Safety Perception Surveys

What’s the definition of insanity?

Answer: - Doing the same things the same way and expecting a different result. Year after year, companies assess the strengths and weaknesses of their health and safety management system by auditing. Year after year they use the same audit instrument and often the same auditor. Little wonder these companies have found these audits offer them no new insights. This is a clear sign that their current audit approach has reached the end of its life cycle and something needs to change.

“We’ve reached a plateau and we can’t seem to move off.”

If the above statement sounds like your company, maybe it’s time to try a safety perception survey. Safety perception surveys can be designed to measure much more that compliance or basic program elements. We can help you create a survey that is specific to the needs of your organization. If you have a fleet and need answers to some very specific fleet questions you should include fleet related questions in your survey. If you have contractors, you may want to include questions suitable to contractors, etc. If you want to know whether your employees have social or organizational pressures to work unsafely, we can incorporate appropriate questions in your survey. We won’t pull surveys off the shelf and hope they will fit. We’ll work with you and design a survey that will get you the specific answers you need for your organization to improve. Surveys can be administered in person by a Compass Consultant or by a trusted internal resource. Or, they can be administered at any location through our powerful web based survey application. We’ll help you identify the approach that will work best for your organization. We have a database of over 130 validated safety related questions. Our database can accommodate your survey and report the results in a way that is most meaningful to you. This is your survey – not XYZ’s. Your company is unique with unique needs. Your survey should be unique also.

If people are really our most valuable resource, why do companies spend so much time not asking them what they think about their work and work environment? Management needs to know what is happening inside the hearts and minds of their employees.

Through a Compass safety perception survey, employees will reveal answers to questions such as:

  • Are all near miss incidents and hazards reported?
  • Are production or service quotas valued over safety?
  • Do supervisors have the authority, or use their authority to stop the work to prevent employee injury?
  • Are safety meetings really effective?
  • Do employees feel free to express safety concerns?
  • Do employees feel they have been given adequate training to safely carry out the work?
  • Are safe work procedures followed?
  • Is management actively involved in the health and safety program?
  • Are employee safety values, attitudes, etc. closely aligned with those of management?

Compass believes (and this is supported by studies) that the safety "hardware"" (e.g. investigation, inspection, orientation, etc.) accounts for only half of the health and safety excellence puzzle. It’s the "software" - cultural or human factors such as trust, credibility, leadership, satisfaction etc. that accounts for the other half. These soft factors influence whether or not a company will ever achieve safety excellence. Safety excellence has eluded many companies because the softer factors have not been measured and addressed. We can help you get the information you need on both your safety hardware and software. We will help you develop and administer a survey that meets your needs.

Our Products section provides a summary of what our survey process can provide.