Rear Adm. Paul Thomas , assistant commandant for prevention policy, is receiving some good input on his discussion about safety culture.

The discussion Thomas started centered on safety culture as it relates to marine operations on the Outer Continental Shelf. However, some of this week’s feedback pointed out that safety culture is not strictly a marine-centric conversation.

“The discussions about the concept of safety culture taking place in other work environments are very useful to me,” said Thomas.

To further expand the conversation about safety culture, Maritime Commons is posting some of the feedback and information provided from our readership.

The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, spoke with Thomas about how they are very interested in safety culture as it relates to their organization.

OSHA and The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health work closely with the Center for Construction Research and Training. The CPWR, and their industry and labor partners, are working to understand and improve safety culture and safety climate in the construction industry by hosting multidisciplinary workshops, conducting research, and developing useful tools.

The CPWR recently created a safety climate workbook titled: Strengthening Jobsite Safety Climate: Eight Worksheets to Help you Use and Improve Leading Indicators. The CPWR also recently submitted a manuscript to the Journal of Safety Research that links safety culture, safety management systems and safety climate.

CPWR shared a few resources of theirs with Thomas and he wanted to share them through Maritime Commons.

Safety culture and safety climate website: contains safety reports, presentations, worksheets and other products related to safety and safety culture

Understanding Safety Culture and Safety Climate in Construction: Existing Evidence and a Path Forward

“Thanks to those who have been participating in our safety culture conversation. Sharing information is useful in helping us to learn from each other. It allows us to look at what safety culture is in other workplace environments and use some of those practices in our own,” said Thomas.

Be a part of the safety culture discussion!

Maritime Commons created a hashtag, #OCSsafetyculture, for its twitter account, @maritimecommons, for the discussion on safety culture.

We will be hosting the discussion here, on Maritime Commons, as well as taking your questions on Twitter. We want to get your questions and concerns addressed by Coast Guard leadership. Give us your questions and we will get you answers!

This blog is not a replacement or substitute for the formal posting of regulations and updates or existing processes for receiving formal feedback of the same. Links provided on this blog will direct the reader to official source documents, such as the Federal Register, Homeport and the Code of Federal Regulations. These documents remain the official source for regulatory information published by the Coast Guard.