Page 61 - Advances In Productive, Safe, and Responsible Coal Mining

Zero Harm coal mining 47

in relation to simultaneous objective assessment of effective risk management strat-
egies and systems—currently the most widely adopted approach to achieving
safety excellence among coal companies with industry-leading performance. How-
ever, even with that complex outcome, no regulation can govern critical qualifiers
and characteristics of zero harm performance: human error, organizational culture,
and leadership.

3.8 Culture

Culture, including organizational culture, mine culture, and safety culture, has been a
topic of discussion in mining for many decades, but has only come into focus as both a
strategic and tactical element of safety and health management in the coal industry in
the last decade or so [31,32]. Organizational culture is generally accepted to imply the
collective beliefs, attitudes, priorities, values, behaviors, traditions, approaches to
work, means of communication, etc. and often simplified to: “the way things work
around here.” Subcategories of organizational culture are believed to be variants of
the overall organization culture. While it is a complex concept when viewed from
a strictly academic perspective, it has become more accessible and relatable since
the introduction of the concept of “climate.” Organizational climate is based on the
perception that employees have regarding aspects of an organization’s culture [33].
Climate enables mining companies to gain insight into aspects of their culture using
confidential perceptions surveys. There is strong evidence that positive cultures con-
tribute to organizational effectiveness and productivity [34].
Culture in and of itself is not enough to significantly affect safety performance in
the absence of effective risk management and mechanisms to control human error.
However, a sociological and psychological construct culture can affect decision-
making behavior, and as such the importance given to the tools used to manage safety
and health in the coal mine environment. Risk-centered management systems are only
as effective as the culture in which they operate. Regardless of how effective the
design of a management system may be, if management through words and deeds
shows disinterest or is dismissive of the importance of line management accountabil-
ity for using the system, more likely than not, the system will be ineffective. Alterna-
tively, if the management system is viewed as “the way we do work around here,” it
will likely be an effective means to control risk.
With increasing industry experience and structure research, there is growing clarity
regarding the organizational characteristics that are correlated with strong safety per-
formance in high-risk work environments. These include, but are not limited to: trust,
accountability, effective communication, safety as a collective value, wariness and
vigilance (regarding risk), and integration of safety into organizational decision
making, among others. As coal companies seek to optimize their strategy to achieve
safety excellence, culture is revealing itself to be necessary, indirectly measurable
through organizational climate [35], and manageable once its strengths and weak-
nesses are understood. Among the keys to understanding means to improve organiza-
tional safety is the recognition that while organizational culture is affected by attitudes