A comprehensive study of over 2,600 companies across Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom has uncovered a significant gap between compliance and genuine safety culture in Australian workplaces.
The Safe365 Safety Culture Maturity Report 2024, the first of its kind to analyse safety culture maturity across these three countries, highlights a concerning trend where businesses equate legal compliance with worker safety.
The report, which evaluates safety culture on a scale of 1-100, reveals that reactive practices still dominate the health and safety landscape.
While policies (70 per cent) and incident reporting (68 per cent) score relatively high, proactive measures such as internal auditing (37 per cent), emergency stress testing (36 per cent), and ensuring safety practice implementation (33 per cent) lag significantly behind.
Nathan Hight, a former executive in National Surf Lifesaving and founding director of Safe365, draws a stark contrast between the proactive risk management culture in surf lifesaving and the current state of most workplaces.
He notes: “Australian businesses and industry have a systemic issue with the level of director knowledge regarding good health and safety governance within organisations.”
The study identifies a consistent vulnerability in monitoring and assurance areas, suggesting that many organisations are “flying blind” when it comes to understanding if their safety systems are actually operating as intended.
This superficial approach to safety focused on compliance rather than genuine risk mitigation, can lead to preventable workplace harm.
Hight emphasises the need for directors and senior leaders to be more actively involved in safety oversight, stating: “This is where directors and senior leaders need to be better informed by making site visits, studying the data and asking the right questions.”
While Australia ranks ahead of New Zealand on the five-tier safety culture maturity roadmap, it still trails behind the UK.
This report serves as a wake-up call for Australian businesses to move beyond mere compliance and towards a more proactive, embedded safety culture.
As workplaces continue to evolve, this report provides valuable insights for organisations looking to improve their safety practices and create a more robust safety culture.
It underscores the importance of shifting from a tick-box approach to a comprehensive, proactive strategy that prioritises genuine worker safety.
