TRANSFORMATION OF SAFETY CULTURE IN THE CONTEXT OF DIGITALISATION

Abstract

Today, many industries across the globe are showing interest in the concept of safety culture. They consider the concept as a means to reduce the risk of accidents and disasters. However, despite the importance of the concept development, its formation and implementation have been accompanied by a significant number of complications, which arose because of the fragmentation and unsystematic nature of research on the development of safety culture and its importance for various industries. Nowadays, the situation has become more complicated due to the rapid digitalisation of industry, which has fundamentally changed the principles of operation of many industries. At the same time, safety culture is essential to ensuring an organisation’s sustainable development, requiring various activities to be coordinated and jointly implemented by the personnel who support the organisation’s smooth operation. Thus, organisations with a high risk of danger must observe the impact of digital transformation on developing a safety culture. The authors have considered and analysed the essential characteristics of safety culture to investigate the transformation of safety culture in digitalisation conditions. Based on this, we identified four types of safety culture. The analysis of culture types showed the advantages and disadvantages of introducing each culture type into an organisation’s activities. The study has established that the integral culture is the most effective. A high level of safety training for employees, attended by all employees from the lowest level to the CEO, characterises this type of culture. In addition, under this culture type, the organisation uses the most modern achievements to create safe and comfortable working conditions for all employees. Analysis of characteristics and types of safety culture has led to the conclusion that implementing a safety culture in an organisation is an effective tool for improving the working conditions of employees and, therefore, should be applied in the new digital reality. The next step was researching the transformation of safety culture in the context of digitalisation. The results revealed the advantages of digitalisation for the safety culture development of an organisation. The most significant benefits are reduced hazardous operations, improved reporting and hazard prevention effectiveness, improved team communication and collaboration, and increased regulatory compliance. Keywords: safety culture, digitalisation, employee.