The Safety Culture Working Group (SCWG) met on Sept. 9-11 at White Sands Test Facility (WSTF), New Mexico, with a focus on integrating Safety Culture and enhancing awareness within the agency.
The SCWG hosted a series of speakers from around the agency, discussed “Round 3” of the Safety Culture Survey, and filmed a short outreach video to promote the Safety Culture Model.
Guest Speakers: WSTF Safety Culture
Former WSTF Managers Frank Benz and Joseph Fries spoke with the SCWG about their experiences shaping the safety culture at WSTF. Although safety culture starts with management, Benz stated that to withstand management changes, safety culture needs to transcend organizational management, the safety office and safety programs to reach the employees.
Benz cited five key value messages at WSTF:
- Be Committed to the Mission – You don’t have a mission if you can’t do it safely.
- Show Integrity – Trust people to report issues, to follow rules, and to do the right thing.
- Succeed as a Team – No “cowboys” working alone. WSTF’s hazardous testing is too complex for that; the site has to be safe.
- Treat People Right – Customers may want you to work 24 hours or on weekends, but that’s not treating your people right.
- Keep Each Other Safe – Safety is everyone’s responsibility, and part of keeping the community safe means doing your part to protect the environment.
“Safety culture isn’t working if the safety organization is the only one doing it,” said Benz. “The safety organization is responsible for helping you understand the rules and requirements. It’s management’s responsibility to establish safety culture.”
“One part of the presentation that really resonated with me was the importance of leading with clear motives,” said Goddard Space Flight Center Safety Engineer Krystal Kennedy. ”Once your motives begin to be questioned, you lose the trust of your people and that has a drastic [impact] on your effectiveness as a leader. The tone of any organization is set by its leadership and all elements of that organization, including safety culture, depend on effective leadership in order to be healthy.”
Guest Speakers: NSRS and Risk Management
Eric Raynor, NASA Safety Reporting System (NSRS) program manager, and Sharon Thomas, NASA Johnson Space Center risk manager, spoke about their respective programs and how they support NASA’s Safety Culture.
Raynor gave an in-depth overview of the NSRS process, including how data is collected and used, and Thomas described the Risk Management program, its goals and its direction.
“Both showed that Safety Culture is really a philosophy and a model,” said Safety Culture Specialist Manuel Dominguez. “They [NSRS and Risk Management] are the pieces that implement the model, the real implementation of culture.”
Safety Culture Survey: Round 3
The working group discussed the next phase in the Safety Culture Survey, “Round 3.” Round 2 ran from fiscal year 2012-2014, and Round 3 will be fiscal year 2015-2017.
The SCWG discussed making the survey mandatory with an update to NASA policy. They also wanted to encourage steady participation at the centers throughout the cycle, instead of a high volume of participants at the end of the cycle.
There was discussion of tying the Safety Culture Survey more closely to the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. By including some questions from the Viewpoint Survey in the next round of the Safety Culture Survey, the working group will be able to directly compare results.
“We’re coming up with the same written questions [as the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey] so we can see if there are issues across the agency. It gives us an agency perspective, instead of only the centers’ perspectives,” said Stennis Space Center Safety, Quality and Management Systems Division Chief Amy Rice.
The group had an in-depth, question-by-question discussion of the Round 3 survey to determine that the wording of the questions accurately captured the SCWG’s meaning and intent.
Glenn Research Center Chief of Management Integration Office Terri Rodgers is a relatively new member of the working group. She shared her impression of the group and the survey.
“It’s impressive that the working group has entry to all NASA centers and satellite facilities. There is power in that, in the ability to distribute and retrieve information. The group has a direct link to the boots on the ground, and we have [Safety Culture Program Manager] Tracy Dillinger at Headquarters. It’s a top-to-bottom coverage that allows insight into data we’re getting from the survey and interpreting how these messages are being received.”
Safety Culture Video
The SCWG worked with the NASA Safety Center to produce a short outreach video to explain the Safety Culture Model: Reporting, Learning, Just, Flexible and Engaged Culture. The entire group participated in the video, which will be used as an outreach tool.
“It has a serious message but doesn’t take itself too seriously,” said Rodgers of the video. “People tend to take in information very differently nowadays… The message gets through with visual impact. We have the brochure and the website, and the video is one more way to say things and get information out.”
“Anytime we can do something a little ‘out of the box’ it helps people pay attention. Safety is founded in rules and regulations, but the video promotes that safety can actually be fun, too.” said Kennedy.
About the SCWG
“The working group is helping to enrich NASA’s Safety Culture, to make it stronger,” said Rice.
The SCWG, with representation from all centers, is a key component of NASA's Safety Culture Program. The team tracks Safety Culture activities throughout the agency; disseminates information agency-wide; fosters open exchange of safety-related information; and ensures that the NASA Safety Culture Program is relevant to and benefits NASA's programs and institutional activities and the NASA workforce.