to health and safety and has determined which safety rules are important. However, it is still driven by self-interest.
- Proactive: “We work on the problems that we still find.” Here, safety has a high priority for the organization, which has a proactive approach on safety, works on safety awareness, and constantly implements safety improvements.
- Generative: “Safety is how we do business round here.” At this level, safety is fully integrated into the operational processes of the organization and fully instilled in the employees’ behavior.
Meanwhile, as IUMI pointed out in a recently published article, management and leadership play a pivotal role in creating a strong safety culture, and whilst employees come and go, the underlying safety culture of the organisation should endure.
The safety culture of an organisation has a big impact on the actions of its employees and how seriously they take safety. Poor safety culture has been linked to many incidents in the maritime industry.
… UK MCA explained in its Leading for Safety guidance
Additionally, as shipping experts had agreed during a SAFETY4SEA Talk, safety remains a top priority for the maritime industry. In this respect, the experts had argued that a bigger focus on seafarers’ human aspect and mental wellbeing is the one thing that could have the most profound impact on the industry’s safety culture.
Greater safety goes hand-in-hand with enhanced security and consequently sustainability. TT’s mutual ethos demands that we guide those we insure – and indeed the wider industry – in all aspects of risk through the container transport and global logistics supply chain.
… commented Loss Prevention Managing Director, Mike Yarwood
