ABSTRACT
Safety culture influences the daily behaviors of leadership and workers, who either reinforce and improve the safety culture over time or allow it to degrade. Safety culture and leadership are the foundation of any process safety effort, where competing priorities, such as productivity or cost reduction, must be balanced and appropriately prioritized to allow successful implementation and operation of effective process safety programs. The importance of safety culture and associated human factors became more formally recognized following nuclear plant incidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986. Safety cultures may have different levels of maturity, ranging from early hazard awareness to interdependent teams responsible for safety. Training on safety culture should be provided to leadership, who are expected to lead safety activities, and to all personnel so that they are building awareness, understanding, and commitment to ensuring stronger safety culture and process safety performance.
