A safety partnership is defined as:

Leadership, managers, and front-line associates jointly focus on safety and proactively work together in a business entity to minimize the possibility of harm and maximize safety performance. (Cooper, 2016)

Creating a genuine safety partnership means management and the workforce jointly working towards achieving common and understood safety goals, with clear and consistent communication, efficient monitoring, reporting, and decisive action to investigate blockages and take the appropriate corrective action as needed.

The key drivers for developing and maintaining a safety partnership are straightforward and involve:

(a) effective safety leaders who develop a supportive environment and

(b) reducing the degree of risk presented by the nature of the work.

High levels of managerial support lead to higher levels of engagement, which in turn lead to much higher compliance with safety rules and procedures. Moreover, reducing levels of risk presented by hazards and high job-pressures also leads to much higher compliance with safety. Specific areas of safety that joint management and workforce teams can use to develop a proactive safety partnership include:

(a) safety leadership skills development;

(b) hazard identification exercises;

(c) risk assessments;

(d) reporting, investigating and reviewing incidents;

(e) reviews of rules and procedures;

(f) employee development of toolbox talks;

(g) mentoring new hires;

(h) pro-active involvement in behavior-based safety processes; and

(i) seeking people’s views on improving safety

Source: Safety Cultures, Safety Models, Taking Stock and Moving Forward, 2018, Claude Gilbert, Benoît Journé, Hervé Laroche, Corinne Bieder