A Brief Discussion on the Construction of Corporate Safety Culture and Related Considerations

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****It has been emphasized that: \"Severe work safety accidents that result in heavy casualties and significant property losses must be given top priority.\" Human life is of utmost importance; development must never come at the cost of human lives. This must be regarded as an uncrossable red line.” Currently, safe production has become an important issue that all industries must pay attention to. Strengthening safety management, preventing accidents, and ensuring the safety of employees is not only the responsibility of corporate managers, but the company’s safety culture also plays an indispensable role in this regard. A corporate safety culture is formed over the long term through safe production and operational activities; it is the soul of safety management and an important guarantee for achieving safe production. I. Adhere to the combination of corporate safety culture and safety education. Safe production is the lifeline of an enterprise, while safety culture serves as a catalyst for its development; neither can be omitted. Strengthen the construction of safety culture, enhance its soft power, leverage its role as an educational tool, and promote the transition from traditional to modern safety culture. Advocate among all employees and officials the concept that \"safety is a blessing while accidents are disasters.\" Through the development of safety culture, employees can experience its advantages, thereby shifting from a mindset of \"I am forced to be safe and to follow rules\" to one of \"I want to be safe and I want to follow rules.\" For a single enterprise, whether the top leader and management attach importance to safety, whether they proactively engage in education related to safety culture and acquire knowledge in safety management, is undoubtedly key to establishing a strong safety culture. “The person in charge must not only set an example by consciously adhering to various safety rules and regulations and serving as a good role model for employees, but also need to be familiar with the policies and regulations related to safe production, understand the hazards present in the production process, and take proactive measures to prevent them, thereby creating a work environment in which it is considered honorable to prioritize safety and shameful to neglect it. At the same time, for the safety culture education within a unit, relying solely on the safety training provided by the top leader is far from sufficient; it is also necessary to ensure that safety managers receive proper training as well. Emphasis is placed on providing safety management personnel with training in safety management knowledge that combines theory and practice, in order to improve their abilities to analyze, predict, and control accidents. Furthermore, it is also necessary to improve the safety culture awareness among all employees. The core issue in safe production is people; they are both the objects of safety management and the driving force behind it. Some enterprise managers often have the bad tendency to focus solely on money, which leads to a lax approach to safety education; as a result, problems or accidents arising from illegal instructions, improper working practices, and violations of labor discipline occur frequently. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the development of safety systems, ensuring that these efforts are ongoing and institutionalized, and that they are pursued consistently, so that safety education covers every area without any gaps. II. Uphold the dialectical unity of corporate safety culture and safety education. In the past, when focusing on safety work, we only emphasized safety management and ignored education, which was one-sided. As a form of cultural safety, it enables safety management to reach a deeper level, allowing employees to fulfill their responsibilities and duties related to safe production under the guidance of new concepts or ideas. It also helps to establish a safety culture centered on people, thereby achieving an organic unity between the value of production and the value of human beings – and all of this can only be accomplished through safety education. Safety education is an important part of the safety culture. In an era where safety awareness and a safety culture have not yet fully become established on a societal level, it is necessary to use publicity and education to help every employee understand the profound significance and importance of a safety culture. This will enable everyone to realize that safety is not only a matter of responsibility toward oneself, but also toward others, the company, and society as a whole. Therefore, in fostering and building a safety culture, \"safety education\" and \"safety culture\" are closely related, inseparable, and form an important dialectical whole. III. Emphasize that the key to building a corporate safety culture lies in the establishment of responsibility systems. As a core element of developing such a culture, safety responsibility systems must be properly established; these systems should serve as a crucial tool for safety management and reflect all aspects of the safety culture. First, it is necessary to strictly implement the responsibility system for the top leader. As the saying goes, problems that have existed for a long time remain difficult; yet if the top leader pays attention to them, they become easier to resolve. It is important to emphasize that the person in charge holds overall responsibility for the safety production in the enterprise. Regular safety production meetings should be held to carefully analyze the safety production situation and address the existing problems. Second, it is necessary to strengthen enterprises’ primary responsibility for work safety. Enterprises are the main entities engaged in production and business activities, as well as the ones responsible for implementing safety management. While fully complying with the new Work Safety Law, they should establish a self-regulating, continuous, and improvement-oriented work safety management system to enhance their own safety standards. Third, it is necessary to strictly hold those responsible for accidents accountable. In strict accordance with the relevant regulations on accountability for safety accidents, efforts should be intensified to address potential safety hazards. In cases where safety accidents occur due to failure to fulfill safety responsibilities, the principle of \"four no-lets-go\" must be adhered to: no letting go until the causes are identified, no letting go until the relevant personnel have received education, no letting go until those responsible are dealt with, and no letting go until corrective measures are implemented. Relevant leaders and responsible persons must be held strictly accountable. Fourth, it is necessary to further improve the incentive, restraint, and supervision mechanisms. Economic instruments should be fully utilized to promote work safety. Strict economic accountability shall be imposed on enterprises and responsible personnel that fail to complete the rectification plans for major safety hazards on schedule. Establish and improve safety supervision agencies, focus efforts at earlier stages and at the grassroots level, be adept at identifying and resolving incipient and emerging problems, and take targeted supervision measures to prevent issues before they arise. IV. To uphold a corporate safety culture, it is necessary to establish a support system. To turn the vision for the development of a corporate safety culture into concrete actions, a robust support system must be put in place. First, there must be full support from the corporate legal representative. The legal representative of a company is the primary person responsible for safety and holds a central position within the company, possessing the authority to make decisions regarding the company’s business strategies and management approaches. Their mindset and working methods influence the corporate culture as well as the transformation of the mindset of all employees. Only when they place importance on the construction of a corporate safety culture can such a safety culture be ensured. Second, there must be a high-quality full-time (part-time) safety management team. Full-time (part-time) safety backbone managers are the core force in building a corporate safety culture, playing roles in organization, implementation, guidance, supervision, and leadership. The level of this team directly influences the development of a corporate safety culture. Therefore, cultivating and building a team of high-quality core personnel is an essential condition for establishing a corporate safety culture. In recent years, the management of Jiangsu Huaihe Chemical Co., Ltd. has attached great importance to safe production. It has established a three-level safety network system at the team, branch plant, and company levels, and is willing to invest in efforts to develop a strong safety culture within the enterprise through various training programs such as sending employees out for training and inviting experts in. As a result, no serious safety accidents have occurred in this company over the years. It has undergone multiple safety inspections by higher-level authorities and received high praise for its efforts. These achievements are made possible by a high-quality safety management team. Third, strict reward and punishment mechanisms as well as competitive systems must be established and improved. Establishing and improving reward and punishment systems as well as competition mechanisms are important means of promoting the development of a safety culture within enterprises. As evidenced by the stable progress made in building a safety culture at Huaihua Corporation’s Jiangsu McDow Company over the past few years (Jiangsu Anbang Electrochemical Co., Ltd. received the title of Model Enterprise for Safety Culture in 2015), it is impossible to motivate employees without reward and punishment systems, and it is impossible to advance the development of a safety culture without competition mechanisms. First, professional safety culture exams should be organized in a timely manner. Regular practical and theoretical examinations are conducted for workers in special occupations and key positions, with a system of elimination based on performance rankings. Second, a competitive recruitment system should be implemented for full-time (part-time) key personnel in safety culture. Third, it is necessary to regularly organize safety knowledge competitions and safety skill training for all employees, and to recognize and reward those who perform well. Fourth, a safety deposit system should be implemented; those who maintain a record of no accidents throughout the year shall receive corresponding rewards, while those who cause accidents will have their deposits deducted, thereby transferring the responsibility and pressure for safe production to every employee. Building a corporate safety culture serves a practical purpose for safe production and holds strategic significance for civilized production. Ultimately, a corporate safety culture is people-oriented; it involves caring for and valuing lives. It aims to protect and develop productive forces, to respect and care for people. It represents the fundamental way to ensure safe production in enterprises, to safeguard the safety and health of employees, and to improve the quality and standard of safe living for the general public. It also serves as the humanistic foundation and spiritual driving force for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.