IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency

The IAEA Safety Culture

Continuous Improvement Process

(SCCIP)

Making safety culture tangible

IAEA

IAEA Safety Culture Continuous Improvement

Process (SCCIP)

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The IAEA Safety Culture Continuous Improvement Process

provides comprehensive support to Member States

including

• Training to perform safety culture self- assessments

• Support in developing an effective and sustainable

safety culture improvement programme

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The overall goal with SCCIP is to support the receiving organization in its

capacity building of practical, systematic and systemic safety culture continuous

improvement.

The safety culture self-assessment training should be seen as an investment,

not a cost as it provides:

• A team of internal safety culture experts;

• A team of “change agents” and;

• High quality safety culture assessment results.

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SCCIP – Takes time and commitment

The experience of implementing SCCIP it that most of the trained personnel have a

technical educational background, but after the first assessment the team develops

sustainable knowledge of why people and organizations behave the way they do. In

short they have tapped into the behavioural and social sciences and gained

knowledge which is needed to proactively be equipped to catch declines and

improve in safety culture.

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Basis for SCCIP in the IAEA Safety Standards

GSR Part 1: National policy and strategy

• Requirement 1: National policy and strategy for safety • 2.3 (g): “The promotion of leadership and management for safety, including safety

culture.”

• Requirement 19: The management system of the

regulatory body • 4.15. The management system of the regulatory body has three purposes: … (3) The

third purpose is to foster and support a safety culture in the regulatory body

through the development and reinforcement of leadership, as well as good attitudes

and behaviour in relation to safety on the part of individuals and teams

• Requirement 29: Graded approach to inspections of

facilities and activities • 4.53. In conducting inspections, the regulatory body shall consider a number of

aspects, including:

• —Management systems

• —Safety culture

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Basis for SCCIP in the IAEA Safety Standards

– DS 456 (Draft GSR Part 2)

Requirement 13: Continuous improvement of safety culture

“All individuals in the organization, from senior management down, shall

demonstrate leadership by promoting safety. A normative framework

based on international best practices shall be described in the

management system to promote and support a strong safety culture”.

Requirement 14: Assessment of leadership and safety culture.

“Senior management shall regularly commission independent

assessments and provide for self-assessments of safety culture and

leadership”.

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• Culture is seen as something we can influence, rather than

something we can control

• Culture work needs to encompass the whole organization –

not only as a top-down process

• To effectively assess safety culture, multiple methods must

be used (interview, survey, focus group, observations,

document review) – a survey is not enough

• Edgar Schein’s well established iceberg metaphor helps to

understand and how to continuously improve safety culture

• observe visible aspects (artefacts and behaviour,

“above surface”) and;

• interpret this information to reveal the cultural reasons

behind (found in attitudes, values and basic

assumptions, “below surface”)

• For safety culture improvement, the IAEA emphasises

human interactions (shared space) including trust, mindful

communication, learning attitude, inquiring attitude, self-

accountability, diversity, self-reflection etc.

IAEAs Approach to Safety Culture Continuous

Improvement – the Foundations

Artefacts,

Behaviour

Values

Attitudes

Basic

Assumptions

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Organizational capacity building through enhancement of the

understanding of:

• Safety culture and the value of safety culture assessments;

• How improvement in safety culture can enhance safety

performance thorough several positive synergies; and

• Everyone’s roles and responsibilities in cultural work.

To provide knowledge and practical

skills in SCSA methods, based on

current international research and

practices in the nuclear community.

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Objectives of training within SCCIP

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IAEA Safety Culture Continuous Improvement

Process – Senior management workshop

Senior Management Safety Culture Workshop – 3 DAYS

• Relationship between safety culture and enhanced safety performance

• Role of safety culture assessments for improving safety culture

• Roles and responsibilities of senior management in cultural improvement work

• Competencies and skills needed in team to be trained to perform safety

culture self-assessment (“Safety Culture Ambassadors”, STEP 2) –

supporting senior management in selecting an effective team

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Safety Culture Self Assessment Training – 2 WEEKS (separate) • Train a cross-functional, cross-hierarchical team (“Safety Culture Ambassadors”) to

• Perform high quality safety culture self-assessment applying the established IAEA Safety culture assessment methodology

• Develop and implement effective safety culture improvement activities • Training weeks separated – enhances learning output and allows for course reading in between • Bridging session in the end to ensure alignment between team and senior management • OUTCOMES: Team of Safety Culture Ambassadors who are equipped with practical tools and

knowledge to perform safety culture assessments

IAEA Safety Culture Continuous

Improvement Process – SCSA Training

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SCSA performed by safety culture ambassador team

• Tailored IAEA support missions to support organization in doing safety

culture self-assessment depending on need of individual organization

• OUTCOMES: Final self-assessment report and Safety Culture Improvement

Program

IAEA Safety Culture Continuous

Improvement Process – Performing SCSA

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Safety Culture Continuous Improvement

• Creation/amendment of safety culture continuous improvement programme

• Implementation of improvement activities

• Periodic safety culture assessments performed by Safety Culture Ambassadors

IAEAs Approach to Safety Culture Continuous

Improvement – Never ending journey

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• IAEA Safety Standards and IAEA Safety Culture publications

• Social, Organizational and Behavioural sciences

• Past experiences- IAEA and external Safety Culture expert

knowledge and experience of Safety Culture Self Assessment

training approaches and materials

Course material is based on

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Methodology for Training – Learning-by-doing

• Core set of lectures based on the IAEA safety standards and science;

• Further illustration by specific examples through Application set

presentations;

• Interactive exercises on how to apply the four of the five data gathering

methods e.g. observations, interviews, questionnaire and focus groups;

• Performance of a “mini-self-assessment” based on a case study.

Fake data are provided to the trainers to extract cultural facts, perform

descriptive and normative analyses and communicate the results;

• Fostering of a good shared space and;

• In parallel a process of team-building is facilitated to assure effective

implementation and high quality assessment results.

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Implementation of SCCIP

• IAEA SCCIP support has been provided at

• Kozloduy NPP

• Belgoprocess NV

• Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA)

• Laguna Verde NPP

• Senior management safety culture workshops have

been provided to a long list of organizations

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Feedback from participants…

"Safety Culture" was at the start a very abstract and rather new world for me. In a job where you think very rationally it is not common to think about behaviours and habits of people. You just go with the flow. By this course I've learned that by taking some distance and by being neutral you see things different.

Nancy Reusen, Supervisor Production Management, Belgoprocess

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Before participating in this workshop, I was aware of the problem of a weak "Questioning Attitude" in TEPCO and wanted to find a solution to it. Through this workshop, (…) my outlook towards this problem broadened. My attention turned to the lower portion of the iceberg. The importance of conversation was one of the things I realized.

Shinichi Kawamura, General Manager of Nuclear Asset Management Dept., TEPCO

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Feedback from participants…

Before the start of the SCSA project in PNRA, I was just aware about the definition of safety culture which states that safety culture is the assembly of characteristics and attitudes in the organization… but I did not know about the actual meaning of this definition. However after passing through different steps of SCSA project like participation in workshop, collecting data by using five tools (interviews, focus groups, survey, observation, review of documents), participation of descriptive analysis of data by bubble diagram in connection with the underline assumptions (cultural aspects) with the help of the support mission, now I am confident and will be able to conclude some solid, valuable and understandable outcome for further improvement in the organization. Muhammad Sadiq, Directorate of Policies & Procedures, PNRA

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“[I]t has been a great opportunity to reflect about all the information we got, how to understand culture and go deeper to really understand how the organization is driven. I learned new techniques to do things differently, think outside the box and that I need to listen to my colleagues to have a shared understanding.”

Ariadna Bazan Limón, Independent Unit of Safety Engineering, Laguna Verde

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Feedback from participants…

IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency

IAEA Safety Culture

Assessment Methodology

IAEA

Prerequisite for Assessment of safety culture

GS-G-3.5

Safety culture self-assessement should:

• Include the entire organization

• Several different self-assessment tools should be used (e.g. interviews,

focus groups, questionnaires, observations and document reviews)

• A designated team representing all organizational levels and functions at

the installation should carry out the self-assessment

• A specialist in safety culture should be included in the team

• The self-assessment team should receive training

• The self-assessment team should summarize the results and identify areas

for improvement and may suggest actions to be taken

• The results should be reported to the management at an appropriate level

• A follow-up assessment should be performed

The independent assessment of safety culture should follow a similar approach

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The independent assessment of safety culture should follow a similar

approach as self-assessment

• The independence and qualification of the members of the

assessment team should be considered crucial for the success of the

assessment

• The team should be staffed with sufficient diversity of experience and

should include specialists in behavioural science, with knowledge of

statistical methods of analysis

• The independent assessment team should aim at identifying

strengths and areas for improvement

Prerequisite for Assessment of safety culture

GS-G-3.5

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Safety culture – multi-disciplinary expertise

• Anthropology

• Organizational theory

• Social Psychology

• Sociology

• Leadership and management theory

• Cognitive science

• Psychology

• Human Factor Engineering

• Resilience Engineering

• Organizational Factors

• ITO (interaction between Individuals, Technology and Organizations)

• Basic knowledge; Nuclear technology, nuclear organizations, regulatory

framework

Prerequisite for Assessment of safety culture

GS-G-3.5

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• Using several assessment methods

The IAEA Safety Culture Assessment Methodology

Interviews

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Concept of Culture and Safety Culture

• The concept of culture is descriptive

• The concept of safety culture is normative

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Descriptive/Normative

Descriptive

‘is’

Based on data and a theory

of culture

Normative

‘should’

Based on data, a theory

of culture and a norm

Descriptive must come before the Normative!

• It sets standards for behaviour and

values

• It is related to practices known to lead

to safety

• It focuses on certain limited aspects of

the organization

• Being evaluative in the descriptive stage

can lead to exclusions

• Being descriptive helps to pick up weak

signals

• Being descriptive means having a broad

agenda for dialogue

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Descriptive analysis: Images of culture

Descriptive analysis

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Normative analysis

Interview data

Cultural facts

Cultural themes

Survey data

Cultural facts

Cultural Themes

Focus group

data

Cultural facts

Cultural Themes

Document

data

Cultural facts

Cultural Themes

Observation

data

Cultural facts

Cultural Themes

Descriptive Analysis: Images of culture

Normative,

evaluative analysis

Safety culture is not a culture; it is a normative interpretation of a culture

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Summary

• The IAEA Safety Culture Continuous Improvement

Process provides comprehensive support to

• perform safety culture self- assessments

• developing an effective and sustainable safety culture

improvement programme, incl.

• The IAEA safety culture assessment methodology

applies 5 data collection methods, and separates

the normative and descriptive analysis process

…Thank you for your attention