Building a Culture of Safety: Why It Matters and How to Get It Right
When it comes to protecting workers, complying with regulations, and maintaining productivity, few things are more critical, but more under-leveraged than a company’s safety culture. A safety culture isn’t just about checking compliance boxes or running training sessions. It’s a mindset that permeates every layer of an organization, from the executive suite to the factory floor or job-site. And when it’s strong, it saves lives, improves performance, saves money, and strengthens the business from the inside out.
What Is Safety Culture?
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) defines safety culture as “the shared beliefs, practices, and attitudes that exist at an establishment regarding safety.” In simpler terms, it’s how seriously your organization takes safety—and how that seriousness translates into daily behaviors and decisions. From proper procedures and equipment to the drug-free workplace policy, safety culture is wide-ranging.
It’s not just about having the right policies on paper though - it’s about what people actually do. Do employees feel empowered to stop work when something feels unsafe? Do managers lead by example? Are incidents met with curiosity and learning, or blame and punishment?
The answers to these questions are the real barometers of a company’s safety culture.
Why Safety Culture Matters
Safety culture is more than a buzzword—it has a measurable impact on outcomes like injury rates, productivity, employee retention, and yes - even profitability.
1. Stronger Safety Cultures Correlate with Lower Injury Rates
Research by the National Safety Council (NSC) shows that organizations with strong safety cultures experience 50% fewer accidents and injuries compared to their peers with weak safety cultures.1
Similarly, a 2023 report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found that private industry employers reported 2.8 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses in 2022, with nearly one-third resulting in days away from work, job restrictions, or transfers (DART cases).2 These injuries don't just hurt workers—they disrupt operations and incur significant costs.
Substance use among employees significantly elevates the risk of workplace accidents and fatalities. According to the National Safety Council (NSC), unintentional overdose deaths in the workplace have surged by 619% since 2011, with 525 such deaths recorded in 2022 alone. These overdoses now account for nearly 9.6% of all occupational injury deaths, underscoring the critical need for employers to address substance use proactively.
Furthermore, the NSC notes that nearly 1 in 10 people who died at work in 2022 succumbed to an overdose, a trend affecting nearly every industry and occupation in the U.S.13 Implementing comprehensive substance use policies, providing access to employee assistance programs, and fostering a supportive workplace culture are essential steps in mitigating these risks and promoting overall safety.
2. Poor Safety Culture Is Expensive
According to Liberty Mutual’s Workplace Safety Index, U.S. businesses spend over $1 billion per week on serious, nonfatal workplace injuries.3 Common causes include overexertion, falls, and being struck by equipment—many of which are preventable through better safety practices.
The costs go beyond medical bills and workers’ comp. Downtime, damaged equipment, lost productivity, lawsuits, and damage to reputation all contribute to the bottom-line impact of poor safety culture.
Beyond the immediate human and operational impacts, a poor safety culture imposes substantial financial burdens on organizations. In 2022, the total cost of work-related injuries in the United States reached $167.0 billion, encompassing $50.7 billion in wage and productivity losses, $37.6 billion in medical expenses, and $54.4 billion in administrative costs. These figures underscore how lapses in safety not only affect employee well-being but also significantly impact an organization's bottom line.
Moreover, businesses often face additional indirect costs such as increased insurance premiums, legal fees, and reputational damage, which can further erode profitability. Investing in a robust safety culture is not just a moral imperative but also a strategic financial decision that can lead to long-term savings and operational efficiency.14
3. Safety Culture Impacts Employee Morale and Retention
Employees are more likely to stay at companies where they feel safe and respected. A Gallup study found that workplace safety is a key predictor of employee engagement—and highly engaged teams see 21% greater profitability and 59% less turnover.4
In contrast, high-risk environments with poor communication and accountability tend to drive employees away, especially in industries where skilled labor is already scarce. In a tight labor market, companies simply can’t afford to have poor morale and poor employee retention.
4. Regulatory Compliance Isn’t Enough
Just meeting the minimum OSHA requirements doesn’t cut it. In fact, organizations that focus solely on compliance tend to plateau in their safety performance. A 2022 study in the Journal of Safety Research emphasized that proactive safety management and positive leadership engagement are essential to driving continuous improvement in injury prevention.5
Companies must take this area seriously and see it as more than a cost-center. Safety is a commitment to the well being of the employees, and as a result, the success of the company.
The Business Case for Investing in Safety Culture
Leaders often underestimate how powerfully safety culture aligns with business performance. It’s not just about risk reduction—it’s a competitive advantage.
Reduced Workers’ Compensation Premiums
Companies with fewer claims and better safety records can significantly reduce their workers’ compensation premiums. According to the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI), your experience modification rate (EMR)—a number used to calculate premiums—is directly influenced by your safety record.6
Fewer Lawsuits and Lower Legal Exposure
Workplace injuries can lead to litigation, especially when there’s a perception of negligence. A strong safety culture that includes thorough documentation, incident investigation, and proactive measures not only reduces the likelihood of lawsuits but strengthens legal defensibility if something does go wrong.
Higher Productivity and Quality
Safe work environments are often more efficient ones. When workers don’t have to worry about hazards—or recover from accidents—they can focus more fully on the job at hand. In manufacturing settings, one study found that plants with robust safety programs had 15–25% fewer product defects than those without.7
Better Recruiting and Brand Reputation
Companies known for safety leadership are more attractive to job seekers, investors, and customers. In a world where employer review sites like Glassdoor influence hiring and retention, a reputation for caring about employees’ well-being can be a powerful differentiator.
What Makes a Strong Safety Culture?
Creating a safety-first culture doesn’t happen by accident. It requires vision, leadership, and follow-through. Below are key ingredients that research and real-world experience consistently point to.
1. Leadership Commitment
This is the foundation. Leaders must walk the walk by making safety a core value—not just a metric. That means allocating resources, participating in safety meetings, and holding themselves accountable.
A Harvard Business Review study showed that employees are five times more likely to follow safety protocols when leaders consistently model safe behavior.8
2. Open Communication and Psychological Safety
Employees must feel comfortable reporting near misses, hazards, and unsafe behavior—without fear of retaliation. This kind of psychological safety has been linked to higher reporting rates and faster issue resolution.9
Encourage anonymous reporting tools, regular safety check-ins, and celebrate employees who speak up.
3. Employee Involvement
Engaged employees are safer employees. Organizations that involve workers in safety committees, policy development, and hazard identification see dramatically improved outcomes.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) reports that worker involvement increases ownership and improves adherence to protocols.10
4. Training and Reinforcement
Safety training must go beyond new hire orientation. Regular refreshers, toolbox talks, and hands-on drills ensure that procedures stay top of mind. More importantly, training should be tailored to job-specific risks and updated when procedures or equipment change.
Reinforcement through recognition, feedback, and leading indicators (like near-miss reporting) helps make safety part of the day-to-day workflow.
5. Use of Impairment Detection Technologies
A rapidly emerging best practice is the use of real-time impairment detection technology to identify physiological signs of impairment, rather than relying solely on outdated methods like chemical testing. Gaize, for example, uses proven Drug Recognition Expert protocols administered through VR to identify signs of impairment on the spot—regardless of whether the cause is drugs, fatigue, or medical issues.
This kind of technology helps create a culture where fitness for duty is a shared expectation and supports both accountability and fairness.
Measuring and Improving Safety Culture
Like any other business function, safety culture should be measured and improved over time. Here are a few tools that organizations use:
Safety Culture Assessments – Tools like the Safety Culture Maturity Model or NSC’s Safety Climate Survey offer structured ways to evaluate your organization’s current state.
Leading Indicators – Tracking behaviors like near-miss reports, participation in training, and proactive hazard identification helps identify trends before accidents happen.
Lagging Indicators – While injury rates and lost-time incidents are important, they only tell you what happened after the fact. They should be balanced with leading indicators.
Pulse Surveys – Frequent, anonymous feedback from workers can help identify cultural blind spots or emerging risks.
Real-World Success Stories
Many companies have transformed their safety cultures—and seen dramatic results.
Alcoa, the aluminum manufacturing giant, famously improved its market performance by prioritizing safety above all else. When CEO Paul O’Neill made safety the top priority, Alcoa’s lost workday rate dropped from 1.86 to 0.2 and the company’s market value quintupled.11
Shell Oil invested heavily in safety leadership and saw a 70% reduction in injuries over 10 years, alongside improvements in morale and productivity.12
Drug-Free Workplaces: Enhancing Safety Culture with Fair and Effective Policies
A drug-free workplace policy is a cornerstone of a strong safety culture. Substance use among workers is a serious issue: the U.S. Department of Labor has reported that up to 65% of workplace accidents are related to drug or alcohol use. 15 These incidents are not only costly in terms of injuries and lost productivity but also erode the shared commitment to safety that underpins effective organizational culture.
Research backs this up. A peer-reviewed study published in Health Services Research examined Washington State’s Drug-Free Workplace Program and found statistically significant reductions in occupational injury rates among participating companies, particularly in construction and manufacturing. 16 This suggests that drug-free policies, when implemented effectively, can directly improve safety outcomes.
Yet, enforcing such policies fairly is increasingly challenging. In states where cannabis is legal for medical or recreational use, standard drug tests often identify past use rather than current impairment — putting employers in the difficult position of penalizing off-duty behavior that doesn’t affect job performance. According to the National Drug-Free Workplace Alliance, effective programs need to be based on performance, not just test results, to avoid potential legal and ethical issues. 17
This is where impairment detection technology becomes a game changer. Instead of relying solely on biochemical tests, which can yield false positives for impairment, these systems assess current cognitive and physical functioning. A recent study published on arXiv demonstrated that eye-tracking technology could identify cannabis-induced impairment with 89% classification accuracy by measuring subtle changes in oculomotor control. 18 This allows employers to make safety decisions based on real-time evidence of functional impairment — not just exposure to a substance.
By combining a drug-free workplace policy with impairment detection, organizations can maintain high safety standards while also respecting employee rights. It promotes trust, ensures fairness, and enhances the integrity of the company’s safety culture.
The Role of Technology
The future of safety culture will be data-driven, real-time, and proactive. Emerging technologies—like wearable safety monitors, predictive analytics, and AI-based hazard detection—are helping companies identify and mitigate risks faster than ever.
One breakthrough is physiological impairment detection. Unlike urine or oral fluid tests, systems like Gaize provide instant, objective evidence of functional impairment—empowering companies to make timely, fair decisions. When integrated into a strong culture, this technology enhances trust and reinforces accountability.
Where Gaize Fits In: Reinforcing a Safety-First Culture
At Gaize, we believe that you can’t improve what you can’t measure. Impairment detection through objective testing helps support a positive safety culture by providing:
Fair, unbiased insights into current fitness for duty
Defensible data to support decisions and mitigate liability
Proactive alerts that prevent incidents before they happen
Unlike traditional drug tests—which only show past use—Gaize measures real-time functional impairment using DRE-based protocols in a VR headset. This empowers employers to focus on actual risk, not outdated stigma or speculation.
And best of all? It supports employees too—by eliminating false positives, reducing bias, and building trust through transparent, consistent practices.
Conclusion
Safety culture isn’t just about avoiding accidents—it’s about creating a workplace where everyone is empowered to protect themselves and each other. It pays off in every way: fewer injuries, lower costs, stronger retention, as well as a more profitable and more resilient organization.
As competition for talent intensifies and regulatory scrutiny increases, companies that invest in safety culture now will lead the way—not just in compliance, but in performance.
References
National Safety Council. Making the Business Case for Safety Innovation. This white paper discusses the return on investment (ROI) of safety technologies and practices.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employer-Reported Workplace Injuries and Illnesses – 2023. This report provides data on workplace injuries and illnesses reported by employers in 2023.
Liberty Mutual Insurance. 2023 Workplace Safety Index. This index examines the top causes of serious disabling workplace injuries and their associated costs.
Gallup. State of the American Workplace Report. This report offers insights into employee engagement and workplace trends.
Journal of Safety Research. Volume 80, February 2022. This volume includes studies on proactive safety leadership and injury prevention.
National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI). ABCs of Experience Rating. This document explains how experience rating affects workers' compensation costs.
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Inadequate Modeling Data Costs Billions to US Manufacturers. This article discusses the economic impact of low-quality design data on manufacturing.
Harvard Business Review. A Guide to Building Psychological Safety on Your Team. This article provides strategies for leaders to foster psychological safety.
Center for Creative Leadership. How Leaders Can Build Psychological Safety at Work. This piece offers guidance on creating a psychologically safe workplace.
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Total Worker Health® Program. This program focuses on integrating occupational safety and health protection with health promotion.
The New York Times. How Paul O’Neill Made Alcoa Safer—and More Profitable. This article details Alcoa's transformation under CEO Paul O'Neill's safety initiatives.
Energy Institute. Shell’s Journey to Goal Zero. This article discusses Shell's commitment to achieving zero harm in its operations.
National Safety Council. Overdose Deaths at Work – Injury Facts and Workplace Wellbeing – Substance Use
National Safety Council. Work Injury Costs – Injury Facts
U.S. Department of Labor. "Drugs and Alcohol in the Workplace." https://www.osha.gov/workplace-drug-programs ↩
Wickizer, T. M., Kopjar, B., Franklin, G., & Joesch, J. (2004). Do Drug-Free Workplace Programs Prevent Occupational Injuries? Evidence from Washington State. Health Services Research, 39(1), 91–110. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1360996/ ↩
National Drug-Free Workplace Alliance. "Drug Tests Alone Aren’t Enough: The Need for Supervisory Documentation." https://www.ndwa.org/dfwp/supervisorydocumentation/ ↩
Allen, J., Brickson, L., van Merkensteijn, J., Beeler, D., & Ghajar, J. (2024). Cannabis Impairment Monitoring Using Objective Eye Tracking Analytics. arXiv preprint arXiv:2407.13701. https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.13701 ↩
