Health and safety policies, risk assessments, and training programmes are all important, but they only work when supported by a strong safety culture.
In high-risk property environments, where technicians may be working in restricted spaces, occupied properties, damp environments, or at height, safety cannot be treated as a box-ticking exercise. It must become part of everyday decision-making.
At Timberwise, health and safety is everyone’s responsibility, from senior management through to technicians working on site. Creating a positive health and safety culture means encouraging communication, learning from mistakes, sharing knowledge, and continually improving the way we work.
In this blog, we’ll explore what a positive safety culture looks like in practice and how it helps protect our employees, clients, and members of the public.
What Is a Positive Health & Safety Culture?
The Health and Safety Executive famously defined safety culture as ‘the product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organisation’s health and safety management’ (HSE, 1993).
So, we could say that a positive health and safety culture is one that promotes behaviours that protect us and those around us. Employees at any level should feel encouraged to raise concerns and challenge unsafe behaviours to reduce the likelihood of these daily hazards turning into preventable accidents.
We could also say that a positive health and safety culture is one that learns from its mistakes. We can’t predict every outcome, but it is possible to mitigate risk by understanding where we went wrong and implementing measures to prevent the same thing happening again in the future.
Finally, training is valued and essential to any safety culture. It isn’t enough to just place a tool in a contractor’s hands; we need to effectively teach how and where to use tools in a way that prevents harm to ourselves and others.
Why Safety Culture Matters in Specialist Property Care
Unlike some construction disciplines, Timberwise often works in a variety of environments that you might not expect. Occupied domestic properties are a large part of our day-to-day work, but we also tackle unique properties too, from windmills, to railway signal boxes, to garden centres.
In each type of property, hazards can change rapidly, and properties on the same development can each have very different hazards depending on how well they’ve been maintained. A strong safety culture means that our specialists can recognise risks earlier, and plan accordingly to mitigate them. This might mean speaking up when something feels unsafe, or even stopping a survey or treatment work to reassess an environment as conditions change. All of this aims to protect both themselves, our clients, and the public from preventable harm.
Learning from Near Misses
A positive safety culture doesn’t just look at accidents that did happen, it also looks at the accidents that could have happened. A key part of that is reporting unsafe acts or conditions that nearly caused an accident.
Near misses are unplanned events that could have caused injury, illness, or damage, but fortunately did not. This could be something like a rotten floorboard being far more decayed than anticipated and at risk of collapse, damage to a tool that was noticed before use, or a trip hazard identified and remedied before someone falls over. By reporting these possibilities, we more readily identify concerns and can action them before an injury ever happens.
Creating a Reporting Culture
Another key part of a positive safety culture is speaking up. By encouraging colleagues to report their concerns without placing blame, we promote the opportunity to learn from mistakes that both have happened and could yet happen. Sharing the lessons we’ve learned allows us to prevent future incidents.
Reporting also allows us to identify trends. If a particular safety concern arises regularly or over a short period of time, this could indicate an area where either additional individual training is needed, or a gap in company-wide training which should be included or improved upon in future training instalments. It may also suggest a manufacturing failure which may require replacement to ensure the safety of the technicians using that tool.
Toolbox Talks: Keeping Safety Front of Mind
Another key area of safety culture is having regular communication around new or existing safety concerns. Toolbox Talks are a short briefing around a specific safety subject, such as manual handling or working at height. These are usually delivered at the beginning of a workday or before starting a relevant task. They can also be delivered digitally, such as with Timberwise’s monthly email programme. This allows colleagues access to the lessons even if they’re not a surveyor or technician. Each talk is usually followed by a question-and-answer session to improve competency and understanding of the subject.
Why Are Toolbox Talks Effective?
Toolbox Talks provide a frequent reminder of health and safety policies within a business, as well as reinforcing best practices. When delivered before a shift or task begins, they keep safety at the forefront of a specialist’s mind. It also leaves time for the lesson to sink in, without fatigue or work pressure reducing the ability to retain key information.
It also creates a forum for sharing real experiences, and addressing emerging risks that require addressing. A single toolbox talk might encourage a colleague to speak up and highlight an area of concern that can then be addressed through additional measures.
Site Audits
While it’s important to reflect and amend your own processes in the face of new health and safety concerns, it’s also important to have a regular independent review of your practices to ensure you’re doing everything possible to promote a positive safety culture.
Site audits provide an opportunity for an independent assessor to evaluate how well your business is performing in its health and safety measures. While not a strict legal requirement, the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) means that employers have a legal duty to manage health and safety concerns effectively.
Site audits are also a key part of membership to many trade bodies, such as the Property Care Association, which requires a biennial audit (every two years) to verify the condition of equipment in use, PPE compliance, risk assessment method statement (RAMS) compliance, and publish protection measures.
How do Site Audits Turn into Safety Improvements?
Even the best safety measures can be improved. Rather than seeing audits as inspections to prove consistency and compliance, audits identify opportunities for improvement across all working environments. Audits also support key training requirements, and promote Continuous Professional Development (CPD) within an organization.
Site audits also promote the sharing of industry best practices. Where a new practice has been tested and unveiled, a site audit allows for an independent assessor to share success stories from and with other businesses to promote widespread adoption of improved safety practices.
The Role of Management
In any business, your leadership team sets the standard for health and safety. Employees will often follow the behaviours they see. So, if they see an authority figure practicing an unsafe behaviour, they’ll likely do the same thing themselves.
Managers play a critical role in developing a positive safety culture. They are often the first layer of support for a technician that experiences a health and safety concern, and act as an essential through-point between on-site workers and upper management to ensure health and safety concerns are addressed appropriately.
Managers also act as leaders on site, and should encourage reporting, review risk assessments, enforce safe working practices, and lead by example while working on a project themselves. This ensures that these practices are always supported and understood at every level and over the course of the project.
Safety Starts at the Top
A positive safety culture requires commitment at all levels, and management is no exception. There are several key factors that promote a successful safety culture:
- Management commitment: A leadership team should be more committed to safety improvements than its employees. Leading by example promotes safer working practices in all colleagues.
- Resource allocation: Management teams should allocate ideal resources to ensure compliance with current safety practices, including regular tool checks and health assessments for colleagues. A lack of resources can undermine compliance.
- Training investment: Employers should provide suitable CPD opportunities to ensure tools are used correctly and are used for the ideal task, and encourage ideal safety practices.
- Accreditation requirements: Accreditations, such as those of the PCA, CHAS, Constructionline, and SMAS, should be updated regularly, and audits scheduled to confirm compliance with any new safety requirements.
- Celebrating safety: By incentivising safe behaviours, you motivate everyone to follow these policies. Celebrating safety milestones, such as through industry awards or individual achievements, helps reinforce the importance of safety.
Safety Culture in Practice: Examples from Timberwise Projects
Here are some examples of how Timberwise has promoted a positive safety culture within its business.
Example 1: Occupied Property
One of our identified a vulnerable occupant with respiratory issues prior to beginning treatment on a property. Our technician performed an additional risk assessment, and identified several areas where additional dust containment and ventilation measures could be implemented. Our technician then communicated their findings with our client, and as an additional measure, adjusted their work sequence so work could commence while our client was at work and away from the property.
Our technician also identified a work route that would limit dust transmission into other areas of the property. Finally, our technician performed a site assessment regularly over the course of their workday to ensure that the measures put in place were working as intended, and adjusted the measures if they were not.
Example 2: Surveyor Assessment
During a routine damp and timber survey in a domestic property, our surveyor identified a damaged ladder into the loft space on the first-floor landing. Rather than using the unsafe access route, our surveyor paused the survey to discuss their concerns with our client.
Our surveyor recommended that this area be investigated during the treatment of the property, where the area could be accessed safely with tools provided by the company. Our surveyor agreed these arrangements with our technician, who completed an additional tool check to ensure their ladder was fully functional before attempting to access the loft space. They also completed a combined risk assessment to identify any further potential hazards prior to entering the restricted space.
Example 3: Site Audit Improvement
During an office site audit, a member of the leadership team noticed that several containers of hazardous chemicals had been stored in an unsafe way.. Though the equipment was placed out of the way, some of the items were placed precariously, and could potentially fall on someone or cause someone to trip if they passed too closely.
This staff member highlighted the issue to the office manager, and together, identified a more suitable safe bunded storage area where the chemicals could be stored securely and accessibly. During the relocation, one colleague also noted that some of the container lids had become damaged, prompting their replacement prior to moving the chemicals. Our health and safety representative then updated the safety procedure to ensure all deliveries were stored in this area, and shared this information through an office briefing and email toolbox talk available for all staff members.
Conclusion
A positive health and safety culture is not created through policies alone. It is built through communication, leadership, accountability, and a shared commitment to doing things safely every day.
By encouraging near miss reporting, investing in training, carrying out regular site audits, and empowering employees to speak up, Timberwise continues to strengthen its approach to health and safety across every part of the business.
In high-risk property environments, where conditions can change quickly and hazards are often hidden, this culture helps ensure that everyone, from employees and subcontractors to clients and members of the public, remains protected.
FAQs
What is a Positive Health and Safety Culture?
A positive health and safety culture is an environment where employees actively participate in safety processes, report concerns, follow procedures, and take responsibility for protecting themselves and others.
Why is Safety Culture Important in Construction?
A strong safety culture helps reduce accidents, improves communication, encourages reporting, and ensures health and safety procedures are followed consistently.
What is a Near Miss in Health and Safety?
A near miss is an unplanned event that could have resulted in injury, illness or damage, but did not. Reporting near misses helps organisations identify hazards before an accident occurs.
What are Toolbox Talks?
Toolbox talks are short health and safety discussions that focus on specific hazards, procedures, or lessons learned from previous incidents.
What are Site Safety Audits?
Site safety audits are formal reviews of working practices, equipment, documentation, and site conditions, designed to verify compliance and identify opportunities for improvement.
What Responsibilities do Managers have for Health and Safety?
Managers help ensure safe systems of work are followed, provide guidance to employees, monitor site conditions, and promote a positive safety culture through leadership and communication.
