For the next few weeks, we are going to cover ‘just culture’ and focus mainly on Sidney Dekker’s book of the same name.

The laws currently on the books encourage businesses to focus on liability instead of actual safety. By focusing on culpability for an accident, this is a way for businesses to get out of compensating the worker for injury. This is just some of what we will discuss today.

Topics:

• Safety theory vs. safety practice.
• Safety culture and the Swiss Cheese Model.
• Updates in the third edition.
• The definition of just culture.
• To whom you apply the process and why it’s important.
• Listening and actually hearing.
• Systemic and individual action.
• Can an individual be too much of a danger?
• Preventing unnecessary blame.
• What to expect from this series of episodes.
• Practical takeaways.

Quotes:

“We both know that Dekker a bit of a problem...a bit of a habit of being pretty harsh about how he characterizes some of the older safety practices.”

“The ability of people to tell their stories and have those stories heard by all the other stakeholders, is a key part of restorative justice.”

“We’re all in the same boat, we’re all, after that accident, have an individual responsibility to stop this happening again by making the system better.”

Resources:

Just Culture

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