I. Responsibility for occupational safety

Why

One of the most important aspects of a company-specific safety culture is who feels responsible for the safety of the employees, especially for the safe execution of all activities in the company. There are four fundamentally different approaches that can take responsibility for this. These are (1) the HSE department, (2) the management, (3) the team leaders and (4) each individual employee. This – usually subliminal – determination in the company has a significant influence on all the following aspects and subject areas that influence the safety culture and safety performance.

The meaning of the four states

The characteristics of the four states can be described for this subject area as follows:

	dependent – Line Management is responsible for HSE, HSE department is guiding senior management
	independent – Team leaders take ownership for HSE-matters without being asked
	interdependent – Workers know about self-responsibility and intervene within the team in a self-regulating manner
	reactive – HSE department is responsible for HSE