Human Aspects of Nuclear Safety
2021

Methods for Assessing
and Strengthening
the Safety Cultureof the Regulatory Body

NE A

Human Aspects of Nuclear Safety

Methods for Assessing andStrengthening the Safety Cultureof the Regulatory Body

© OECD 2021
NEA No. 7535
NUCLEAR ENERGY AGENCY
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Nuclear Energy Agency.

NUCLEAR ENERGY AGENCYThe OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) was established on 1 February 1958. Current NEA membershipconsists of 34 countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic,
Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg,
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Cover photos: Various sectors of activity at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC, United States).

FOREWORD

Foreword

The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) Committee on Nuclear Regulatory Activities (CNRA)
approved the creation of the Working Group on Safety Culture (WGSC) at its 37th meeting (May2017). The group’s main objective is to provide a senior-level regulatory forum for fostering
discussion and exchange of information and experience on diverse practical approaches todeveloping and sustaining a healthy safety culture within the regulatory body and across thewider, interconnected system. To this end, the working group also develops concepts from the
NEA regulatory guidance report, The Safety Culture of an Effective Nuclear Regulatory Body (NEA,
2016). This report identifies five principles that underpin and support the safety culture of aneffective nuclear regulatory body and describes their associated attributes. The need to focus
on practical tools for developing a safety culture is of particular interest for the CNRA. This
explains why, to date, the main attention of the WGSC has been to explore and structure thediverse tools and methods regulatory bodies in member countries are using to foster a safety
culture, as well as those of licensees and regulated entities.
In November 2017, the WGSC held its first meeting with the aim of informing each member
country’s efforts in addressing the safety culture of the regulatory body and to start developing
its programme of work. The group decided to focus on two tasks: building safety culturecompetence and awareness; and promoting self-reflection and self-assessment of the safety
culture of the regulatory body. Upon the CNRA’s approval of these tasks in June 2018, the WGSC
developed its approach to gather insights, experiences and lessons learnt to form the basis of
this report.
As a first step, a pilot questionnaire was distributed to WGSC members in July 2018. Oncethe questions had been refined, the final questionnaire was sent to all CNRA members in
February 2019. Responses were received by April 2019. With the aim of enhancing a safety
culture across and within the regulatory body, the questionnaire was designed to gather insights,
experiences and lessons learnt on training and competence-building activities, as well as
applied approaches, practices, methods and tools that regulatory bodies use to carry out selfreflection and self-assessment. In total, 17 member countries responded to the finalquestionnaire: Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Korea, theNetherlands, Poland, Russia, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United
Kingdom and the United States. These NEA member countries represent nuclear programmesof different size and scope. As an NEA strategic partner, the People’s Republic of China also
provided responses, which are included in the analysis. The organisations that responded
include regulatory bodies and their technical support organisations.
The questionnaire responses were analysed by two task groups of WGSC members, eachcomposed of senior-level officials and safety culture experts with backgrounds in psychology,social sciences and engineering. Findings were further refined by the WGSC members during
several task group meetings (held throughout 2019 and 2020) and in plenary discussions during
the WGSC biannual meetings.
This report is targeted primarily towards leaders and managers, as well as staff members,
responsible for activities to strengthen the safety culture of the regulatory body. In the first case,senior management should be aware of the practices performed by regulatory bodies aroundthe world. In turn, to ensure that safety is prioritised above all else, managers should know thata variety of approaches and tools for competence building and self-assessment/-reflection cancontribute to continuous improvement of the safety culture of the regulatory body, which may
ultimately impact the safety culture of a licensee. Secondly, the regulatory body needs qualified
staff who have expertise in the theoretical basis of a safety culture and in the practical tools

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FOREWORD

available to strengthen it. This report provides both an overview and practical information on
the methods and tools used by regulatory bodies to assess their own safety culture and to build
safety culture competence and awareness. The WGSC encourages regulatory bodies to use thisreport as a reference for reviewing and improving their activities to foster and enhance a healthysafety culture.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledgements

The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) would like to thank the Committee on Nuclear Regulatory
Activities (CNRA) Working Group on Safety Culture (WGSC) Chair, Nobuhiko Ban (Commissioner,
Nuclear Regulation Authority [NRA], Japan), the task group leaders Cornelia Ryser (Swiss Federal
Nuclear Safety Inspectorate [ENSI], Switzerland) and Kaisa Koskinen (Radiation and Nuclear
Safety Authority [STUK], Finland), and all task group members for their efforts and contributions
to this report. Their participation in task meetings, workshops and in plenary meetings havemade this report possible.
In addition to these individuals, many thanks are due to the individuals who took the time
to fill out the questionnaire from the following countries: Belgium, Canada, the People’s Republicof China, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, theSlovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Thanks
are also extended to those who provided useful comments and editing suggestions, for which
the team is grateful.
The consultant Meritxell Martell (Merience) worked on streamlining and homogenising thedifferent parts of the report into a single, comprehensive document. Marilyn Smith (ORENDA
Communications) provided editorial services.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of contents

List of abbreviations and acronyms .................................................................................................... 9
Executive summary .............................................................................................................................. 11
Chapter 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 15
Chapter 2. Rationale .............................................................................................................................. 19
2.1. Methods and approaches for building safety culture competence and awareness .......... 20
2.2. Methods, approaches and tools with respect to self-reflection and self-assessmentof safety culture ......................................................................................................................... 21
Chapter 3. Methods to build safety culture competence and awareness.................................... 23
3.1. Categories of methods for building competence and awareness ...................................... 23
3.2. Discussion, lessons learnt and practical observations from safety culturecompetence and awareness building..................................................................................... 26
3.3. Conclusions and observations on best practices to build competence
and awareness .......................................................................................................................... 29
Chapter 4. Methods for self-reflection and self-assessment ......................................................... 31
4.1. Categories of the methods for self-reflection and self-assessment .................................. 32
4.2. Discussion, lessons learnt and practical observations from performing
self-reflection and self-assessment ....................................................................................... 35
4.3. Improvement of safety culture ............................................................................................... 43
4.4. Conclusions and observations on best practices for self-reflection
and self-assessment ................................................................................................................. 48
Chapter 5. Conclusions......................................................................................................................... 51
Chapter 6. Recommendations for future work ................................................................................. 55
References .............................................................................................................................................. 59
Annex A: Catalogue of methods for safety culture competence andawareness building............................................................................................................ 61
Annex B: Catalogue of methods for self-reflection and self-assessment .................................. 73
List of figures
1.1. Overall interconnect system of stakeholders ......................................................................... 16
4.1. Relationship between self-reflection, self-assessment and improvement ........................ 32
List of tables
1.1. Principles and attributes for a healthy safety culture in regulatory bodies ....................... 17
3.1. Overview of the methods for safety culture competence and awareness building .......... 24
4.1. Overview of the methods for self-reflection and self-assessment ...................................... 33
4.2. Categorisation of the methods ................................................................................................. 44

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

List of abbreviations and acronyms

CNRA

Committee on Nuclear Regulatory Activities (NEA)

CSNI

Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (NEA)CSSCFCountry-Specific Safety Culture Forum (NEA)

HOF

Human and organisational factors

HTO

Human, technology and organisation

IAEA

International Atomic Energy Agency

INPO

Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (United States)

INSAG

International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group (IAEA)

IRRSInternational Regulatory Review Service (IAEA)

NEA

Nuclear Energy Agency

OECD

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

RSC

Regulatory safety culture

SCSA

Safety culture and self-assessment

SRSA

Self-reflection self-assessment

SSM

Swedish Radiation Safety Authority

STUK

Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (Finland)

TQM

Total quality management

TSO

Technical support organisation

WANO

World Association of Nuclear Operators

WGSC

Working Group on Safety Culture (NEA)

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Executive summary

It is essential that organisations in the nuclear community maintain a healthy safety culture toachieve the common goals of safe operation of nuclear facilities and safe use of nuclear material.
Regulatory bodies are no exception, as a key element of the interconnected system that includes
licensees, research institutions, technical support organisations, as well as governmentalorganisations and other stakeholders. By directly and indirectly interacting with each other, allorganisations within this interconnected system have an impact on nuclear safety and mutually
influence their respective safety cultures.
Regulatory bodies, by their nature, deeply influence the safety culture and the safety of theorganisations they regulate and oversee. Based on their regulatory strategy, the way they carryout their daily oversight work, the type of relationship they cultivate with licensees, the values
they convey and the importance they give to safety, regulatory bodies profoundly impact thelicensees’ safety culture, their sense of responsibility for safety and, by extension, the safety of
their installations. Each regulatory body needs to be conscious of this impact in order to promote
the willingness and efforts of the nuclear operating organisations, while simultaneously
discharging their primary responsibility for safety (NEA, 2016).
The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) regulatory guidance report The Safety Culture of an Effective
Nuclear Regulatory Body (NEA, 2016) (noted hereafter as “the NEA Green Booklet”) identified anddescribed five principles and their associated attributes leading to a healthy safety culture
within the nuclear regulatory body. The NEA Green Booklet recognises the challenges to thesafety culture of regulatory bodies and the need to turn these challenges into opportunities; italso stresses an attitude that values continuous improvement and learning. This report aims tohelp by further developing concepts from the NEA Green Booklet in a practical way. In particular,
this report covers Principle 5, which states that “continuous improvement, learning and selfassessment are encouraged at all levels in the organisation”, along with its associated attributes.
Regulatory bodies apply a number of methods, practices and approaches to foster and sustaina healthy safety culture. This report provides an overview and practical examples of how to build
their safety culture competence and to carry out self-reflection and self-assessment of theregulators’ own safety culture and its impact on the safety culture of organisations they oversee.
Based on experiences from NEA member countries, the report discusses effective methods todisseminate safety culture throughout the regulatory body, to build competence in safety culture,and to develop self-reflection and self-assessment activities.
Senior management within the regulatory body plays a crucial leadership role in fosteringand sustaining a healthy safety culture. They should be aware of the practices performed byregulatory bodies around the world and should give due regard to their own human andorganisational factors (HOF) practitioners. This will help the organisation apply the methods
and approaches provided, analyse the results, understand their implications and perform
actions to enhance the safety culture of the regulatory body. Senior management should also
support an environment of continuous learning based on internal and external experiences,and provide training and competency building in the area of safety culture.
Based on the lessons learnt and best practices, the ten following conclusions aim to inspire
managers to undertake and sustain efforts to continuously develop the safety culture of theregulatory body.
1.

Understanding the significance of the safety culture of the regulatory body
The safety culture of the regulatory body influences the safety culture of licensees.
Reflecting upon, assessing and developing further the safety culture of the regulatory
body helps to improve the safety culture and the safety of regulated installations. In turn,

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

staff of the regulatory body become familiar with the concept of safety culture, as well as
the challenges of the licensees in reflecting, assessing and improving it. Thus, the staff
develop knowledge and skills for evaluating licensee’s safety culture activities as well.
2.

Fostering management commitment and involvement
The commitment and involvement of the management at all organisational levels is
crucial; it demonstrates to staff that engagement in safety culture is important andnecessary. The example set by senior management plays an especially important role
for the success of such activities.

3.

Actively involving staff
Most methods and approaches are effective only if participants are open to engage andwilling to share their expertise and experiences. Regulatory bodies can reinforce theacceptance and involvement of their staff by using methods that are enjoyable, creatinga pleasant atmosphere, ensuring a safe environment and confidentiality, focusing on theprocess rather than the result, and communicating transparently the actions and results.

4.

Learning from the experience of others
A wide range of methods and approaches successfully applied by regulatory bodies
around the world are available, from which all regulatory bodies can extract hints, ideas,
inspiration and advice to understand and foster their own safety culture.

5.

Getting started
The exact choice of method to begin with is less important than starting a process thatcreates a positive atmosphere, generates a feeling of success among participants andopens the door for continuing activities.

6.

Creating early successes
It is advisable to start with straightforward methods and approaches that will deliver
early successes, thereby allowing the regulatory body to build on them and continue a
positive feedback loop towards more open communication among employees, moreelaborate approaches and a healthy safety culture.

7.

Applying the right expertise
HOF practitioners possess specific safety culture expertise that, combined with the rightmethod for the context applied in a collective and interdisciplinary way, support theregulatory body in assessing and enhancing its safety culture.

8.

Combining methods, tools and approaches
Fostering and improving safety culture is a continuous process; a combination of
methods, tools and approaches is advisable, tailored to the specific needs and available
resources.

9.

Planning, monitoring and evaluating
An interdependence exists between an organisation’s management system and safety
culture. To be effective, actions related to safety culture should be planned, monitored
and evaluated according to – and as an integral part of – the organisation’s management
system. Outcomes from these actions can also help identify opportunities to improvepolicies, processes and procedures, and should thus be fed back into the management
system.

10. Ensuring continuous improvement
Strengthening safety culture cannot be a one-time activity. It is a journey consisting of
keeping awareness alive, continuing to improve, evaluating the effectiveness of actions,being open for possible corrections, and pursuing continuous improvement and learning.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Through its Working Group on Safety Culture (WGSC), the NEA is continuing to foster
discussion and exchange information and experience among member countries on different
practical approaches to developing and sustaining a healthy safety culture, both within theregulatory body and across the wider, interconnected system. This open exchange of experienceand lessons learnt allows regulatory bodies to examine and analyse examples that help them toenhance competence and awareness, as well as to reflect on and assess their own safety culture.
Future work in this field includes the need to further investigate how the safety culture of
the regulatory body influences that of the regulated organisations, and vice versa. Regulators
also need to develop methods and tools that allow them to reach deeper layers of culture andto monitor the effectiveness of improvement actions.

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INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1. Introduction

Safety culture was highlighted as a fundamental management principle by the International
Nuclear Safety Advisory Group (INSAG) of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) intheir INSAG-3 report Basic Safety Principles for Nuclear Power Plants (IAEA, 1988). The concept was
further refined in the INSAG-4 report Safety Culture (IAEA, 1991), which outlined requirements
and characteristics to judge the effectiveness of safety culture in particular cases. INSAG defined
the concept of safety culture, after the Chernobyl accident, as “…that assembly of
characteristics and attitudes in organisations and individuals which establishes that, as anoverriding priority, nuclear plant safety issues receive the attention warranted by theirsignificance” (IAEA, 1991). This definition considers that safety culture is both structural andattitudinal. The former refers to the organisational structure, roles and responsibilities,
documentation, policy statements, etc.; the latter refers to perceptions, social norms, ways ofthinking and patterns of behaviour (Bernard, 2014).
The World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) and the Institute of Nuclear PowerOperations (INPO) have also published traits of a healthy nuclear safety culture and have identified
the main organisational processes critical to such a culture (INPO, 2013; WANO, 2013). According
to INPO (2013), the categories of the traits of a healthy nuclear safety culture include: individualcommitment to safety (personal accountability, questioning attitude and effective safety
communication); management commitment to safety (leadership safety values and actions,effective decision-making, and a respectful work environment); and management systems(continuous learning, problem identification and resolution, environment for raising concerns andwork processes). These three categories are similar to components proposed in INSAG-4 (IAEA,
1991): requirements at policy level, requirements on managers and response of individuals. IAEA
Safety Guides (IAEA, 2006 and 2009) include additional recommendations on how to take accountof safety culture in the organisation and in the management system. Along with conceptual
development, a series of documents published by the IAEA provide practical advice on key aspects
to develop and strengthen safety culture. They cover various topics including: safety culture in
the pre-operational phase (IAEA, 2012); surveys or self-assessment methods (IAEA, 2002a, 2002band 2019); and establishing regulatory oversight of safety culture (IAEA, 2013b).
Safety culture was, for many years, understood and treated as an issue primarily related tonuclear operating organisations. The role of a regulatory body with respect to safety culture wasregarded as developing and applying methods for oversight on safety culture in the regulatedorganisations. After the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, however,awareness has increased regarding the importance of safety culture within regulatory bodies.
In turn, competences related to safety culture within the regulatory bodies have been developed,
along with practical methods for self-assessment.
The human and organisational factors (HOF) analysis of the Fukushima Daiichi accident also
led to recognition of the need for a systemic approach1 that encompasses interactions among all
stakeholders involved in nuclear safety. All participants of this wide, interconnected systeminteract directly and indirectly (NEA, 2016). Those stakeholders, including the regulatory bodyand licensees, collectively shape an overarching culture and mutually influence each other, beingat the same time an outcome and a determinant of this overall culture (Ryser, 2019) (Figure 1.1).

1.

According to IAEA GSR Part 2, this refers to “an approach relating to the system as a whole in which theinteractions between technical, human and organizational factors are duly considered” (IAEA, 2016a).

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INTRODUCTION

Figure 1.1. Overall interconnected system of stakeholders

From the viewpoint of regulatory oversight, the safety culture of regulators has a potentiallysignificant impact on that of organisations they oversee, in particular through values and norms
they demonstrate, the way they regulate and oversee the nuclear industry, and the way theyinteract with licensees. Today, this view is widely shared. For regulatory bodies, safety culture
is a challenge from two perspectives: 1) safety culture as an issue of oversight, with the need todevelop suitable approaches and tools for oversight on the licensee’s safety culture; and2) safety culture as an issue of regulators’ own self-reflection, with the need to give shape totheir own safety culture and understand how it influences the safety culture of licensees (Ryser,
2019; NEA, 2016).
The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) established its commitment to safety culture in the late
1990s and has since mainly examined the regulators’ side of the issue from the two perspectives
mentioned above. The NEA report, The Role of the Nuclear Regulator in Promoting and Evaluating
Safety Culture (NEA, 1999), focuses on regulatory oversight of safety culture and discusses how
the regulatory body could recognise early signs of declining safety performance of operators.
Another guidance report, The Safety Culture of an Effective Nuclear Regulatory Body (NEA, 2016)(hereafter referred to as the “NEA Green Booklet”), identifies and describes five principles andtheir associated attributes that underpin and support the safety culture of an effective nuclear
regulatory body.
The NEA Green Booklet (NEA, 2016) emphasises that it is the combination of thesecharacteristics – i.e. the principles and attributes – that leads to a healthy safety culture within
the nuclear regulatory body (Table 1.1). In effect, no one characteristic is sufficient on its own.
The NEA encourages nuclear regulators to use these principles and attributes to self-assess theirsafety culture and to continuously strengthen their effectiveness while fulfilling their mission
to protect public health and safety.

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INTRODUCTION

Table 1.1. Principles and attributes of a healthy safety culture in regulatory bodies
Principles

Attributes

Principle 1: Leadership for safety is to be
demonstrated at all levels in the regulatory
body.

• “Safety first” is a guiding principle in the regulatory body.
• All leaders throughout the regulatory body demonstrate a commitment
to safety in their decisions and behaviours.
• Leaders create an environment for positive development of the safety
culture.
• Leaders clearly define individual roles, responsibilities and authority.
• Leaders ensure that the necessary resources are available to meet thesafety mission.

Principle 2: All staff of the regulatory body
have individual responsibility andaccountability for exhibiting behaviours that
set the standard for safety.

• Personal commitment to and accountability for safety from every staff
member, at all levels of the organisation.
• A strong sense of collaboration and co-ordination of activities across theorganisation.
• The need for moral courage and agility in doing the right thing.

Principle 3: The culture of the regulatory bodypromotes safety, and facilitates co-operationand open communication.

• Openness and transparency.
• Clear organisational commitment to co-operation.
• A questioning attitude, and mechanisms to raise differing opinions on
regulatory decisions.
• Promotion of safety and associated knowledge.

Principle 4: Implementing a holistic approachto safety is ensured by working in a systematicmanner.

• A healthy respect for the consequences of all actions and decisions
taken by the regulatory body.
• Clear awareness of roles and responsibilities in relation to licensees.
• A clear regulatory framework.
• Proactivity, adaptability and a holistic approach.
• Recognition of the complexity of safety issues.

Principle 5: Continuous improvement, learningand self-assessment are encouraged at alllevels in the organisation.

• Safety culture self-assessment and peer reviews.
• Learning from experience, fostering exchanges and increasing
knowledge.
• Knowledge management to build a healthy safety culture.
• Continuous improvement as a clear value of the regulatory body.

The characteristics summarised in Table 1.1 are not exhaustive and are intended tocomplement other work. For example, national culture is indicated as one of the elements
influencing safety culture, but the issue is not further elaborated in the NEA Green Booklet (NEA,
2016) as it requires an individualised approach. A collaborative effort to explore the influence ofnational culture led to the establishment, by the NEA and the WANO, of the Country-Specific
Safety Culture Forum (CSSCF). The CSSCF provides a unique forum to explore and reflect on
how a national context impacts on the safety culture, and how operators and regulators should
think about these effects in their day-to-day activities, with the goal to ensure safe nuclear
operations. The first CSSCF was convened in Stockholm (Sweden) in January 2018 withcollaboration between the NEA, the WANO and the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM)(NEA, 2018). The second CSSCF was held in Finland in March 2019 as a joint effort between the
NEA, the WANO and the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority of Finland (STUK) (NEA, 2019).
In addition, the Working Group on Safety Culture (WGSC) was established in 2017, under theCommittee on Nuclear Regulatory Activities (CNRA) of the NEA. The main objective of the WGSC
is to provide a senior-level regulatory forum for exchanging information and experiences, andplanning work to ensure that the safety culture of the regulatory body and the wider,interconnected system has a positive impact on safety. As part of its mandate, the WGSC is
tasked with compiling experiences and lessons learnt associated with implementing policies andstrategies to support a healthy safety culture, with a specific focus on related NEA documents.
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INTRODUCTION

Regulatory bodies around the world have made efforts to strengthen their own safety
cultures in diverse ways, keeping in mind their potential influence on the culture of licensees.
In this respect, many regulators have already gained extensive experience in activities related
to safety culture, including self-assessment, self-reflection, training, awareness building andimprovement. It is important to share those experiences, not only the methodologies, but also
the rationale, limitations and challenges encountered. Hence, this report catalogues methods
for competence and awareness building, as well as for self-reflection and self-assessment.
Lessons learnt and recommendations are provided so the report can serve as a basis for member
countries to enhance safety culture of both the regulator and regulated entities.
The NEA Green Booklet (NEA, 2016) indicates that more work is needed in the developmentof assessment methodologies. Besides assessing tangible elements of the culture (e.g. artefacts,
behaviours), self-assessment and self-reflection should also address intangible elements(e.g. norms and values, as well as deeply rooted basic assumptions), as suggested by Schöbel etal. (2017). Gaining better awareness of these intangible elements will be important for regulatory
bodies, considering their influence on licensees’ safety culture at deeper levels. While finding
ways to dig deep into the basic assumptions may be a future challenge, a broad base will benecessary for developing such a methodology. From this viewpoint, the present report compiles
information about diverse methods, approaches and practices that may be able to access thesafety culture at different levels.
This report is intended for senior management and managers, as well as staff members who
are responsible for activities to strengthen the safety culture of the regulatory body. Firstly, senior
management should be aware of the practices performed by regulatory bodies around the world.
As stated in the NEA Green Booklet (NEA, 2016), a certain sense of self-importance, complacency
or infallibility can result from working in isolation from other stakeholders and from theinternational community. Learning from peers can also be an opportunity to develop awarenessof the regulatory body’s own strengths and weaknesses. Secondly, the regulatory body needs
qualified staff who understand the theoretical foundation of safety culture and different practical
tools to strengthen it. The NEA Green Booklet (NEA, 2016) states that, “a specific safety culture
expertise should be available to the regulatory body in order to implement assessment processes,
facilitate dialogue in the regulatory body and analyse the results.” Accordingly, senior
management should give due regard to the knowledge and experience of their HOF practitioners
in relation to safety culture to carry out the methods and approaches provided in this report, as
well as to help analyse results and make recommendations to enhance the safety culture of theirregulatory body.
This report provides both an overview and practical information regarding the methods andapproaches performed by regulatory bodies to build safety culture competence and awarenessand to assess their own safety culture. The remainder of this report is divided into five chapters.
Chapter 2 provides the rationale of the report and an overview of the two focus areas: safety
culture competence and awareness building, and self-reflection and self-assessment. The next
chapters highlight results and discussion of good practices to build safety culture competence
and awareness (Chapter 3), and methods for self-reflection and self-assessment (Chapter 4).
Each chapter describes and discusses different methods, reviews lessons learnt, and features
recommendations and conclusions. Finally, the main conclusions are summarised in Chapter 5
and topics for further research are discussed in Chapter 6. Annexes catalogue methods to build
safety culture competence and awareness on safety culture (Annex A) and methods on selfreflection and self-assessment (Annex B).

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Chapter 2. Rationale

Regulators, by nature of their role, deeply influence the safety culture of the organisations they
oversee. Depending on their regulatory strategy, the way they carry out their daily oversight work,
the type of relationship they cultivate with licensees, the values they convey and the importancethey give to safety, regulatory bodies can have a profound impact on the safety culture oflicensees as well as on their sense of responsibility for safety and hence the safety of theirinstallations as a whole. The regulatory body needs to be aware of the impact of its own safety
culture on the safety and safety culture of the organisations it regulates and oversees in order topromote the willingness and efforts of the latter to discharge their primary responsibility forsafety (NEA, 2016).
Since its establishment in 2017, the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) Working Group on Safety
Culture (WGSC) has focused on developing practical tools and cataloguing approaches toaddress issues related to the safety culture of regulatory bodies. To do this, WGSC members
established two subgroups to work on two main tasks. One task addresses safety culturecompetence and awareness building, with the overall objective to develop and promote safety
culture awareness of the regulatory body through provision of relevant existing materials andmethods. The other task focuses on self-reflection and self-assessment of safety culture in
regulatory bodies, with the overall objective of identifying and structuring relevant approaches
and methods, including ways of working with and impacts on regulated organisations.
Both tasks are in close alignment with the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) publication, The
Safety Culture of an Effective Regulatory Body (NEA, 2016), commonly known as the NEA Green
Booklet, which states that regulators deeply influence the safety culture of the organisations
they oversee. Thus, it is important for the regulatory body to examine how it disseminates
information concerning safety culture throughout its organisation, how it builds competence insafety culture and how these actions affect the safety culture of the regulatory body. The NEA
Green Booklet also stresses the importance of self-reflection and self-assessment activities ofregulatory bodies, including an attitude that values continuous improvement and learning.
Both tasks are closely interrelated. On one hand, application of methods for self-reflection
and self-assessment requires some pre-existing degree of competence and awareness related
to safety culture within the organisation. On the other hand, the use of methods for selfreflection and self-assessment of the safety culture of the regulatory body can, in itself, build
such competence and awareness. Therefore, the methods and approaches identified in bothtasks should be considered as two integral components of building, sustaining and improving
the safety culture of the regulatory body, as well as fulfilling its oversight function with respect
to safety culture.
In recent years, regulatory bodies have gained broad experience in assessing and improving
their safety culture, as documented in publications of the NEA (2010 and 2015) and theInternational Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (2002b, 2016, 2019 and 2020). Experience in thiscontinuously evolving field is still growing. As a wide range of methods are applied by regulatory
bodies, they are customised to specific needs and further developed. To identify relevant andeffective methods, the NEA asked member countries to share their most useful methods andapproaches. In turn, from the array of deployed approaches, the WGSC was able to create amanageable catalogue of useful and effective methods.
Reflecting the output of both tasks, this report comprises two catalogues: one of activities
for enhancing safety culture competence within the regulatory body; and one of practices,
methods and tools used by regulatory bodies to self-reflect on and self-assess their safety
culture. These activities include training methods for inspecting or assessing safety culture in

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licensees and other regulated entities, as well as practices and approaches to raise awarenessand enhance safety culture. The catalogues provide information about activities, practices,
methods and tools that were applied by regulatory bodies and are considered to be effective by
the practitioners. Essential information is given in the annexes of this report. More detailed
information regarding the activities collected in the catalogue is available by contacting theCommittee on Nuclear Regulatory Activities (CNRA) and/or the WGSC Secretariat, as listed on
the WGSC page of the NEA website: www.oecd-nea.org/wgsc.

2.1. Methods and approaches for building safety culture competence and awarenessThe regulatory body must maintain its competence in all relevant technical areas, including
safety culture. Safety culture competence and awareness across the entire regulatory body – notjust for safety culture specialists – is a key factor in determining positive safety outcomes inlicensees. Maintaining regulatory competence is recognised in the NEA Green Booklet (NEA,
2016) as a challenge to sustaining the safety culture of the regulatory body. New staff, forexample, must be trained, be able to gain experience and be integrated into the safety cultureof the regulatory body. In parallel, the regulatory body must mitigate the risk of loss of corporate
memory and knowledge due to staff turnover.
This report discusses the role of training, competence building and awareness for safety
culture. The term “training” refers to a structured method or mechanism for developing
knowledge, skills and experience while “competence building” has the broader goal to improve
the necessary capabilities of staff. Competence is the combination of knowledge, skills andattitudes needed by a person to perform a particular job. All three aspects are important andinterrelate. In this context, competence building covers all activities to ensure development ofknowledge, skills and attitudes needed for safety culture and leadership. This applies to both
the regulatory body’s external oversight responsibilities, as well as to its own internal safety
culture. The concept of awareness is even broader than competence building: it refers to a
general state of understanding of a given topic, idea or goal. In this report, training andcompetence building are considered to make important contributions to developing safety
culture awareness and skills.
The ability of organisations to make safe decisions and take safe actions is affected by theknowledge of individuals – with any gaps in or loss of knowledge having specific impacts.
Managing essential knowledge as a strategic organisational asset is a factor of high relevance,and competences can be seen as critical carriers of knowledge. In this context, many nuclear
organisations now include capacity building in their work programmes, as a means tocontinuously improve societal, organisational and individual competences and capabilities
necessary to achieve safe, secure and sustainable nuclear programmes.
The term “capacity building” emerged in the lexicon of international development of thenuclear industry during the 1990s. However, wide usage has resulted in the definition dependingon the context of each organisation – and thus to controversy over its true meaning. In essence,
capacity building is a concept that comprises human resource development, knowledge
management and networks, along with education and training activities to develop capacities
and competences at three levels: governmental (societal), organisational and individual. Capacity
building at governmental level is essential as, without its support, organisational and individual
capacity will be affected.
In Chapter 3, methods employed to build safety culture competence and awareness on safety
culture are structured in five categories according to their overall objectives and target audiences.
The chapter summarises the main lessons learnt by regulatory bodies, the advantages anddisadvantages, as well as practical considerations to be taken into account when implementing
different activities to build the competences and raise awareness of safety culture. A sample ofmethods to build such competence and awareness is provided in Annex A (the catalogue).

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2.2. Methods, approaches and tools for self-reflection and self-assessment of safety
cultureThe main motivation behind undertaking self-reflection and self-assessment is to understandand evaluate the performance of regulatory responsibilities and to improve the regulatory body’s
own oversight culture in order to positively impact the licensee’s safety culture. Performing
regular self-reflections, self-assessments, and external reviews – as well as adopting a learning
attitude – are critical to identifying areas of improvement in all regulatory body activities andsupport continuous improvement.
Methods used by regulatory bodies often focus primarily on one of the following purposes,
although the allocation is not always clear-cut:•

Self-reflection refers to descriptive, introspective activities within the regulatory body
(groups, organisational units or the entire organisation) aimed at understanding its own
way of functioning and its impact on safety and the safety culture of licensees, thus
contributing to an environment of continuous learning.

•Self-assessment refers to normative assessment activities within the regulatory bodyagainst a set of predefined criteria by means of a systematic and structured process.
Such assessment aims to evaluate the current situation and opportunities for continuous
improvement towards the fulfilment of specific norms or requirements.

Many methods for self-reflection and self-assessment also include activities to identify aconcrete proposal for actions and measures to improve the safety culture of the regulatory bodyor achieve an improvement in a specific area. They aim to change specific elements of thecurrent situation.
Chapter 4 analyses the methods employed as a collective group of approaches. It examines
similarities and differences between individual methods within each group of methods,
identifies activities focused on improvement, and evaluates the experience of the countries inorder to highlight best practices. Further details of each method can be found in Annex B.

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Chapter 3. Methods to build safety culturecompetence and awareness

Competence in safety culture is a key characteristic of an effective regulator. Safety culturecompetence supports a holistic approach to regulatory oversight of licensees, considering human,
technological and organisational aspects in an integrated way. It also supports self-awareness of
how the safety culture of the regulatory body impacts that of licensees and vice versa.
Regulatory bodies report using a wide variety of methods to build safety culture competence
and awareness within their organisations. These include training in a variety of forms (includingclassroom training and e-learning), workshops, seminars and tutorship programmes. The
triggers that motivate regulatory bodies to undertake these activities can be external or internal,
as suggested also by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (IAEA, 2020). Some of thesetriggers 1 reported by Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) member countries include the following:•articulation of leadership commitments and desired behaviour at all levels of theorganisation;•better alignment of internal personal values with external organisation values;•

incorporation of lessons learnt (e.g. of accidents and events, revision of the management
system);•need to improve ways of working and individual behaviours (e.g. among departments
and between supervisors and subordinates; level of involvement of staff; prioritisationof tasks and duties; embedding a graded approach in everyday work; harmonise
education and experience level of new recruits; conducting safety culture inspections
by generalist and specialised inspectors);•

international incentives or pressure (e.g. observations from IAEA International Regulatory
Review Service (IRRS) missions, international standards and good practices).

3.1. Categories of methods for building competence and awarenessThe different methods used by NEA member countries to build safety culture competence andawareness have been categorised according to their overall objective and target audience(Table 3.1).
While some methods have a clear “external” focus (e.g. building the competence ofinspectors to undertake regulatory oversight of safety culture in licensees), others have a clear“internal” focus (e.g. raising awareness of all staff in the regulatory body on safety culture andfostering good leadership behaviours). Other methods have both an external and internal focus.
Further details of methods can be found in Annex A. As several methods have close similarities,
only a sample of methods has been included in the catalogue.

1.

Additional, detailed triggers can be found in Annex A.

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The five categories (A, B, C, D and E) used to structure the methods are as follows:•

Category A: Human and organisational factors (HOF) expert workshops to shareknowledge and information on the safety culture of the supervised organisations.
Number of methods described: 1.

•

Category B: Training for inspectors to raise knowledge and awareness of safety culture
and build competence in regulatory oversight of safety culture.
Number of methods described: 9.

•

Category C: Methods for inspectors to regularly share knowledge and experience ofsafety culture inspection practice.
Number of methods described: 1.

•

Category D: Methods to raise knowledge and awareness of safety culture among staff.
Number of methods described: 8.

•

Category E: Methods for staff to fulfil the regulatory mission.
Number of methods described: 2.

Table 3.1. Overview of the methods for safety culturecompetence and awareness building
Overall objective

Targetaudience

Category A:
Share knowledge
and experience ofsafety culture

HOF
experts

Title

Specific objectives

A1. Workshop on
safety culture in theregulatory approach• Exchange experience.

B1. Internship bylicensees during theinitial training
programme for new
inspectors• Share information on new developments.
• Discuss questions, methods and regulatory approaches.
• Create an immersive experience in regulated activity.
• Understand the operational worker’s culture, environmentand constraints.
• Create different communication conditions from aninspection.
• Increase technical knowledge.

B2. In-house seminarwith national andinternational HOF
experts

Category B:
Raise knowledge
and awareness ofsafety culture;build competencein regulatory
oversight of safety
cultureInspectors• Refresh knowledge and promote individual and groupexperiences of safety culture.
• Communicate, discuss and share experience ofinteractions among different elements of the human,
technology and organisation (HTO) model.
• Increase awareness of generalist inspectors in specific HOF
topics (e.g. human performance optimisation tools andleadership for safety).

B3. Safety culture
observation training• Improve safety culture oversight by the regulatory body.

B4. In-house safety
culture training• Develop a better understanding of safety culture to
support supervision activities.
• Develop a better understanding of how the safety cultureof the regulatory body can have a positive and/or negative
impact on licensees.

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Table 3.1. Overview of the methods for safety culturecompetence and awareness building (cont’d)Overall objective

Targetaudience

Title
B5. Site inspector
training course

Specific objectives• Understand expected behaviour of a site inspector.
• Understand the role of the site inspector in overseeing
safety culture in licensees.
• Understand organisational and cultural causes of accidents.
• Identify “weak signals” of organisational dysfunction.
• Understand the regulatory approach to safety culture.

B6. Safety culture
course for new
inspectors

Category B:
Raise knowledge
and awareness ofsafety culture;build competencein regulatory
oversight of safety
culture• Convey a common understanding of the elements ofsafety culture that can or cannot be observed andassessed, and how this can be realised.
• Develop an understanding of how an inspector’s own
oversight work and behaviour can impact (positively or
negatively) the licensee’s safety culture.

Inspectors

B7. Safety culturecompetence andawareness building of
inspectors• Study the basis of safety culture.
• Understand the contents of the regulator’s “Safety Culture
Guideline”, including evaluation of a licensee’s activities tofoster a safety culture.
• Prepare a “Safety Culture General Evaluation Form”.

B8. Tutorship of new
or promoted staff• Optimise professional development.
• Support staff to adapt to activities of the regulatory body.
• Accelerate development of staff to fulfil regulatory duties.
• Assist staff in developing behavioural skills.
• Develop a sense of personal responsibility, respect forothers and diligence in carrying out work.

Category C:
Share knowledge
and experience ofsafety culture
inspection practiceCategory D:
Raise knowledge
and awareness ofsafety culture

Inspectors

All staff

B9. Formal training of
inspectors and otherexperienced staff toqualify as safety
culture assessors forsafety culture
assessments ofoperators• Help gather information or practice a skill that may be
important during safety culture assessments bycompleting a variety of activities to be qualified as safety
culture assessor. Qualification requires a firm
understanding of both safety culture and inspection skills,
and is an essential part of oversight of safety culture.

C1. Annual workshop
on safety culture
oversight practice• Exchange experience.
• Reflect on “concrete” inspection scenarios.

D1. E-learning on
management systemand safety culture of
the regulatory body

• Increase staff awareness and understanding of the
management system and safety culture of the regulatory
body, reflecting lessons learnt from the accident at thenuclear power plant of Fukushima Daiichi.
• Make implementation of the management system more
effective.

D2. Safety culture
presentations• Improve safety culture awareness of all staff.

D3. Workshops withinternational experts
in safety culture• Improve internal leadership and increase internal andorganisational awareness of safety culture in connection
with preventive behaviours.

D4. Safety culture
training• Deepen understanding of cultural and leadership aspects
and their connection with past catastrophes.
• Discuss and reflect on cultural characteristics of theregulatory body in the context of real-life accidents.

• Establish a common understanding of an inspector’s role
and activities.

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Table 3.1. Overview of the methods for safety culturecompetence and awareness building (cont’d)Overall objective

Targetaudience

Title
D5. Training in theconcept of safety
D6. Safety culture of
the regulatory bodytraining

All staff• Provide an overview and common understanding of themeaning of safety culture.
• Introduce the key elements of safety culture assessments
and results.

D7. Behaviour andcommunication
training course• Support inspectors in being more aware of how their
behaviour and communication (interaction with others)
influences the learning abilities of the organisation andits safety culture through practical training incompassionate/collaborative communication,
appreciative inquiry and reflecting in action programme.

D8. Safety culture
training for all staff tobuild necessary
knowledge, skills andabilities• Provide safety culture awareness, and necessary
knowledge, skills and abilities.

E1. Leadership model• Provide a roadmap to communicate – in one place – howstaff, individually and collectively, demonstrateleadership in fulfilling the regulatory mission, elaborating
upon six fundamental characteristics: participativedecision-making; receptivity to new ideas and thinking;empowerment and shared leadership; diversity inthought; innovation and risk tolerance; and collaborationand teamwork.

E2. Integrate
regulatory safety
culture (RSC) withinstrategic planning
process, performancemeasurement,
technical
competencies andkey behaviouralcompetencies• Integrate safety culture knowledge, skills and abilities
into various organisational components, thereby
providing a wide arena for continuous emphasis anddissemination of expectations.

Category E:
Fulfil theregulatory mission• Enhance awareness of staff on safety.
• Understand safety culture and how to apply it in daily
activities.

• Provide a forum for questions and discussion on safety
culture.

Category D:
Raise knowledge
and awareness ofsafety culture

Specific objectives

All staff• Enhance safety culture awareness and implementation
across the organisation.

• Model desired behaviours while putting measures inplace towards applying competencies in support of RSC.

3.2. Discussion, lessons learnt and practical observations from safety culturecompetence and awareness buildingThis section summarises reflections on the main lessons learnt by regulatory bodies as well as
the advantages, disadvantages and practical considerations to be taken into account when
implementing different types of activities to build competences and raise awareness for ahealthy safety culture.

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Category A. Human and organisational factors (HOF) expert workshops to share knowledge
and information on safety culture of the supervised organisations
Workshops on safety culture in the regulatory approach, and in particular small group
discussions, are considered useful given the complex nature of safety culture oversight and thechallenging task of conducting supervision activities. The format, with sessions covering four
key topics, is especially appropriate to share knowledge and experience in supervising safety
culture. The intense discussions in groups, with the composition of groups changing in eachsession, fosters a high exchange of information and knowledge while also supporting
networking among different experts. Although the central topic is the licensees’ safety culture,
the influence of the regulatory body and the role of the safety culture of the regulatory body canalso be included and discussed.
Providing opportunities to discuss and exchange ideas in “safe and small” groups resonateswith the IAEA concept of “shared space” that involves
the creation of working relationships that help to build shared meaning throughan open, free flowing sharing of thoughts and ideas. Shared space goes deeper thansharing facts and exchanging information in a professional, respectful manner. It
enables individuals to express views related to their inner thoughts and feelings
about a particular issue without fear of recrimination or exclusion (IAEA, 2016b).
Safety culture competence is not primarily a competence of knowledge but of behaviour.
Therefore, it is important to focus on desired behaviours for competence building. These can belearnt through simulated situations, in role plays, by mentoring or by giving and accepting
feedback on observed behaviour. Dialogue on safety culture and specific topics related to safety
culture, including a discussion of unexpected situations, is important and valuable.
Two practical considerations need to be taken into account when organising workshops:•

That such a workshop is an appropriate method to bring together HOF experts from
regulatory authorities, technical support organisations and scientific institutes.
A sufficient number of participants representing all organisations of the regulatory bodyand the right mix of participants from these various organisations should be carefully
considered when planning the workshop.

•

Given the heavy workload for the organising team, the additional role of facilitating thediscussion groups should be carefully considered.

Category B. Training and other methods for inspectors to raise knowledge and awarenessand build competence in regulatory oversight of safety culture
That training on safety culture cannot be completed in a single training event is one main
lessons learnt from activities aimed at raising knowledge and awareness of safety culture
among inspectors and building competence in regulatory oversight of safety culture. There is aneed to regularly revisit this type of training, repeat the basics and introduce new inputs andsituations. It may also be beneficial to supplement classroom training with supervision in realconditions during inspections.
In some cases, establishing a steering committee – often involving senior management
and/or staff – was found helpful in developing or improving training programmes. This steeringcommittee can identify redundancies, assess knowledge gaps and determine the need to
introduce new methods (e.g. more e-learning, role plays, visual information). The steeringcommittee could also ensure that the lessons learnt from an accident or event are reflected intraining materials as quickly as possible.
In-house training on safety culture is seen as a good tool for raising understanding andawareness of the safety culture for those participating, beyond providing support to supervision
activities. It is also useful for launching dialogue on safety culture and specific related topics. For
instance, a two-day, in-house seminar with national and international HOF experts on regularbasis provides learning opportunities across different perspectives and industries. Additionally,
the cross-cutting nature and overriding relevance of HOF and safety culture becomes clearer.

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Sharing self-experience and incorporating group exercises require an openness to this typeof learning and support from a credible, convincing expert. Thus, it is important to have formallyqualified individuals, who are experienced and knowledgeable in the concepts of safety culture
as well as in assessment methodology, as a part of the regulator’s staff.
It is important to combine training to inspectors with guidance and other tools to ensurethat they understand what safety culture is and why it is important and can recognise signs ofa weak safety culture. This will enable inspectors to make useful observations on the culture ofa licensee through their everyday interactions. In turn, this will help inform inspection priorities.
Developing training programmes for formal assessment of safety culture may be costly.
Implementing such programmes may take significant time for inspectors, as they need tounderstand safety culture, complete coursework and study to become qualified. However, withthe development of a skilled group of inspectors who can provide insights into the deeper layersof culture within an organisation, the benefits soon outweigh the costs and time required.

Category C. Methods for inspectors to regularly share knowledge and experience of safety
culture inspection practiceThere is a need to regularly refresh training on the importance of safety culture concepts and tocontinue raising awareness. One way to do this is through an annual workshop, the objective of
which would be multi-faceted and may include: reviewing the basics; exchanging experience on
inspection practice; providing inspectors with concrete inspection scenarios and realistic
examples of on-site situations; and establishing a common understanding of the inspectors’ roles
and activities. Annual workshops also foster a mutual understanding of how inspectors caninfluence the licensee.
Close alignment between training content and challenges inspectors face in their everyday
work ensures greater understanding by the participants, meaning that the training is, therefore,
more effective. Intensive exchange among participants and final feedback related to thesolution supports mutual understanding of “proper” behaviours and underlying values.

Category D. Methods to raise knowledge and awareness of safety culture among staff
Training of all staff of the regulatory body provides a better understanding of safety culture,enhances inspectors’ capabilities to address safety culture and HOF issues, and improves safety
culture awareness across the organisation.
Different formats can be used to raise knowledge and awareness of safety culture for theentire staff of the regulatory body. Training events and workshops provide a valuable platform
for open and honest discussion on safety culture and leadership aspects. The discussions arevaluable opportunities to analyse and consider safety culture through personal andorganisational perspectives. Seminars can also be highly adaptable for both senior-level staff
and the rest of the organisation. Practical exercises allow staff to become more aware of theirown contributions to safety culture. The use of fictional scenarios can prompt thinking about
events that staff have not yet experienced. Conducting training courses to convey lessons learnt
from accidents in the industry is also crucial to ensure such learning is retained.
Guided site visits can have a positive effect on the understanding of safety culture. Staff will
acquire a deepened understanding of perspectives on investigating licensees’ approaches andmeasures for safety culture according to regulatory guidelines. However, it may be difficult toaccommodate a large number of staff members in such visits.
If an e-learning format is chosen, consideration should be given to the fact that it can bedifficult to change content that operates on a dedicated system. E-learning must haveinteresting features to attract the attention of trainees. One disadvantage is the lack ofopportunities for discussion.
It may be preferable to have training led by external, international experts rather than byinternal instructors. It can be easier to understand and embrace an interesting activity that has
been implemented with success in another regulatory body, and that could be transferred or

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replicated internally. Discussions with external experts can show staff that other regulatory
bodies have both similar and different challenges and problems, and that they also have to lookfor different approaches.
Regarding workshops and training events, in the case that participants come from diverse
countries, it is important to consider potential language barriers.

Category E. Methods for staff to demonstrate leadership in fulfilling the regulatory mission
A leadership model, as well as training on its implementation, can help to ensure alignment of
behavioural expectations that positively affect safety culture. It is also important to model
desired behaviours while putting measures in place towards applying competencies in supportof safety culture. The advantages of using this model is that it allows all staff to consider safety
culture as part of daily life and leadership and encourages them to speak up and raise safetyissues. However, staff may be hesitant to raise safety issues with senior leaders. For instance,
staff may show a strong reluctance to attend sessions for training of inspectors. The hesitation
may be deeply rooted in the inspector’s perception that the trainer or HOF expert often misses
the practical points or cannot address real needs arising in the course of the inspector’s activity,
and rather focuses on theoretical grounds and administrative aspects of planning, conducting
and reporting on inspection results. Strong leadership support, together with inviting the mostexperienced and knowledgeable lecturers, as well as trainers with inspection backgrounds, is aprerequisite in planning and delivering successful sessions.

3.

Conclusions and observations on best practices to build competence andawareness

Understanding and inculcating safety culture into an organisation requires regular training,ongoing discussion of its importance, and revisiting awareness of key concepts from time totime. It is beneficial to both repeat the basics of safety culture and enhance awareness throughexamples with new inputs and situations.
The regulatory body should consider offering a formal qualification programme to train
inspectors and other experienced staff to become safety culture assessors. Such a qualification
programme should require a firm understanding of both safety culture and inspection skills andshould form the basis for oversight of safety culture. To that end, it should include a variety ofactivities, each designed to help acquire information or practice a skill that may be importantduring formal safety culture assessments. These activities differ from the observations of aninspector during routine inspections, during which safety culture issues may arise and are noted.
Sharing examples of good safety culture training models, especially if they have alreadybeen implemented with success in other regulatory bodies, is advisable. Benchmarking or
discussion with other regulatory bodies reveals different or similar challenges and problems.
Some approaches may work in some organisations but not in others. A deep understanding ofa given organisation’s overall culture may be of benefit.
Best practices considered to be effective by various practitioners drawing from theirexperience are outlined below. They cover four main topics: management oversight, format of
the training, content of the training and interaction with other stakeholders.

Management oversight•

Close supervision of a new inspector’s training by their line manager to help bridge thegap between theoretical understanding to practical application.

•

Senior management commitment to safety culture and active participation by senior
management in safety culture training.

•

Clarity around expected behaviours of staff in the regulatory body, linked to the vision,
mission, values and desired organisational culture. Training of behaviours requires
practical exercises such as simulated situations, role play and mentoring. It is important

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to provide and accept feedback on observed behaviours, in both training and work
situations. The regulatory body should also consider its own safety culture when
instituting expectations for the regulated community, as the regulatory body will belooked upon to set the example. Development of a sound leadership model toincorporate safety culture is one way to ensure alignment of behavioural expectations.
•

Development, implementation, monitoring and review of programmes to support a
positive safety culture, e.g. systematically encouraging and rewarding diverse anddissenting professional opinions.

Format of training•

Trainee inspectors spending a week in an entity performing the same activities that they
will eventually oversee.

•

Trainee visits to a facility that has experienced a severe accident to understand andmaintain the currency of lessons learnt.

•

Development of practical skills in observing and evaluating a licensee’s safety culture(e.g. through individual in-field coaching).

•

Use of a variety of complementary learning formats (e.g. e-learning, classroom training,
workshops and coaching in the field).

•

Discussion and sharing of knowledge among HOF practitioners and regulatory body staff
in small groups, similar to IAEA’s “shared space” concept.

•

Application of a systematic approach to training (IAEA, 2002c) for safety culture andcompetence building within the regulatory body.

•Use of actors to enliven safety culture training and make it more practical and effective.

Content of training•

Delivery of a substantial part of new inspector training by senior inspectors with deep
experiential and organisational knowledge.

•

Use of an interdisciplinary approach to oversee and promote awareness of HOF andsafety culture topics.

•

Training and development in relevant “soft” skills (e.g. communications andconstructive feedback) alongside technical skills.

•

Use of real or “concrete” scenarios to support safety culture training and workshops.

•

Inviting senior representatives of licensee organisations to give an industry perspective
as part of regulatory training.

Interaction with other stakeholders

30•

Regular engagement of the regulatory body with academia and other sources of HOF
expertise to explore innovative approaches, promote self-reflection, and shareknowledge and experience.

•

Benchmarking regulatory oversight of safety culture with regulators in other industry
sectors (e.g. aviation, rail and healthcare).

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Chapter 4. Methods for self-reflection and self-assessment

It is useful to differentiate between self-reflection and self-assessment activities (as noted in
Section 2.2), for the purpose of this report, even though the two methods are closely interrelated.
The following paragraphs explain the two methods and the rationale for their distinction.
Additionally, a specific focus is placed on improvement activities that are an integral elementof many methods for self-reflection and self-assessment.
Self-reflection, as defined in Section 2.2, is an exercise of introspection; it is descriptive innature, not based on a precisely predefined benchmark or norm. Its primary goal is to reach acollective understanding of the functioning of the organisation, including the cultural elementsthat drive the behaviour of its members. By contrast, self-assessment is normative in natureand is conducted against a predefined set of criteria, requirements or norms. Its main goal isevaluation. While self-reflection can stand on its own, self-assessment necessarily includes selfreflection. The first descriptive step of self-assessment (i.e. collecting and describing data andfacts with the goal of understanding how the organisation functions in its daily operations) can
be characterised as self-reflection in the sense described above. In a second step, selfassessment evaluates the data, facts and insights gained in the first step, usually by comparing
them with the predefined benchmark or norm.
Self-assessment is an analysis of the existing situation, compared with a predefined set ofcriteria. A good analysis provides valuable information – and is even a prerequisite – foridentifying areas for improvement. Many self-assessment methods and some self-reflection
methods include such identification as a key element of the activity. These areas for
improvement are often rather general; moreover, the initial self-assessment does define
concrete actions for improvement. Hence, a further creative step is necessary to search foreffective actions for improvement. The decision to proceed with an action is often made bymanagement. In many cases, management ultimately appoints another team or person to carryout the improvement project and provides resources, including access to the preceding selfreflection or self-assessment project. In other words, one can distinguish the identification of
weaknesses and areas for improvement from the determination, planning and performing of
improvement actions. For this reason, the present report, besides studying the procedures usedby member countries for self-reflection and self-assessment, also focuses explicitly on
procedures aimed at developing or implementing concrete actions to effectively address
identified areas for improvement. These procedures have the explicit objective to achieve
concrete actions and measures to improve the safety culture of the regulatory body. Theirprimary goal, thus, is to initiate and achieve a change.
Figure 4.1 shows the overlap and interaction between self-reflection and self-assessment,
as well as improvement activities. For this report, the analysis and discussion of these methods
is undertaken according to their main purpose, namely understanding (self-reflection) andevaluating (self-assessment) safety culture, then taking action to support change (improvement).

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METHODS FOR SELF-REFLECTION AND SELF-ASSESSMENT

Figure 4.1. Relationship between self-reflection,
self-assessment and improvement

4.1. Categories of the methods for self-reflection and self-assessment
According to the differentiation described above, the methods to examine or evaluate safety
culture proposed by the regulatory bodies were allocated to two types of activities, reflecting
their main purpose: self-reflection (Category F) or self-assessment (Category G).
••

Category F: Self-reflection–

Self-reflection is descriptive (i.e. non-normative) in nature. Self-reflection is basedon introspection. In the context of the present report, the focus is on collective
introspection. The range of those who might be involved can vary from small groups(e.g. a few staff members working together in daily oversight activities) toorganisational units or entire organisations. Usually, self-reflection is not based on a
precisely predefined benchmark, norm or normative criteria. If predefinedbenchmarks or norms are used as a basis, they are not intended as criteria for ajudgement, but rather as a framework for the reflection process.

–

The focus of self-reflection can be tangible elements (e.g. behaviour of regulatory
body’s staff, oversight practices, regulations, enforcement actions, interactions withlicensees) or intangible elements (e.g. values, norms, basic assumptions) of safety
culture.

–Self-reflection involves understanding “how we function” and how we impact alicensee’s safety culture.

–

Number of methods described: 13.

Category G: Self-assessment–

32

Self-assessment is normative in nature: the assessment is made against a predefined
set of criteria, requirements or norms.

–

Self-assessment can cover both tangible and intangible elements of safety culture.

–Self-assessment is based on a structured and systematic process, consisting of a
descriptive analysis, followed by a normative assessment and the definition of anaction plan.
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Self-assessment can cover the entire organisation or focus on specific parts (units).

–

Self-assessment involves evaluating the current situation and planning continuous
improvement towards the fulfilment of specific requirements or norms.

–

Number of methods described: 19.

Table 4.1 provides an overview of all the methods of self-reflection and self-assessment aswell as their specific objectives. More details about the methods can be found in Annex B.

Table 4.1. Overview of methods for self-reflection and self-assessment
Overallobjective

Category F:
Self-reflection
To foster selfreflection ofgroups,organisational
units or theentireorganisation
To increase
overallawareness andunderstandingof safety culture
within theorganisation

Methods in the catalogue(Annex B)

Specific objectives

F1. Update and revise theorganisation’s mission statement• Reflect the authority’s organisational culture with a broad
participation of all employees and to foster common views andvalues.

F2. Develop a common
understanding on safety cultureof the regulatory body consistingof different authorities• Develop of a common understanding among different
organisations of the regulatory body and fix it in a policy
document.

F3. Seminars for reflection onleadership and management *• Develop leadership in management groups. This includes direct
feedback from employees about their managers, as well as peer
reviews of colleagues.

F4. Department-specific activities
of organisational climate• Foster transparency and openness within the department.

F5. Regulatory nuclear interface
protocol *• Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of working
relationships between the regulator and stakeholders.

F6. Discussion during periodic
meetings *• Promote self-reflection and self-assessment.
• Promote safety culture and good communication andco-ordination among departmental units.

F7. Metaphor workshops• Prompt the group (e.g. organisational unit) to reflect on theirown safety culture by finding a metaphor for their way ofworking and the values to which members attach particularimportance in their oversight work.
• Prompt collective reflection on subcultures within theorganisation.

F8. World Café *• Practise interdisciplinary reflection and collaboration amongstaff of different organisational units and hierarchical levels.
• Participative development and consolidation of a policy (orother) document (e.g. new mission statement) or other product.

F9. The “Serious Game”• Start and maintain a discussion on safety culture to collect ideas
from employees about what is necessary to further improvesafety culture within the organisation.
• Present an overview to both management and employees
about this reflection of the safety culture and increaseawareness.

F10. Self-reflection on regulatory
approaches• Identify examples (both successful and unsuccessful) ofdifferent regulatory approaches used in the regulatory body.

F11. Guidelines “Pot of Safety
Culture” *• Develop a deeper understanding of safety culture and acting
according to it.

F12. Seminars with regional
offices *• Exchange across different hierarchy levels of the regulatory
body.
• Identify common actions for improvement.

F13. Behaviour framework *• Support creation of a more open and inclusive culture.

Note: Methods marked with an asterisk (*) can also be used for improvement purposes. They can help to foster a good working
environment (openness, trust, co-operation, leadership for safety, etc.), identify ways to improve the safety culture and perform
improvement actions.

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Table 4.1. Overview of methods for self-reflection and self-assessment (cont’d)Overallobjective

Category G:
Self-assessment
To assess against
existing
principles/norms.
To compare withprevious results,
otherorganisations,etc.
To identify areasof improvement
and strengths.

Methods in the catalogue(Annex B)

Specific objectives

G1. Self-assessment to measureemployee motivation,satisfaction and attitudes based
on total quality management(TQM) system• Evaluate and map actual state of the safety culture against
existing principles/norms and identify areas for improvements
and strengths.

G2. Safety culture selfassessment• Identify various aspects of regulatory body behaviour, focusing
on safety culture and leadership.

G3. Self-review of safety culture
based on specific events *• Identify actions for improvement by reviewing events.
• Increase safety culture awareness.

G4. Safety maturity matrix• Provide an overall picture of the organisational culture.
• Identify maturity levels of different safety culture dimensions
and sub-dimensions (rating step).
• Identify drivers for change.
• Foster awareness of staff.

G5. Independent assessment ofsafety culture (internal)• Comprehensively consider all aspects of safety culture within
the organisation.
• Focus on weaknesses identified from internal survey anddepartment-level inputs.
• Find further insights and improvement areas for weaknesses.

G6. In-depth survey and followup focus group interviews withlicensees *• Understand main causes of complaints raised by licensees.
• Solicit licensees’ views on any good or bad practices and areas
for improvement regarding interactions with regulatory staff.
• Share results to ensure mutual understanding between
licensees and regulators.

G7. Safety culture external
evaluation• Establish a baseline measure of the organisation’s safety
culture.
• Focus an independent measure on safety culture within theregulatory body.
• Compare with previous results/other organisations.
• Identify areas for improvements and strengths.

G8. Staff survey *• Provide staff with opportunity to express their views on theregulator and its future.
• Explore the performance of the organisation.
• Assess the ability to retain and develop staff, resources andcapabilities.

G9. External stakeholder survey*• Better understand how regulatory body is regarded by those it
works with.

G10. Regulatory assurance
activities *• Provide assurance of the adequacy and effectiveness of theregulator’s risk management, control and governanceprocesses.

G11. Self-assessment of safety
culture using a questionnaire• Assess current level of the organisational safety culture, identify
weaknesses and potential developed areas.
• Evaluate and compare with results of subsequent selfassessments.

G12. Employee viewpoint
survey (Office of Personnel
Management)• Investigate performance of the organisation.
• Assess ability to retain and develop staff, resources andcapabilities.

Note: Methods marked with an asterisk (*) can also be used for improvement purposes. They can help to foster a good working
environment (openness, trust, co-operation, leadership for safety, etc.), identify ways to improve the safety culture and perform
improvement actions.

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METHODS FOR SELF-REFLECTION AND SELF-ASSESSMENT

Table 4.1. Overview of methods for self-reflection and self-assessment (cont’d)Overallobjective

Methods in the catalogue(Annex B)

Category G:
Self-assessment
To assess against
existing
principles/norms.
To compare withprevious results,
otherorganisations,etc.
To identify areasof improvement
and strengths.

Specific objectives

G13. Safety culture climate
survey• Focus on an independent measure of safety culture within theregulatory body.
• Compare with previous results.
• Identify areas for improvements and strengths.

G14. Assessment of systems,
programmes and processes:
assessment of non-concurrence
process and differing
professional opinion
programme *G15. Safety culture selfassessment• Assess and optimise existing programmes and processes.
• Identify areas for improvements and strengths.

G16. In-house questionnaire on
safety culture• Determine status of 1) Individual awareness, 2) current
activities on safety culture and 3) Institutional awareness.
• Identify areas for improvement and consider specific activities.

G17. Safety culture assessment• Evaluate actual state of safety culture against principles andattributes set in the NEA Green Booklet (NEA, 2016) andidentify the factors that enhance or compromise its
robustness.

G18. Regulatory safety culture
self-assessment (RSC-SA)• Improve regulatory body’s awareness and understanding ofsafety culture and associated expectations.

G19. Multi-method selfassessment *• Gain understanding of the status of regulator’s safety culture
and acquire valuable input for various improvement actions.

• Gain information concerning the status of safety culture within
the organisation.
• Increase overall awareness and understanding of safety culture
within the organisation.

Note: Methods marked with an asterisk (*) can also be used for improvement purposes. They can help to foster a good working
environment (openness, trust, co-operation, leadership for safety, etc.), identify ways to improve the safety culture and perform
improvement actions.

4.2. Discussion, lessons learnt, and practical observations from performing selfreflection and self-assessment
This section first describes and discusses the two categories of methods (Category F: Selfreflection and Category G: Self-assessment); it examines the main lessons learnt andrecommendations to implement action in each category.

Category F: Self-reflection methods
The main purpose of self-reflection is to provide the regulatory body with an understanding of
its own way of functioning and its impact on safety and safety culture of the organisations it
oversees and regulates. Due to their broader scope, some methods are also discussed withrespect to improvement (cf. Section 4.3).
The overarching purposes of these methods are to:i.

Foster self-reflection of groups, organisational units or the entire organisation.

ii.

Increase overall awareness and understanding of safety culture within the organisation.

Description and discussion
Self-reflection methods can be described according to different characteristics: 1) scope of selfreflection; 2) objective of the method and expected or observed outcomes; 3) degree ofcollaboration; 4) material output; 5) foundation; 6) context and way of use; 7) focus on process
or result; and 8) accessibility of deeper levels of culture.

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1)

Scope of self-reflection

Several methods focus on self-reflection regarding general cultural aspects such as the authority’sorganisational culture, safety culture or oversight culture (e.g. F1, F2, F7, F8). Other methods
focus on one or more specific themes, such as leadership/management or regulatory approaches
and strategies and their effectiveness (e.g. F3, F10, F12).
Self-reflection activities may concern the organisation as a whole (e.g. F1), an organisational
unit or any subculture within the organisation (e.g. F7, F8, F12). They can also concern selfreflection across several organisations involved in oversight within one country (e.g. F2, F13).
2)

Objective and expected outcome

The objectives and outcomes of self-reflection methods can be broadly grouped into three
categories: understanding, promotion and practice.

3)•

Understanding: Gaining insight and understanding is an important aim of methods for
self-reflection. Several methods aim to foster a common or deeper understanding, either
by sharing views of safety culture among participants (e.g. staff members) or providing
an overall picture (e.g. F2, F9, F11, F10).

•

Promotion: Another aim of self-reflection methods is oriented towards promoting
specific attitudes or types of climate within the organisation, or towards thecomprehension and acceptance of basic principles or policy documents. For example, themethods can aim to create an open, constructive and just environment, improving thediscussion climate and promoting a positive attitude towards self-reflection and selfassessment (SRSA) and interdisciplinary reflection. The objective is thus to prompt
organisation-wide discussions about safety culture in a pleasant and safe environment,
promoting safety culture and enhancing the commitment of staff in relation to it(e.g. F1, F3, F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, F13). The methods, thus, target medium-term and possibly
long-lasting effects on attitudes and climate within the organisation (see also Section 4.3).

•

Practice: Some methods are designed to have immediate effects by producing a concrete
output, serving as a practical exercise for specific competences, or exchanging ideas anddiscussing specific issues across organisational units and hierarchical levels. For instance,
while using such methods, participants practice overarching collaboration within theorganisation or self-reflection about safety culture, which may lead to them fulfilling a
specific task (e.g. work on a document such as a mission statement or develop ideas forfurther steps, improvement measures or recommendations). Or, participants may giveand get feedback and exchange information (e.g. F8, F9, F10, F12) (see also Section 4.3).

Degree of collaboration

The methods for self-reflection proposed by the regulatory bodies vary in the degree to which
they require collaboration of participants. It should be noted that one method can use different
types of activities, with different levels of collaboration.
Four levels can be distinguished:

36•

Collaborative: This largest group of methods encompasses approaches such asworkshops or discussion meetings, either entirely dedicated to self-reflection or
involving collaborative elements as part of regular meetings (e.g. F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6,
F10, F11, F12). Less traditional approaches, such as creativity techniques or games, areproposed as well (F7, F9). These approaches are used as tools to work collaboratively on
a topic and develop a common product or output.

•

Bilateral communication: A few approaches proposed, such as presentations orseminars, centre around interaction, but primarily on the basis of already elaborated
results (e.g. by a dedicated team) that are presented to staff for further discussion(e.g. F1, F10). One method involves conversations between staff members and their line
managers (F13).

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4)•

Unidirectional information: These methods primarily use (among other approaches)
one-way communication: written reports or brochures, preparation of educational ortraining material, guidelines, etc. (e.g. F2, F5, F10, F11).

•

Individual activities: This method uses activities performed by individual staff members,
such as a voting system (F2).

Material output

Many of the methods proposed deliver both intended “immaterial” outcomes and concrete
outputs. Typically, such outputs consist of different kinds of written documents, such as reports
describing (in more or less detail) results of activities, identified improvement actions or lessons
learnt. They may also offer recommendations or descriptions of specific examples or elementsof safety culture (e.g. F5, F8, F11). A concrete output can also be an official guidance document
for the organisation, such as a new or revised mission statement or another type of document
as part of the organisation’s management system (e.g. F1, F8). In addition, other types ofmaterial outputs can also be produced, such as figurative representations (metaphors) ofcultural elements (F7).
5)

Foundation

Some methods use theoretical or normative foundations as a framework for self-reflection.
For instance, the five principles for a safety culture for the regulatory body – described in the
NEA Green Booklet (NEA, 2016) or the safety culture traits defined in IAEA documents (IAEA,
2002a) – are used in different methods (e.g. F2, F10). The foundation upon which the approaches
and activities of these methods are based can, however, also be developed situationally within
their context of use (e.g. using results from a previous phase of the project or activity on safety
culture to develop a clear set of agreed-upon values within the organisation or the nuclear
industry of a country) (e.g. F5, F8, F13).
As noted in the definition of self-reflection provided earlier, some of these methodologies are
based on normative theories. However, for the purposes of self-reflection, these methods should
not be used to rate, assess, or otherwise make normative or value judgements. Rather, thetheoretical foundation is used as a framework that helps structure the reflection process, bysetting the topics and the direction of the reflection(s).
6)

Practical arrangements

The methods presented differ in the way they are used in several respects:•

Involvement of staff: The methods can be divided into those in which the entire staff ofthe organisation, including all organisational units across all hierarchical levels, areinvolved or at least invited to participate in related activities (e.g. F1, F2, F4, F6, F7, F8,
F9, F12, F13), and those in which only part of the staff is involved (e.g. a dedicated working
group of selected staff members or staff on the management level) (e.g. F2, F3, F10). Somemethods include both activities addressed to the entire staff and activities addressed toa specific group or level of staff (e.g. F2).
Several methods are led by a project or core team, responsible, for example, for organising
the process, analysing data and results, and documentation and writing reports (e.g. F1,
F7, F8, F9, F10).
Often, implementation of the method is supported by a facilitator (e.g. F1, F3, F6, F7, F8).
The latter can be an internal staff member (e.g. F1), an external facilitator or expert(e.g. F3, F6), or even a combination of internal and external individuals (e.g. F7, F8). The
external facilitator can be invited to facilitate the envisaged activities and to provide an
independent, third-party point of view.
The composition of teams participating in the method can either be diverse(e.g. composed of participants from different backgrounds, experience, organisational
units, hierarchical levels or even from different stakeholders) (e.g. F1, F2, F5, F6, F7, F12)
or homogeneous (e.g. targeting the management group or a specific organisational unit)(e.g. F3, F7).

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Involvement of senior management: Senior management can be involved in methods indiverse ways and have different roles at different moments in time. Often, senior
management is involved from the beginning of the planning phase on a strategic level, firstsetting goals and then expressing and showing commitment, support and sponsorship(e.g. F1, F2, F6, F7, F8, F9). Senior management involvement from the beginning is key toensure that the necessary resources are available and to motivate staff to engage in theplanned activities.
During the implementation phase of the methods, senior management can have the roleof overseeing the process and activities or of leading the activities (e.g. F5, F7, F8, F10,
F13) or can have an active role by being involved as a member of the project team(e.g. F1, F7, F8) and/or actively participating in activities (F1, F3, F4, F6, F7, F8, F12).
In the final phase, senior management can also have diverse roles. These vary from being
informed about the results via submitted reports or other reporting channels (e.g. F11), todiscussing results and deciding on follow-up actions, for instance implementation of
improvement measures (e.g. F1, F7, F8), to showing appreciation for work done by staff(e.g. F1).

•

Need for human resources: The amount of human resources to be invested in activities
varies greatly from method to method, and depends on whether an organisational or anindividual perspective is taken. In many cases, the resources to be invested by a single
staff member are low or medium (e.g. a few hours or days, as in F1 and F13). However,depending on the number of staff members involved, the sum of individual resources
can be considerable from the organisation’s point of view (e.g. F1, F7, F8, F10). The
amount of human resources needed tends to be medium to high for members of coreteams who are responsible for planning and driving the activities and for analysing anddocumenting results (e.g. F1, F7, F8).

•

Frequency According to frequency of use, the methods can be divided into three maincategories: one-time application, repeatedly as needed, and regular or continual
repetition.
Some methods are most suitable for a one-time application, as they aim to accomplish a
specific task, which does not need repeating or repetition of which is unlikely to provide
new insights or further develop desired outcomes (e.g. F2, F7, F8, F10). Nevertheless, aftersome time, a reconsideration and verification of results of the first application may be
warranted and repeating the method could be considered.
The second group of methods can, or should, be performed repeatedly as needed; forinstance when a new issue arises or a basic document, such as the mission statement,
needs to be revised (e.g. F1, F3, F4, F9, F11). No fixed frequency is defined.
The third category of methods involves regular or continual repetition, with either a fixedinterval established (e.g. monthly meetings, yearly questionnaire survey) or clearly
defined trigger criteria (e.g. a feedback loop with stakeholders during each meeting)(e.g. F5, F6, F12, F13).

•

7)

Setting: Methods can be differentiated according to whether they are explicitly dedicatedto the safety culture of the regulatory body (e.g. dedicated workshops or questionnaires) as“stand-alone” activities or fit within the frame of a larger project on safety culture(e.g. F1, F2, F3, F4, F7, F8, F9, F10) and thus are methods that are part of daily oversightactivities (e.g. reflection activities within regulatory meetings) (e.g. F5).

Focus on process or result

The methods can be analysed with respect to whether they focus more on the process or the
result – or both. In some cases, the application of the method itself is the main purpose of themethod, as it fosters self-reflection collaboration or other values the organisation strives for(e.g. a collaborative creative task or a game) (e.g. F1, F7, F9, F12). Some methods focus primarily
on a specific goal. For example, the results of a survey, the definition of improvement actions or
the production of a document (e.g. a mission statement or others [e.g. F5]). In some cases, themethods can be used to serve both purposes (e.g. F8, F11).

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8)

Accessibility of deeper layers of culture

Finally, member countries report that experience in using methods for self-reflection reveal thedifficulty of accessing deeper layers of safety culture. Methods for self-reflection most often
appear to be particularly well suited to: identify tangible elements of safety culture within an
organisation; better communicate with staff about general assumptions on safety culture;reflect on values and norms, ways of working and their impact; make implicit values more
explicit; and create opportunities for learning and continuous improvement. Thereby, selfreflection methods have the potential to reach deeper layers of culture and to prompt the
emergence of deep-seated and implicit cultural assumptions. To reach this goal, however, somefeatures of the methods and of conditions for their application need to be met. For instance, an
open, trustful atmosphere (e.g. in a workshop) must be established to promote reflection andassessment of individual values as well as shared underlying organisational values. Small-sizedgroups appear to promote deeper understanding among participants. A multi-method approachis also important, meaning that a combination of different approaches (e.g. workshops,
interviews, observations, case studies) is recommended to reach deeper layers of safety culture.
Based on the countries’ responses, the degree of the organisation’s experience with using themethods impacts their ability to reach deeper layers of culture.

Lessons learnt/recommendations
Lessons learnt and recommendations can be gleaned from the experience of regulatory bodies
that have performed self-reflection methods and can help future users to choose, plan andimplement the most suitable methods.
•

Leadership/management involvement: Fostering safety culture within the regulatoryorganisation is seen as a leadership task, in particular with regard to communicationand the formulation of expectations. Involvement and openness of senior management
is needed for successful application of self-reflection methods.

•

Motivation and engagement of staff: One condition for success is a positive attitude ofstaff and a belief that things can be changed. Motivating and engaging staff, in particular
staff members who are not directly involved from the beginning (e.g. in preparing
activities) proves especially challenging. To motivate staff to actively engage andparticipate in planned activities, the methods and activities should be recognised byparticipants as useful and having a connection to their daily work. When choosing
methods and procedures, attention should be given not only to the formal and cognitiveor rational aspects, but also to creating entertaining, positive experiences.
A participatory process enhances the degree to which staff identifies with theorganisation and fosters safety-oriented individual behaviour. The effectiveness of themethods decreases when staff are not involved in self-reflection activities. Broad staff
involvement makes it possible to focus on the individual staff member’s personal
contribution to the process and attract the attention of involved staff to topics andproducts. It is crucial to invite staff as early as possible in order to achieve acceptanceand include all points of view. Results of self-reflection activities need to bedisseminated throughout the organisation in order to build a common understanding
and thus improve regulatory effectiveness. Moreover, it is important to inform staff
about activities carried out at higher levels of the organisation.

•

Focus on the process: Attention should also be paid to the process of using the methods,
and not only to their results or outputs. The methods proposed have different focal
points, with some more on the process, some more on the results and some on both.
Methods and approaches should always allow for a positive “user experience” byparticipants, even in cases that specify a clear goal towards developing a specificproduct (e.g. mission statement, guidance document).

•

Practical advice on the methodology: Several methodological aspects need to beconsidered when deciding the most suitable method of self-reflection for a given
regulatory body. The integration and discussion of viewpoints of diverse groups isdemanding. Methodological difficulties concern the interpretation of results gained
from using the method, handling confidentiality issues and managing the complexity

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that arises from a broad participatory process, particularly in organisations with a large
number of staff or when the result of the activities is highly heterogeneous. The
methodological aspects to be considered include:–

Flexibility, simplicity and customisation: If possible, choose simple, flexible and not
unduly time-consuming and cumbersome methods, with little formalism that canbe applied at any time. In some cases, a setting with more sophisticated and largescale methods will be necessary (e.g. when an organisation-wide project needs to be
started, targeting a comprehensive reflection on basic organisational values and theoversight work). As a rule of thumb, always choose the most flexible and simplest
setting that is suitable to the stated goals. Customise the activities, as much as
possible, to the needs and features of the regulatory body and staff. The degree ofsophistication of the method chosen should be commensurable with the level ofcompetence and practice of the staff of the organisation, as this will likely impact
the quality of the results.

–

Plan: Carefully plan ahead in regard to the intended use and way of evaluating
results from activities, as well as confidentiality issues.

–

External facilitator: The involvement of an external expert or facilitator should beconsidered even when the project and activities are managed by an internal team.
An external facilitator can provide an independent view and give useful input for
the reflection process within the organisation.

–

Composition of groups: The composition of groups in planned activities(e.g. workshops) needs to be carefully considered to foster openness and franknessof participants. Small groups are perceived to foster more open discussions and a
deeper level of understanding than bigger groups.

–

Choice of methods: Choose the methods for self-reflection according to theintention to address cultural elements on deeper levels or to focus on more tangible
elements of safety culture of the organisation. Even if quantitative methods(e.g. surveys) may seem less time-consuming, and therefore attractive, they may not
be as effective as qualitative methods to explore deeper layers of safety culture.

–

Resource intensity: When choosing a method, it is also important to consider the
resource intensity, particularly when associated with sophisticated methods.
Notably, for self-reflection, the use of qualitative methods (e.g. workshops, dialogues,
games) seems not only appropriate but perhaps even of paramount importance.
However, these methods involve higher efforts compared to quantitative methods(e.g. questionnaires). The resources needed should be carefully considered whenplanning activities; the person/team responsible for planning and implementation
should be granted enough time. In addition, potential conflicts with other duties andpriorities should be resolved beforehand.

–

Effectiveness: Ideally, the results of self-reflection activities are not intended(primarily) to give categorical answers to specific questions but should beunderstood as a source or trigger for further thinking and discussion within theorganisation. Thus, it is important to consider how to ensure the effectiveness andendurance of activities performed and results achieved, and, indeed, to consider
how to use the outputs from the method beforehand. For instance, the results
can/should be communicated to all members and to new members who join
following the activity. The question of whether to repeat the self-reflection processfrom time to time should also be considered.

Category G: Self-assessment methods
For the purpose of this report, self-assessment methods are those that have a normative nature,using a predefined set of criteria and requirements or norms to compare to the results of theassessment. Additionally, lessons learnt from incidents or accidents can be used as a frameworkfor self-assessment. The purpose of the assessment is to understand and evaluate elements ofsafety culture, through a structured and systematic process consisting of a descriptive analysis,

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followed by a normative assessment and the definition of an action plan. A self-assessment
method often focuses on the entire organisation or parts (units) thereof. It is related to evaluationof the current situation and continuous improvement towards fulfilment of specificrequirements or norms. Self-assessment should address not only symptoms, but also thedeeper causes of a weakness, gathering and analysing specific information for the purpose of
improvement. Involved parties are interviewed or workshops with focus groups are held. By
gathering such specific information and involving staff, the project team gets ideas for
improvement actions.

Description and discussion
Self-assessment methods can help to draw a picture of safety culture within the organisation.
Their overall purpose is threefold:•assessment against predefined principles/norms;•

comparison with previous results or with other organisations;•

identification of areas of improvement and strengths.

In many countries, the self-assessment methods listed above are used regularly(e.g. annually or every second or third year), and the requirement to perform follow-ups is often
included in the method. The first step of the methods is usually an analysis based on reviewing
the structure of the organisation, its history (as previous assessments, reports on events orlessons learnt, etc.) or any other information to help orient the assessment. In most methods,
the predefined set of criteria on which assessment is based are the principles and attributes ofsafety culture that the organisation has previously defined. Most of the methods use
questionnaires as one of the data acquisition tools. Some methods have a multi-tool approach,combining both qualitative and quantitative methods to gather information on different aspectsof safety culture. In the multi-tool approach, the questionnaire is often followed up by individualinterviews and/or focus groups or other types of data collection.
The methods allocated to this section, considered to be “assessments” against predefined
criteria, can be classified considering specific characteristics (e.g. scope or type/number of tools
used to perform the assessment) as follows:•

Using a broad spectrum of tools (survey, interviews, focus groups, etc.) vs. using specifictools: Using a combination of tools (e.g. G6, G18) allows for a cross-check between thefindings each delivers and takes advantage of the capabilities of each tool to understandthe underlying reason for those findings and their validity. Conversely, using specific tools(e.g. G8, G11, G16) could be less time-consuming and may help in certain circumstances
as a starting point (e.g. G11), or to perform a follow-up (e.g. G13). However, this approach
will lack the validity given by the use of other tools that allow confirmation of results.
Therefore, the limitations of using a single tool should be kept in mind.

•

Based only on quantitative tools (e.g. G8, G13) vs. qualitative tools (G4) or mixed tools(e.g. G7, G15, G17, G18): The combination of qualitative and quantitative tools allows
further comparison results, leading to conclusions by convergence and cross-check.
Some countries that have used only quantitative tools recognise the additional value ofqualitative tools as a lesson learnt.

•

Covering a large set of safety culture issues/attributes (e.g. G5, G7, G15, G17, G18) vs.
focusing on a specific aspect (e.g. G2, G6, G9, G14): Whereas some approaches are holistic
and endeavour to capture a broad picture of safety culture issues and attributes, in othercases, the organisation focuses on specific aspects. By focusing on leadership,
designated programmes, or the relationship between the regulator and licensees, forexample, the assessment aims to obtain information about particular areas or issues
considered relevant or requiring attention.

•

Dedicated exclusively to safety culture (e.g. G5, G7, G15, G16, G17, G18) vs. addressing
safety culture among other topics (e.g. G1, G12): In some cases, broader assessments
performed as part of an official, organisation-wide evaluation programme are used toobtain information about safety culture in the regulatory body.

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Including all staff (e.g. G6, G8) vs. involving a limited number of members (e.g. G1, G15,
G17): Some of the methods target all staff within an organisation including the top
management; others narrow the engagement to only one part of the organisation (e.g. a
section or unit).

•

Involving internal staff (e.g. G5, G8, G16) vs. involving external stakeholders (e.g. G6, G9):
A few methods address the regulatory body´s relationships with stakeholders(e.g. licensees or other organisations), not only regarding how they perceive theregulatory body but also in order to compare among organisations in the nuclear field
whether they use the same type of method.

•

Internal vs. with external support: Some regulatory bodies conducting self-assessment
methods use external support, such an independent or third-party expert or consultant(e.g. G1, G7). Other regulators have an internal safety culture expert or a core teamwithin the organisation carrying out the survey (e.g. G5, G17). Still others use externalbenchmarks to support the assessment or to evaluate the result (e.g. G16, G18).

The objective of using these methods is to discover weaknesses or areas for improvement aswell as potential needs for development. The methods are mostly used to gather insights intoelements of the organisation’s safety culture and awareness of the views and opinions regarding
leadership and general safety culture within the organisation. Most methods also aim to influencesafety culture on a group level. The outcomes may be an action plan and/or a development planor activities designed to improve safety culture awareness within the organisation, (as further
discussed in Section 4.3). Some methods result in recommendations. Sometimes the objective ofself-assessment is the process itself. In other cases, the goal may be to develop action items fora previously identified issue.

Lessons learnt/recommendations
Lessons learnt and recommendations related to the self-assessment process as experienced byregulatory organisations are as follows:

42•

Expertise in safety culture: Before embarking on self-assessment activities, it is importantto rely on the necessary internal and/or external expertise – e.g. experts who have thecompetences to understand safety culture principles and know how to perform themethods for self-assessment. Starting with easy methods and activities can improve thechances of experiencing a successful process, thus building receptivity that can motivate
the organisation and its staff to progress with time and use more advanced methods.

•

Strong commitment (from top executives, senior management and staff): To assess
safety culture and find ways to improve practices, top executives and senior
management need to be strongly involved, participate and encourage participation of
all staff. They should also engage in the follow-up and undertake necessary
improvement actions and address potential weak spots. Voluntary participation of staff
is fundamental for a successful self-assessment (IAEA, 2019), but it may limit the data
gathered and requires the staff to be motivated to participate. While mandatory
participation may increase the amount of data collected, it may be against the will ofstaff who do not enjoy such activities and may not be willing to engage in an open andhonest way. Management should ensure that staff members understand that safety
culture concerns everyone and convince them of the usefulness of the assessment. They
could lead by example by participating themselves.

•

Building transparency and trust: These features are prerequisites to assure honest
answers and cultivate a positive staff attitude towards any self-assessment initiatives.
Transparency on how data collected via the survey will be used is essential, at the sametime protecting the anonymity and/or confidentiality of participants. Anonymity must
usually be maintained in extensive surveys in which adequate data about respondents
must be collected in order to perform the analysis. However, the possibility of singlingout a participant based on collected data should be avoided. Confidentiality is also a key
issue when dealing with observations or in interviews, placing importance on what isobserved and said, not by whom, while simultaneously allowing the possibility to follow

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up or clarify, if needed. To avoid resistance to answering the survey or participating inother data collection tools, measures taken to ensure anonymity/confidentiality must be
clearly communicated. Building trust within the organisation is crucial to foster a climateof openness and provide an accurate and solid basis for further development of safety
culture in the organisation.
•

Clear understanding of what safety culture is and what it includes: Safety culture should
not mean putting safety culture labels on existing assessment practices; rather, it should
be regarded as a process. Many organisations might have empirically developed amethod that contributes to building a healthy safety culture, without being fully
conscious of it. In that case, the existing method may be better accepted than a totallynew one and is part of the process to build up a healthy safety culture. Changes withregards to safety culture need sufficient time to consolidate. Therefore, it is importantto foresee follow-up and monitor development of safety culture over time, evaluate if
and how awareness changes, assess whether measures and action plans have a positiveeffect, and identify whether there are additional issues that need to be addressed.
Conducting a self-assessment (i.e. analytic step) in parallel with activities to raise safety
culture awareness (i.e. communication/promotion step) is advisable.

•

External view: Assigning an external expert to support the organisation or undertaking
external benchmarking to support analysis of results are common practices. An external
party has the advantage of being independent in conducting the survey and in theanalysis of the results.

•

Multi-method approach: Using a single tool to perform the analysis (either quantitative,
as a survey answering in numbers, or qualitative, as events review or allowing freeanswers) may be too limited. While using a multi-method approach can be timeconsuming, it ensures capture of different perceptions. A multi-method approach canbenefit from the strengths of each method, avoid or limit weaknesses, allow cross-checkof data obtained by different methods, and assure validity of results. In the case of
having to use a single tool, compensatory measures should be considered to avoid risks
linked to lack of cross-check and validation of results. For example, if using aquantitative survey, inserting some opportunity for free text helps to further interpret
responses. The advantage of using a quantitative survey is to reach the wholeorganisation with a relatively low effort and allow statistics analysis. However, it has arisk of misinterpretation and not capturing causes, which may lead to not reaching
deeper layers of safety culture. Therefore, combining quantitative and qualitative
methods is advised, as it has a higher potential of reaching a deeper layer of safety
culture in the results. Conducting a survey, interviews or face-to-face discussion andobservation as parallel methods to gather information could help to gain a deeper
understanding of safety culture and ensure validity of results. Thus, the use of multiple
methods, both quantitative and qualitative, is highly recommended.

•

Improvement: Safety culture assessment should be considered as a means to improve
the organisation. For this reason, it is important that self-assessment methods do not
remain at a descriptive level but are linked to action plans (e.g. G8, G9/H5, G14)
(cf. Section 4.3). Defining improvement actions and demonstrating changes are crucial.
The organisation must be able to access results fairly soon after completing the survey,
otherwise there is a risk of fatigue in participating in such surveys. It is also importantto review the authority’s management system, and to make relevant updates andchanges to meet the results expressed by the organisation.

4.3. Improvement of safety culture
The methods for self-reflection and self-assessment presented and analysed in the previous
sections often help to identify (rather generally) areas for improvement as a first step. In afollowing step, regulatory bodies perform activities to identify, plan and implement concrete
improvements. A variety of approaches for improvement exists.

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This section discusses methods on self-reflection and self-assessment presented previously
from the viewpoint of improvement. It intends to show that many of the methods used by thecountries to understand and evaluate their safety culture also contain elements and activities thatcan prompt change of (elements of) their safety culture. The following analysis intends to help
regulatory bodies to choose suitable methods for their own needs or get insights and ideas fordesigning a new improvement method.
Therefore, this section discusses those methods with a specific focus on finding concrete ways
to improve broadly or to achieve improvement in a specific area. It covers three types of methods:•

methods that provide direct improvements of specific, predefined aspects of safety
culture;•methods that identify concrete actions for improvement;•

methods that, within a self-reflection or self-assessment process, provide an explicit
improvement of specific aspects of safety culture.

Description and discussion
This section provides ideas, approaches or solutions for specifically improving safety culture
within the regulatory body.
Each of the 15 methods considered belongs to 1 of 2 groups with respect to improvement ofsafety culture:i. Methods aiming at direct improvements: The regulatory body uses these methods in orderto improve or promote one or more specific and predefined safety culture aspects,
e.g. openness, co-operation, communication or leadership behaviour (e.g. F12, F13, G10,
F6, F8, F3, F5 and F11).
ii. Methods identifying concrete actions for improvement: The regulatory body uses thesemethods to identify concrete actions for improvement. The methods support the findingof adequate improvement actions but do not include their implementation (e.g. G3, F4,
G8, G9, G6, G14 and G19).
Furthermore, the methods differ in what they change or aim to change in order to achieve
an improvement (target of change):a) Formal elements of an organisation: Methods in this group seek to trigger change of theregulatory body’s procedures, processes, structures, regulations, routines, work
conditions, workplace, technological measures, etc. (e.g. G14).
b) Social interactions: Methods in this group intend to exert positive influences on
co-operation, team spirit, patterns of interaction, etc. (e.g. F4, F6, F8, F3 and F5 and F12).
c)

Individuals: Methods in this group aim to influence individuals, focusing on theirknowledge, competence, attitude or behaviour (e.g. F11, F13 and G10).

d) No predefined target: These methods do not specifically address the targets above.
Rather, the target is defined in the course of applying the methodology – and all of theabove could become targets (e.g. G3, G6, G8, G9 and G19).
Table 4.2 sums up the categorisation of the methods.

Table 4.2. Categorisation of the methods
Target of change
Achieve direct improvements
Identify concrete actions for
improvement

44

Formal elements

Social interactions

Individuals

No predefined target-

F12, F6, F8, F3, F5

F13, G10, F11

-

G14

F4

-

G3, G8, G9, G6, G19

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In case the regulatory body decides to apply more than one method, those chosen must be
geared to each other and to the mutual improvement goal. For each category of “target of change”
of the improvements described above, the methods’ main features are described below.

Improvements of formal elements of the organisation
Methods that address the formal elements of the organisation aim to improve procedures,processes, structures, regulations, routines, work conditions, technological measures, etc. tobetter support the safety culture of the regulatory body. These methods usually establish aninternal project team to collect data concerning the views of employees who are impacted bycertain procedures or programmes within the organisation, and who can help to identify andexecute potential improvements. For instance, the regulatory body may have a process that
fosters raising concerns among employees (G14). To find ways to improve the effectiveness of
this process, the established internal project team conducts and analyses interviews andsurveys. This results mainly in formal adaptations of the “raising concerns process”. Some
additional actions to support and strengthen the process (e.g. a “to-do list” for the managers ora campaign to boost all employees’ awareness of the process) can also be considered.

Influencing social interactions
Methods that address social interactions target co-operation, team spirit, patterns of interaction
or interpersonal relations either among staff members within the organisation, between membersof the organisation and stakeholders, or within a subgroup of the organisation (e.g. a selectedorganisational unit or group of managers). Unit-specific meetings are a possible method to identify
potential improvements of social interactions in the organisation (F4). The members of each unit
hold a regular meeting focusing on a given safety culture topic and develop unit-tailoredimprovements addressing areas such as openness, co-operation and constructive contact among
members. Afterwards, additional activities might be necessary to integrate and harmonise thedifferent unit-specific actions into a common organisation-wide action plan.
Methods focusing on group dialogues (F6, F12, F3) typically comprise repeated meetings suchas monthly organisation-wide discussions, yearly seminars with the Director General orexternally facilitated dialogue sessions within the group of managers. As a result, social relations
improve whether on the level of organisation-wide communication, direct contact between
headquarter and regional offices, or an enhanced discussion climate among managers. Social
interactions may improve by using a workshop format that encourages discussions among groupsof people from different units (F8). The method could be applied for an organisation-wide selfreflection; however, the mutual exchange in this format may simultaneously contribute toimprovements in co-operation and communication among different organisational units.
Most of the methods presented here aim to influence interactions of people within theorganisation. One method (F5) offers the possibility to positively influence interactions between
the regulatory body and licensees, based on a mutual framework including a shared set of values
and ways of working together. When coming together in meetings or projects, each party assesses
their own and the other party’s compliance with this framework. Immediate feedback may
prompt direct improvements. In addition, the method involves semi-annual (i.e. every six months)
dialogues to reflect on overall results, such as lessons learnt or wider areas for improvement.
The group-focused methods provide opportunities for direct contact among participants
and mutual exchange of knowledge, information, views and experiences. The group dynamics
are key to improving social aspects such as trust, openness and respect. However, the regulatory
body should consider the following aspects when applying these methods:•

These methods rely on a substantial participation rate of the target group. This ensuresthat contributions of group members reflect representative and broadly held views,
identify problems and prompt ideas for solutions. Broad participation is also essential
to achieve the intended improvements in social interactions.

•

Regular meetings are usually mandatory for the employees in question. In contrast,
special seminars and workshops are often voluntary and therefore need the participants’motivation. Management may positively influence participants through encouragement,

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support or active participation. Motivation to participate also depends on recognition of
the usefulness of the activity to produce actual improvements.
•

The regulatory body’s target groups and boundary conditions (e.g. size of theorganisation and spatial distance between locations of units) determine the suitable
design of group dialogues, such as integration into a “normal” meeting, group discussion
format, use of an external coach, joint or separated meetings, etc. Consequently, therequired effort varies significantly (e.g. personal resources, time, appropriate agenda
and helpful facilitation techniques).

Influencing individuals within the organisation
Some methods address individuals in order to influence behaviours, attitudes or knowledge forthe purpose of improving safety culture. One method (F11), distributes a brochure that contains
guidelines, specific examples and tangible aspects of safety culture as educational material for
staff to understand safety culture and act accordingly. The main benefit of this method is forindividuals involved in designing the brochure or who participate in additional workshops offered.
Another method (F13), uses one-to-one conversations between the superior and the staff
member to reflect on and improve on an individual level. The conversations involve personal
advice and feedback, and directly affect the employee's personal goals and development. The
superior and the employee can follow up on the effectiveness in a subsequent meeting. Direct
feedback is a characteristic of another method (G10), in which the individual behaviour of aninspector is subject to an observed inspection and subsequent feedback and reflection.
It is important to integrate use of these methods focused on the individual level in an overall,systemic approach, as safety culture has, by definition, an organisational (not individual) focus.
It should also be considered that the individual behaviour is influenced and determined byorganisational structures and processes, and by circumstances and external triggers. Thus, afocus solely on individuals should be avoided, as most often change in behaviours can only beattained by changing structures, processes and the culture within an organisation.

Target of improvement not predefinedSome methods do not stipulate beforehand a specific target for improvement activities.
Depending on content and results of activities performed while using a method, improvementsof a combination or all three previously mentioned targets of changes may result. Methods inthis group aim to identify yet unknown weaknesses. Therefore, they start with a self-assessment
based on a staff survey (G8), a stakeholder survey (G6, G9) or an event-based self-review (G3).
Because they include subsequent steps that help to “dig deeper”, these methods have greater
potential to result in concrete improvement areas or actions. That means, based on a starting
point (e.g. a critical event or survey results), the regulatory body further investigates the reasons
behind the potential weaknesses. Understanding the concrete weaknesses eventually prompts
changes of formal organisational elements, social interactions or individuals. To illustrate, in thesituation where a safety culture review is prompted by a specific event (G3), the process may
include discussion meetings between those involved and safety culture experts. The latter may
then develop action-oriented recommendations to prevent such events. Actions for
improvement may include updating a procedure or increasing individual awareness.
In case of a comprehensive self-assessment as a starting point (G6, G8, G9, G19), theregulatory body uses a range of follow-up activities (such as focus group discussions, in-depth
interviews, targeted follow-up surveys, observations and document analyses) to gain usable
information on concrete weaknesses and potential corrections. For instance, in one method (G6),the regulatory body investigated the deeper causes of complaints of the licensee throughinterviews and focus groups with licensee representatives; it subsequently discussed,
formulated and communicated improvement actions. Sound analysis prompted the need for a
concrete improvement on the individual level among others (e.g. an ad hoc education course on
the attitudes of inspectors).

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When applying these methods in practice, it can be a challenge to handle the large amountof qualitative data collected (e.g. statements from interviews, opinions during discussions or
views of different stakeholder groups) in order to come to a final selection of improvement
actions to eventually implement.
In general, ongoing, periodic use of comprehensive self-assessment methods makes it
possible to track improvement actions and evaluate their effectiveness. In one method (G19),
this is explicitly stated. In the case that a planned improvement has not yielded the expected
positive effect, the self-assessment entails further investigations on the underlying reasons.
This can trigger readjustments of the improvement actions.

Lessons learnt/recommendations
From the application of the methods aiming at improvements, the following lessons andrecommendations can be deduced:•

Inclusion of people directly involved
All improvement approaches considered heavily involve the people whom theimprovements will directly impact. Methods to improve formal organisational elements,
such as a process of the management system, use the knowledge of the people involved.
They know best how work should be done, what is actually done and what obstacles
hinder the desired procedures. Methods aiming at improvements to social interactions
or individual behaviour build upon an understanding of their situation and thinking.
Therefore, group discussions and other means of communication are used to identify
the problem and to find and implement ways to improve the behaviour, relationships,
etc. This approach uses not only the knowledge of those involved but also their ideas
and suggestions. Their involvement encourages support for the improvement.

•

Involvement of stakeholders
Methods that focus on improving safety culture of the regulatory body have the overall
goal of ensuring that the regulator fulfils its tasks effectively and efficiently. To enhance
the regulator’s impact, it may be advisable to involve the stakeholders’ view in theplanning of improvement actions. Only a few of the methods considered involve people
from regulated entities, largely by using surveys, interviews or group discussions.
Nevertheless, consulting licensees and other stakeholders (e.g. NGOs, elected
representatives, facility neighbours, other authorities, technical support organisations[TSOs]) can provide helpful insights about actions of the regulatory body and their impacts.

•

Strive for reasonable actions
People who are engaged in self-assessment and improvement activities expect changes
and concrete improvements. A proceeding that results in an extensive action plan but
sees no actions completed must be avoided. Similarly, developing too complicated or an
unrealistic number of actions should also be avoided since a failure to implement
actions is likely to hamper staff motivation and have counterproductive effects.
Furthermore, the willingness of management to change the status quo by implementing
actions is paramount and should be confirmed from the beginning.

•

Tracking improvements and aim for long-term improvements
Safety culture encompasses profound elements that are unconscious and thus notdirectly accessible, as well as behaviour that may result from these invisible orunconscious elements. Deriving effective improvement actions to address identified
weaknesses is not trivial. It involves the need to transfer the topic from an abstract level
to one that is concrete and practical. In addition, changing cultural aspects takes time.
While fast corrections and visible results are important, changes in safety culture may
require long-lasting, continuing efforts. Striving for long-term improvements requires
evaluations of the actions’ effectiveness and adjustments in the long-term improvement
process. Because of this complexity, the regulatory body should regularly check if it isstill on the right track. Improvement actions should not be only a temporary success.

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For instance, the regulatory body can apply an iterative approach by alternating specificimprovement actions and assessments or reflections to evaluate their effectiveness.
Tracking improvements by evaluating the effectiveness of improvement actions isimportant and should be considered in the planning stage. It may be advisable to havea person, team or organisational unit responsible for monitoring the improvement
process and implementing improvement actions. Permanent support of – and active
example by – senior management is necessary. Accountability for improvement rests
with management and each staff member.
•

Apply methods that lead to direct improvement
To choose a suitable method for improvement, the regulatory body must first determine
its goal. An open and positive attitude towards safety culture is a prerequisite for
applying any method. A regulatory body that launches safety culture activities may first
pursue the overall goal of establishing a basis for open exchange and communication
among employees. A more mature regulatory body, which has already introduced
employees to the concept of safety culture, can build upon previous self-reflection andself-assessment activities and pursue more concrete improvement goals. In some cases,
the regulatory body chooses a method providing both outputs: i.e. to self-reflect onsafety culture aspects and achieve a direct improvement. For instance, reflecting in
discussion groups on contributions to safety culture from different organisational units
may directly improve cross-unit understanding and co-operation. Such direct
improvements in communication, co-operation, leadership, etc. are often observed inself-reflection activities, as conveyed in the expression “the journey is the reward”. It isadvisable to apply methods leading to direct improvements repeatedly, in order to havea lasting effect.

4.4. Conclusions and observations on best practices for self-reflection and selfassessment
The sections above contain lessons learnt and recommendations for using the methods for selfreflection and self-assessment. They cover specific aspects such as choosing a suitable method
and its application, including the involvement of staff, support by management, required
resources, etc. A common general conclusion arising from the analysis above is the prominentrole of open communication in all the methods described. This aligns with the phrase“communication creates culture: culture is a means of communication” (Thiong’o, 1986), which
expresses that communication is a prerequisite of every type of culture and that cultures are
created through communication. The importance of communication relates to the fact thatvalues and perceptions are explicitly and implicitly articulated and exchanged through talking,exchanging views, discussing and collaborating in concrete improvement activities. As a result,common values and basic assumptions are strengthened. While openness during thecommunication and collaboration process is an important factor, it should be remembered that
not every communication is open. An open communication is characterised by trust, respect,honesty and avoiding offence. It can be facilitated by communication rules that help to create atrustful atmosphere and a protected environment. In such an open atmosphere, explanations
and reasons for basic assumptions may become apparent. In this way, open communication canlead to a common understanding and reach the deeper layers of safety culture.
Despite the great potential of open communication, getting to and changing the deeper
layers – which are at the core of safety culture – remains a big challenge when using the methodsof self-reflection and self-assessment. The deeper layers of safety culture consist of mostly
intangible and unconscious basic assumptions, which are enduring and broadly shared. The
following practical advice helps to address this complexity:•

48

Acknowledge both tangible and intangible elements of safety culture by recognising theimportance of observable elements (such as results from a questionnaire, behaviour ofstaff, interactions with licensees, work problems) while additionally looking for
qualitative data on potential underlying values, meanings, assumptions, etc.

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METHODS FOR SELF-REFLECTION AND SELF-ASSESSMENT•

Acknowledge the shared nature of safety culture by using group-based methods to focus
on social processes and interventions.

•Acknowledge the stability and slow-shifting nature of culture by seeking endurance
through repeatedly and continuously conducting self-reflection and self-assessment
activities, including concrete improvement actions.

Based on the overall experiences gained by practitioners in this field, the following
conclusions can be derived:•

Self-reflection and self-assessment methods have an immediate positive effect, if not
on behavioural or organisational levels, at least in the minds of participants. This is true
even for a simple, quick SRSA method.

•

Most comprehensive methods may have further positive impacts on different aspects
and processes, such as improving the quality of the management system, instituting
formal knowledge management processes, revising internal control systems,
establishing reporting standards, fostering competence building, and defining andencouraging in-house training.

•

Often, for self-assessment, a combination of both qualitative and quantitative tools
appears to be most effective. While quantitative tools are useful to create a baseline for
a comparison and for finding trends and specific issues, qualitative methods are usefulfor more detailed analysis and to acquire deeper insights.

•

Most self-reflection methods are used in the frame of a dedicated project or activity
aimed at reflecting on safety culture or related aspects in a general way, whether acrossan organisation or within an organisational unit. Such methods can also be applied toreflect on concrete and specific issues or situations related to daily oversight work.

•

To promote self-reflection and self-assessment activities, and improve safety culture
continuously, it is necessary to allocate sufficient resources and raise awareness of all
staff in an effective way, typically this implies the strong involvement of senior
management.

•

Self-reflection and self-assessment help to build awareness on safety culture aspects
that may not have been previously addressed in daily work. They provide valuable
insights and help to build understanding of diverse subcultures in the organisation andpromote mutual understanding among staff members. Thus, self-reflection and selfassessment also contribute to competence building and boosting staff knowledge acrossdisciplines.

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CONCLUSIONS

Chapter 5. Conclusions

Maintaining a healthy safety culture is essential for the safe use of nuclear energy.
Organisations that have an impact on nuclear safety are part of an interconnected system inwhich the safety culture of each participant mutually influences all others – and all contributeto the overall safety culture of the system itself. It is therefore necessary for each organisation,
including the regulatory body, to strive to foster and sustain a healthy safety culture throughcontinuous improvement and learning. This will be best achieved by taking a systemic approachto safety in which individuals, technology and organisations are considered as a complex anddynamic system of interacting parts.
Within the scope of the present report, the relationship and mutual impact between
regulatory bodies and the organisations they regulate and oversee are the focus of interest.
While licensees are responsible for the safety of their own installations, the regulatory body, by
nature, impacts the safety culture of regulated entities, including their ability and willingness
to uphold their statutory responsibility. To understand how its own approaches to oversight can
impact (positively or negatively) the safety culture and sense of responsibility of thoseorganisations, the regulatory body needs to question and foster its own safety culture.
Several methods, practices and approaches can be applied to enhance safety and to fosterand sustain a healthy safety culture. This report draws on information collected from regulatory
bodies in Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) member countries. These entities have shared theirexperiences and lessons learnt regarding: 1) methods for building competence and awarenessof safety culture; and 2) activities related to self-reflection and/or self-assessment of their own
safety culture.
The main conclusions can be summarised as follows:1.

Understand the significance of the safety culture of the regulatory body
The safety culture of the regulatory body comprises internal processes, structures,
behaviours, shared values and basic assumptions. It affects how individuals execute
their work, make decisions, co-operate with colleagues, execute leadership tasks, etc.
Importantly, these cultural aspects of the regulatory body come into play wheninteracting with licensees and can have an important influence on their safety culture.
Because of this influence, it is important that the regulatory body reflects upon,assesses and improves its own safety culture (NEA, 2016). To meet this responsibility
regulatory bodies engage in various activities to strengthen their safety culture – asdemonstrated by the broad number of examples different countries provided in thisreport. Reflecting on, assessing and developing further the safety culture of theregulatory body can contribute to improve the safety culture and safety of regulated
installations. Staff at the regulatory body become familiar with the concept of safety
culture – as well as the challenges of licensees – by reflecting, assessing and improving
it. In this way, staff develop knowledge and skills for evaluating the safety culture
activities of licensees. Furthermore, the regulatory body thus reflects its own influenceon licensees, for instance, why it matters to fulfil its regulatory tasks efficiently or towhat extent it demonstrates an exemplary function. Some regulatory bodies explicitly
address the interface with licensees by taking their views into account when applying
methods for self-reflection and self-assessment.

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CONCLUSIONS

2.

Ensure management commitment and involvement
The commitment and involvement of senior management and of management acrossall organisational levels demonstrates to staff that engagement for safety culture isimportant and necessary. In particular, the behaviour of senior management plays animportant role for the success of any activity. Notable forms of involvement andsupport by senior management include (among others): deciding on or initiating a
specific activity; establishing a project team and providing necessary resources;
promoting a high participation rate and participating in activities; ensuring the
responsible project team report findings; appreciating the results and efforts; deciding
on, implementing and following up on actions.

3.

Actively involve staff
Most methods and approaches are effective only if participants are open to engage andwilling to share their expertise and experiences. Thus, active participation of all staff –those carrying out regulatory and oversight work and all others – is crucial. Regulatory
bodies can reinforce acceptance and involvement of staff by using methods that are
enjoyable. These might involve: creating a pleasant atmosphere; ensuring a safe
environment and confidentiality; focusing on the process rather than the result; andcommunicating transparently the results and actions. Participating in safety culture
activities may be also an incentive in its own right. For instance, staff can benefit from:being part of an interesting group discussion; learning something new; having newexperiences; seeing connections to daily work and each person’s accountability;
developing a mutual understanding of safety culture; getting support or feedback;contributing personal knowledge and ideas; or achieving improvements together.

4.

Learning from the experience of others
Regulatory bodies of NEA member countries provided a multitude of examples
covering different methods and approaches that they have successfully applied forcompetence and awareness building or for self-reflection and self-assessment. From
this variety of experiences, all regulatory bodies can extract ideas, inspiration andadvice to understand and foster their own safety culture. Great potential also exists topropose new ideas and gain new experiences in this developing and broad field.

5.

Getting started
For the purpose of the present report, a distinction was made between methods forsafety culture awareness and competence building on the one hand, and self-reflection
and self-assessment on the other. In practice, the distinction might not be that clear
or that important. For instance, more often than not, methods for self-reflection andself-assessment also aim at – or at least contribute to – improving competence andawareness for safety culture among staff members. In that sense, methods for selfreflection and self-assessment could also be considered as methods for safety culturecompetence and awareness building. It is also the case that during safety culture
training, reflection on the safety culture of the regulatory body and its impact onsupervised organisations can be an intended part of training or arise as a side-effect.
Therefore, one can conclude that the choice of one or more methods – of one type or
the other – with which to begin is less important than actually beginning. The focus
for selecting the method(s) should be placed on choosing and customising themethod(s) to the conditions and specific goals of the organisation, and on creating a
positive atmosphere and a feeling of success among participants. If this first goal canbe achieved through the choice of a good “starter”, the appetite for an even better“main course” will open the doors for continuing activities on safety culture awarenessand competence building and on self-reflection and self-assessment, as well as on
improvement of safety culture.

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CONCLUSIONS

6.

Creating early successes
Some organisations recognise the need to better understand, reflect and assess as wellas to further develop their safety culture, but have little experience or are faced withdifficulties in deciding on an effective starting point. In this case, it is advisable to begin
with straightforward methods and approaches, and to aim for early successes. Thiscan arouse an (initial) interest for organisational cultural aspects, creating an “ahaexperience” or a “eureka moment” about the relevance of safety culture. In turn, it canpromote a positive attitude towards this topic, allowing for an enjoyable, open anduseful exchange with colleagues, or identifying and implementing a (small) positivechange. Building upon such small successes, the organisation can continue an“upwards spiral” (a positive feedback loop) towards more and more open
communication among employees and more elaborated approaches to establishing or
sustaining a healthy safety culture.

7.

Using the right expertise
Human and organisational factors (HOF) practitioners possess specific safety culture
expertise. They can identify and solve problems and contribute their knowledge inchoosing, implementing and conducting the methods to build safety culturecompetence and awareness or for self-reflection and self-assessment, and theimprovement actions described in this report. Regulatory bodies should use thisexpertise in analysing results and making recommendations based on the outputs andoutcomes from conducting these methods. Combining this safety culture expertisewith the right method for the context, and in a collective and interdisciplinary way,
will help ensure the regulatory body reaches its goal of assessing and enhancing its
safety culture.

8.

Combining methods, tools and approaches
To foster and improve safety culture in a continuous process, a combination of
methods, tools (qualitative and/or quantitative) and approaches is advisable. This
reflects that each method has its own benefits and limitations. Some methods
described in the annexes of this report are more suitable for self-assessment or selfreflection; others are appropriate for training and awareness building. A third group isbetter suited to help implement concrete improvements. Users of this report can finda variety of methods categorised by these different goals to tailor their choice of
methods to actual needs and available resources.

9.

Planning, monitoring and evaluating
Planning, monitoring and evaluating safety culture activities is very important. Many
regulatory bodies establish a project team or determine responsible competent people
for conceptual pre-work and for planning and performing the activity. Planning theorganisational execution should consider time frame, resources, project plan,
involvement of internal/external experts, integration of senior management, extent ofconfidentiality, communication, etc. An interdependence exists between an
organisation’s management system and safety culture. To be effective, actions related
to safety culture should be planned, monitored and evaluated according to, and as anintegral part of, the organisation’s management system. Outcomes from these actions
can help identify opportunities to improve policies, processes and procedures, andshould thus be fed back into the management system.

10. Continuous improvement
Safety culture is a dynamic, complex and multi-faceted concept, but it becomestangible in every organisation through concrete examples and various connections todaily work. Because of this richness, developing a culture takes time. Strengthening
safety culture cannot be a one-time activity; rather, it is a journey consisting ofmaintaining awareness, analysing the effectiveness of improvement actions, being
open for possible corrections, and pursuing continuous improvement and learning.
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CONCLUSIONS

The regulatory body management and staff should not find themselves exhausted
after the first activity, since a self-assessment should be conducted as a means tocontinuously improve and not as an end in itself.
It is therefore recommended that this report be used as the starting point before launchinga competence building programme or a self-reflection/self-assessment process on safety culture.
The report provides a good overview of different methods and tools, including their advantages,
disadvantages and best practices. Learning from what other regulatory bodies are doing is key
to making further improvements. While emphasising the focus on continuous improvement, it
is important to bear in mind that the approaches shared in this report should always take into
account, and adequately adapt to, the specific context and needs of the regulatory body.

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RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE WORK

Chapter 6. Recommendations for future work

The field of regulatory safety culture evolves quickly. This report is based on responses ofregulatory bodies in 18 countries who completed a questionnaire to share their experiences ofsafety culture awareness building and training, as well as of methods used to reflect on andassess their own safety culture. The countries were asked to provide explicit information on
approaches, practices, methods and tools that they considered notable and effective for those
purposes. Thus, this report analyses those practices that are assumed or assessed bypractitioners as being most effective.
Nevertheless, activities undertaken so far give rise to a call for monitoring evolution in thefollowing areas:
1.

Continue accumulating practices
It is necessary to continue accumulating practices, experiences and examples related
to a healthy safety culture. It is also necessary to combine these practices withinformation addressed in other publications developed by the Nuclear Energy Agency(NEA, 2010 and 2015), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA, 2002b, 2016 and2019) or other international organisations such as the World Association of Nuclear
Operators (WANO), which have wide experience of safety culture assessment.

2.

Investigate how regulatory body safety culture influences that of regulated organisations
The main goal of applying methods described in this report is to strengthen the safety
culture of the regulatory body for the sake of positively impacting the safety culture ofsupervised organisations and, thus, the safety of their installations. Despite thenumerous methods and approaches included, there is little information and guidance
available to date about ways to measure or evaluate their effectiveness. While it isdifficult to accurately assess how efforts to improve the safety culture of regulatory
bodies impact on regulated organisations, the safety of regulated nuclear installations
cannot be independent of the safety culture of the regulatory body. This is evident in
two ways: 1) safety culture efforts of the regulatory body will contribute to improve its
own policies related to nuclear safety and staff capabilities (and, consequently, thequality of nuclear oversight); and 2) the regulatory body’s day-to-day oversightactivities always influence the safety culture of regulated organisations and the safetyof their installations. Hence, it is a matter of the safety culture of the regulatory bodyto investigate how it influences the safety culture of regulated organisations, including
using feedback from them, and to find concrete ways to positively influence it. This is
an important topic for future work.

3.

Develop simple tools for reflecting day-to-day work
Exploring methods and approaches for integrating safety culture reflection into dayto-day operations, decision-making and the management system is essential tosupport positive impacts on the safety culture of supervised organisations – and to
avoid negative impacts. In particular, the development of simple tools that can beapplied quickly for reflecting day-to-day work is desired.

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RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE WORK

4.

Develop methods to reach deeper layers of safety culture
As argued throughout this report, oversight strategies and daily oversight activities of
the regulatory body, as well as the nature of its relationships with the regulatedorganisations, impact the safety culture of the latter in essential ways. These tangible
aspects of the safety culture of the regulatory body are driven by the more intangible
aspects of the culture, i.e. values, norms and basic assumptions. The collectively
shared basic assumptions represent the basis for making decisions and undertaking(or omitting) actions within individual organisations, as well as across the wider,interconnected system. This can be seen, for instance, by the analysis of the accident
at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (cf. IAEA, 2015). It is therefore crucial
that individuals and organisations question their own basic assumptions and theirimplications on actions that impact nuclear safety (IAEA, 2015). This is particularly true
for regulatory bodies, given the pivotal role they play in developing the safety cultureof organisations they oversee, and across the wider, interconnected system of
stakeholders. Experience, to date, of the regulatory bodies developing and using
methods for self-reflection and self-assessment shows that despite recognising theimportance of digging deeper into basic assumptions, it is not self-evident how toreach these deeper layers of safety culture with such methods. Therefore, further work
should be dedicated to developing more methods to help in this endeavour.

5.

Follow up and monitor effectiveness of improvement actions
Many regulatory bodies are currently improving activities and processes in their
management system related to safety culture. The improvements include, for example:
stronger focus on risk analysis in regulatory activities and management systems;
implementation of management reviews; describing activities related to improvementof safety awareness in the management plans; performing safety culture selfassessments with external assistance; and others. In this regard, exchange of concrete
examples on ways to follow up and monitor the effectiveness of improvement actions
may be a topic for future work. Although the importance of tracking the effectivenessof improvement actions is often stressed, to date, little concrete information isavailable on this topic.

6.

Support qualitative data analysis and infer improvement actions
It is a challenge to handle the large amount of qualitative data collected (e.g. statementsfrom interviews, opinions during discussions or views of different stakeholder groups)
in order to make a final selection of improvement actions for the regulatory body to
implement. Thus, it is important to develop and apply effective methods and tools to
support these critical activities.

7.

Discuss best practices with non-nuclear industries
Many of the methods described in this document also apply in non-nuclear industries,
where safety-related aspects have a similar nature and importance as in the nuclear
industry. The NEA Green Booklet (NEA, 2016) highlighted the benefits of sharing
experiences with regulators of non-nuclear sectors and discussed best practices. Someof the lessons learnt, across the range of such industries, to be further examined might
include:56–

the importance of a healthy safety culture when setting goals for the regulatory
regime;–the need for a means to assess safety culture and benchmark against otherorganisations;–the alignment of the organisation’s behaviours with its espoused values;–

the need for a strong drive for learning and continuous improvement, based oninternal assessments;

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RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE WORK–

the need for successful integration between regulatory and non-regulatory
functions;–the development of non-technical skills for regulatory staff;–

the need for policy to promote an open, constructive organisational culture in nonnuclear sectors;–

the general importance of human, organisational and cultural factors in the
feedback on concerns.

The NEA Working Group on Safety Culture (WGSC) is continuously striving to ensure thatthe safety culture of the regulatory body and the wider, interconnected system has a positive
impact on overall safety.

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REFERENCES

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CATALOGUE OF METHODS FOR SAFETY CULTURE COMPETENCE AND AWARENESS BUILDING

Annex A: Catalogue of methods for safety culturecompetence and awareness building

An overview of all the methods for safety culture competence and awareness building is provided
in Table 3.1 of this report. Further details on a sample of methods can be found in this annex. 1
Chapter 3 of this report summarises the triggers reported by member countries of the
Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) for carrying out safety culture competence and awarenessbuilding activities, including:•

Articulate leadership commitments and desired behaviour at all levels of the organisation.

•

Better alignment of individually-held, personal values with those of the organisation toenhance sustainable performance and development.

•

Incorporation of lessons learnt, for example from:

•

1

–

accidents and events; or–revision of the management system of the regulatory body.

Need to improve ways of working and individual behaviours, e.g. due to:–

The varied educational backgrounds and different experience levels of new recruits
in nuclear safety and radiological protection.

–

The use of generalist inspectors to integrate consideration of safety culture in theirinspections.

–

The feeling of site inspectors that findings of their inspections are not always taken
into account or effectively followed up by the organisation.

–

Poor or inadequate communication among departments of the regulatory bodyleading to reduced efficiency and increased competition, which adversely affects theobjectives and subsequent results of work.

–

Miscommunication and misunderstanding between supervisors and subordinates
regarding their respective expectations, objectives, missions and individual roles in
work.

–

Lack of prioritisation of tasks and shortfalls in the execution of duties by staff.

–

Graded approach is stated but not embedded in everyday work.

–

Low quality and/or inconsistent work processes that do not deliver the expected
results, and/or gaps, as identified during normal operations or after a safety review.

–

Reactive rather than proactive behaviour of staff or a strong reluctance to foresee
challenges and make improvements to prevent emerging risks and adapt to thechanging environment.

–

Lack of awareness of the consequences of decisions made and their impacts on safety.

–

Challenging staff to synergise in order to deliver better results and resolve all
independent expert judgements before they are submitted to high levels in theorganisation.

More detailed information regarding the activities collected in the catalogue are available by contacting
the WGSC Secretariat via the NEA website: www.oecd-nea.org/wgsc.

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CATALOGUE OF METHODS FOR SAFETY CULTURE COMPETENCE AND AWARENESS BUILDING•–

Low involvement of staff in the organisation’s work, lack of trust in and by thedecision makers.

–

The distributed nature (geographical and organisational) of the regulatory structure
in some countries (e.g. some countries have a federal structure with several
regulators operating at different levels in the system. Hence, a need exists to
exchange information to support a state-of-the-art approach to safety culture within
the system).

International incentives or pressure, for example:–

Developments in international standards and good practice.

–Observations from IAEA International Regulatory Review Service (IRRS) missions.

Category A methods:•

Overall objective: to share knowledge and information on safety culture.

•

Target audience: experts in human and organisational factors (HOF).

Method A1: Workshop on safety culture in the regulatory approach
Overall objective
Specific
objectives

Share knowledge and experience of safety culture.
•••

Exchange experience.
Share information on new developments.
Discuss questions, methods and regulatory approaches.

Target audience

All experts in the field of HOF, especially from the regulatory body, but also from technical support
organisations and universities. The workshop is voluntary and addresses all levels in the organisation,from technical staff to senior management.

Frequency

One-time-activity.

Duration

Two days.

Steps andactivities

The workshop comprises four topics:• Concepts of safety culture – what is our understanding of safety culture?
• Methods for the assessment of safety culture – how can we assess safety culture?
• Regulatory oversight of safety culture – how do we regulate safety culture?
• Possibilities for influencing and improving safety culture – how can safety culture be improved?
Each topic starts with an introductory presentation, followed by discussions in small groups. The
composition of the discussion groups changes in each topic to enhance the discussion among different
experts. These groups exchange views and discuss approaches and methods while answering leadquestions. The discussions are moderated by one facilitator per discussion group, who also presents theresults afterwards in plenary.
The team organising the event consists of two safety culture experts and two administrative assistants.
The format of dynamic small groups fosters intense exchange of knowledge and the possibility to ask
open questions.

62

Outcomes

The workshop helps to facilitate and promote exchange of knowledge and experience, and networking,among experts from the regulatory body and with experts from other institutions such as technicalsupport organisations and universities. Numerous in-depth technical and wide-ranging points areexchanged and worked out for all the topic blocks. The participants were very committed to theexchange and discussions.

Pros

The exchange between experts across different organisations promotes thinking outside the box,
mutual support and getting new insights. The format allows in-depth discussions in small groups withchanging composition and also experience exchange in the plenary discussions.

Cons

One challenge was to get participants from all targeted organisations. Another was the very highworkload for the organisational team, which also performs the facilitator’s job.

Other
information

It takes approximately half a year for planning, information and implementation of the workshop. There
are approximately 30 participants in the workshop.

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Category B methods:•

Overall objective: To raise knowledge and awareness of safety culture and build
competence in regulatory oversight of safety culture.

•

Target audience: Inspectors.

Method B1: Internship by licensees during the initial training programme for new inspectors
Overall objective
Specific
objectives

To better understand the oversight activities and the licensee’s constraints.
•

Create an immersive experience in the regulated activity.

•

Understand the operational worker’s culture, environment and constraints.

•

Create different communication conditions from an inspection.

•

Increase technical knowledge.

Target audience

Compulsory for all staff (including technical staff) before they can be nominated as inspectors and be
given authority to exercise the powers of an inspector.

Frequency

Between 30 and 40 internships are planned nationwide every year.

Duration

Between one and two weeks.

Steps andactivities

Planning: The internship is planned after completion of the initial training programme and a few
months of professional experience to have sufficient knowledge to benefit from the internship. Groupsof 2 or 3 inspectors with similar expectations are constituted.
Site choice: For regional offices, the site must be chosen outside of the overseen territory (except forunique facilities, such as fuel cycle facilities). The site must perform activities relevant to the intern’s
portfolio. Sites facing difficulties with safety or radiological protection, or lacking resources, are avoided.
Participation: Licensees are free to refuse. If they agree to participate, a convention is established. It is
made clear for the licensee that the internship will not be used for control/oversight purposes.
Programme: The programme is established with the licensee to give interns a large overview ofactivities. It is key for interns to participate in operational tasks (spending a night shift in the control
room of a nuclear power plant, watching a full surgical operation, etc.), even if they are not directly
connected with safety and radiological protection.
Evaluation: An informal feedback is provided.

Outcomes

Pros•

Helps understand the licensee’s culture, constraints and environment for a more practical andgraded oversight.

•

Improves technical knowledge.

•

Increases inspectors’ self-confidence.

The targeted objectives are fulfilled to a large extent.
Extremely positive perception by the trainees.
Good acceptance by the licensees.
Aids in assimilating the regulator’s culture.

Cons

Resource-consuming.
Attention must be paid to create the conditions for a non-dissimulative dialogue during the internship.

Other
information

New internships can be planned in the same conditions after a few years of experience to increaseinspectors’ knowledge on specific topics.

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Method B2: In-house seminar with national and international HOF experts
Overall objective

To increase knowledge and raise awareness of safety culture and build competence in regulatory
oversight of safety culture.

Specific
objectives•

Refresh knowledge and promote individual and group experiences of safety culture.

•

Communicate, discuss and share experience of interactions between the different elements of thehuman, technology and organisation (HTO) model.

•

Increase awareness of generalist inspectors in specific HOF topics, e.g. human performance
optimisation tools and leadership for safety.

Target audience

Inspectors.

Frequency

Every two years.

Duration

Two days.

Steps andactivities

The majority of inspections in the area of safety culture are performed by generalist inspectors, i.e.
professionals from varying fields with supplementary competences in the areas of HOF and safety
culture. To regularly raise awareness of these topics, the regulator invites HOF experts from nuclear
energy or other safety-critical domains to provide training on a selected area or issue, e.g.
understanding of safety, in-depth event analysis, human performance optimisation (HPO) tools, andleadership for safety.
As an example, in one biannual training event, the focus was on HPO tools and their application in asimulation of a rail network. The task within the training event was to ensure safe and efficient traffic ofdifferent trains. Participants were asked to collaborate, to apply pre-job-briefings and to communicate
efficiently. The training involved the preparation and execution of the rail network task. Activities of theparticipants were video recorded and observed by other participants. Afterwards, there was anextensive debriefing of the performance and of individual and group-based experiences and difficulties
arising during the task.
The scope of the events is the communication, discussion and self-experience of the systemicinteractions between technical, organisational and human factors. The event includes a concrete
scenario that questions or challenges and highlights the benefits of acting professionally (e.g. byapplying HPO tools) in such a situation.
A chosen HOF expert facilitates the seminar in-house. The entire authority, especially the inspectors, isinvited on a voluntary basis. The expert gives a presentation for all participants in the plenum andinitiates additional discussions, exercises and activities in smaller subgroups.
The planning phase for the biannual training event involves consideration of an appropriate focus topic
that is potentially novel, contacting a possible HOF expert, and the agreement with him/ her on theconcrete scope and content of the seminar. The invited expert facilitates the seminar and provides
adequate handouts and an evaluation sheet.
Senior management is responsible for the relevant regulation on the training of HOF competencies in
the management system. They are involved in ensuring the necessary financial resources for theseminar. Management also participates (in part) in the seminar.

Outcomes

In general, the seminar refreshes knowledge and promotes both individual and group experiences
concerning safety culture. For instance, in the realistic simulation in the above-mentioned task,
participants had trouble acting as planned because of situational stress. The importance to stop whenunsure or in critical situations became clear. The group as a whole internalised that it is important to havea common understanding of the task and efficient communication with each other.

Pros

Performing the seminar with a wide range of experts provides learning opportunities across different
perspectives and industries. The cross-cutting nature and overriding relevance of HOF and safety
culture become clear in this way. The self-experience and group discussions enhance the effectivenessof the learning. Prerequisites are an openness to this type of learning and a credible, convincing expert.
The realistic tasks or scenarios require (safety-relevant) acting within the group. The debriefing after thetask execution deals with the “why” of certain activities and actions that the group showed. The
discussion encourages reflection on underlying attitudes, values, group dynamics, etc.

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Cons

n/a

Other
information

The external experts involved so far had experiences from different industries, e.g. nuclear industry,
aviation and medicine. Usually, approximately 15 inspectors (approx. one-third of the staff) participate,especially those who are involved in HOF supervision.

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Method B5: Site inspector training course
Overall objective
Specific
objectives

To provide delegates with an understanding of the key operational areas of activity for the function of
nuclear safety site inspection.
•

Understand the expected behaviour of a site inspector.

•

Understand the role of the site inspector in overseeing safety culture in licensees, specifically:o Understand organisational and cultural causes of accidents.

o Be able to identify “weak signals” of organisational dysfunction.
o Understand the regulatory approach to safety culture.

Target audience

Site inspectors.

Frequency

Twice per year.

Duration

Three days overall, with 75 minutes on leadership and management for safety, including safety culture.

Steps andactivities

The modules of the training course comprise:•

Introduction, aims and objectives•

So you’re a new site inspector – handover requirements•

Planning and conducting interventions, including a planning exercise•

Reporting and follow-up•

Site meetings•

Response to incidents on-site – what do you do?

•

An appreciation of permissioning and the role of the site inspector•

Emergency exercises and the role of the site inspector•

Invited speaker – a duty holder’s perspective•

Managing information: incident reports and regulatory issues•

Leadership and management for safety (including safety culture)•

Communications, freedom of information requests, parliamentary questions and the press.

The module on leadership and management for safety covers:•

Learnings from major events•

Characteristics of high reliability organisations•

Regulatory approach, expectations and guidance on leadership and management for safety,
including safety culture•”Weak signals” of organisational dysfunction•

Sources of specialist help and advice.

The course covers the main processes and procedures of which a site inspector needs to be aware.
However, the real purpose of the course is to get “under the skin” of the role of the site inspector inbeing the “eyes and ears” of the regulator while maintaining an open and effective relationship with thelicensee in the interests of safety.
Outcomes

The outcome of the training is that inspectors have sufficient understanding of the key operational areasof activity for the function of nuclear safety site inspection.

Pros

The section of the course on leadership and management for safety is well received and integrates wellwith the other modules. The course considers oversight of safety culture by the regulatory body but also
reflects on the regulatory body’s own culture and the impact (positive or negative) this may have on
licensees. The module on the duty holder’s perspective is highly valued by participants and is usually
given by a senior member of a licensee, e.g. a site director of a nuclear power plant. There is opportunityfor question and answer. The course is led and presented by experienced inspectors in the regulatory
body.

Cons

There is some overlap between this course and other courses on specific topics. The section onleadership and management for safety is short but references a separate, more detailed course on HOF.

Other
information

The course comprises in-house, classroom training for up to 20 delegates who are new or prospective
site inspectors.

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Method B7 Safety culture competence and awareness building of inspectors
Overall objective

To build safety culture competence and awareness of the inspectors.

Specific
objectives•

Study the basis of safety culture.

•

Understand the contents of the regulator’s “Safety Culture Guideline”, including evaluation of alicensee’s activities to foster a safety culture.

•

Prepare a “Safety Culture General Evaluation Form”.

Target audience

Inspectors.

Frequency

Twice per year.

Duration

Two days.

Steps andactivities

Since the late 1990s, accidents have happened due to degradation of safety culture and organisational
factors. To improve the level of safety in nuclear power facilities, thorough corrective action
programmes were considered to be very important.
This training course on safety culture for inspectors, which has been run since 2008, comprises thefollowing elements:•

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Lecture (~5 hours).

•

Group drill (~7 hours).

•

Presentation by each group and summary (~30 minutes).

Outcomes

As a result of the training, inspectors have a deepened understanding of perspectives on examining
licensees’ approaches and measures for safety culture according to regulatory guidelines. Throughpractice, inspectors become more aware of their own safety culture.

Pros

n/a

Cons

n/a

Other
information

The content of this method was based on the old “Safety Culture Guideline”, which was abolished in
March 2020. Since a new inspection system was started in April 2020, inspectors conduct a safety culture
inspection based on the newly established “Ordinance Prescribing Standards for System Required for
Quality Control Concerning Operational Safety of Nuclear Facilities”, its guides and a new guide on
fostering and sustaining a healthy safety culture, referring to IAEA GSR Part 2. The content of thismethod will be updated according to the new inspection system.

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Category C methods•

Overall objective: Share knowledge and experience of safety culture inspection practice.

•Target audience: Inspectors.

Method C1: Annual workshop on safety culture oversight
Overall objective
Specific objectives

To share knowledge and experience of safety culture inspection practice.
• Exchange experience.
• Reflect on concrete inspection scenarios.
• Establish a common understanding of an inspector’s role and activities.
The workshop also promotes harmonised implementation of management systems regulations
across organisational units responsible for different plants.

Target audience

Inspectors.

Frequency

Once per year.

Duration

Half a day.

Steps and activities

The motivation for introducing this method was to supplement and enrich training for inspectors
through realistic examples of on-site situations.
All inspectors mandatorily participate in one of three identical workshops. Participants must masterone or two concrete on-site inspection cases with respect to the “most proper” oversight actions.
The initial step is preparation of an example, e.g. a certain rule violation or deviation by the licensee,
the licensee’s reactions and further boundary conditions on-site. During the workshop, theparticipants’ task is to elaborate an approach and concrete oversight actions with the help of someleading questions. Participants also have to evaluate potentially relevant aspects of the licensee’ssafety culture. Two or three small subgroups (approximately five participants) are created to discuss
the cases, share relevant experiences and write results on a flipchart. Afterwards, in the plenum, eachsubgroup presents its proposed activities. All participants are invited to reflect on respective
advantages and disadvantages of the presented activities, particularly how they influence the safety
and safety culture of the licensee. Finally, the facilitator presents the sample solution and asks for final
feedback.
An internal team of two people including one manager (i.e. a senior inspector), prepares the scenarios.
In sum, around 30 inspectors participate in one of the three workshops. Some employees of thetechnical support organisation (TSO) also participate.

Outcomes

Participants get insights into their colleagues’ experiences, approaches and opinions, as well as thepros and cons of the different steps of acting. During discussion, they reflect on the licensee’s safety
culture issues. Participants also become aware of their own role as inspectors. The event highlights
safety issues occurring in practical work and fosters mutual understanding of the inspector’s influenceon the licensee.

Pros

The effectiveness and acceptance of the workshop are high because the training content is closely
connected to the everyday work and challenges of the inspectors. The intensive exchange among
participants and the final feedback concerning the solution support the mutual understanding of“proper” behaviours and the underlying values.

Cons

n/a

Other information

The participating TSO members gain insight into the decision-making process of inspectors, which
increases mutual understanding and co-operation.

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Category D methods:•

Overall objective: Raise knowledge and awareness of safety culture.

•

Target audience: All staff.

Method D4: Safety culture training
Overall objective

To raise knowledge and awareness of safety culture and to study the effects of safety culture andleadership aspects on catastrophic events.

Specific
objectives•

Deepen understanding of cultural and leadership aspects and their connection with pastcatastrophes.

•

Discuss and reflect on the cultural characteristics of the regulatory body in the context of real-life
accidents.

Target audience

The target audience is the entire staff; however, staff actively participating in the oversight activities are
the main focus group.

Duration

Variable.

Steps andactivities

The training series studies accidents in safety-critical (including non-nuclear) industries. It explores the“anatomy” of the accidents, and discusses and reflects on cultural aspects behind the events. It also
reflects on which aspects and characteristics are universal and thus something to consider in theregulator’s daily work.
When conducting training events (e.g. on accidents/events in nuclear power plants), various experts are
involved. Typically, technical experts provide information concerning the technical events, issues andfailures. Organisational and safety culture experts explain and present information and lessons learnt
from the organisational and cultural perspectives. These presentations are used to provoke discussion
and self-reflection.
Members of senior management are present in the events and take part in the discussion and reflection.
It is important to have them present and actively participating with an open, humble and questioning
attitude.

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Outcomes

The outcome varies according to the goals set for each event. In some cases, the workshop has sparked
discussions that needed to be continued later. The general outcome is an enhanced ability andawareness (among participants) to understand and analyse the organisational and cultural aspects
affecting operational aspects. Also, understanding and identification of the regulator’s own blind spots
is supported.

Pros

The training events/workshops provide a good platform for open and honest discussion on safety
culture and leadership aspects. The discussions and self-reflection are valuable. Examining real-life
accidents/events provides an interesting context to reach the deeper layers of safety culture. The
analysis of the events and reflection of the regulator’s operations provide a good framework for
exploring the intangible elements of safety culture.

Cons

n/a

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Method D5: Training in concept of safety
Overall objective

To raise knowledge and awareness of safety culture.

Specific objectives• Enhance awareness of staff on safety.
• Understand safety culture and how to apply it in daily activities.

Target audience

All staff.

Frequency

Ad hoc.

Duration

Two days.

Steps and activities

This course aims to enhance awareness of safety among regulatory body staff members. Throughdeep discussions, it provides staff with an opportunity to understand safety culture in ways that will
help in daily activities.
The training comprises:• A site visit to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station (NPS) and the former off-site
emergency response centre.
• A workshop on safety, including exchange of opinion between staff of the regulator’s regional
office and of the licensee.

Outcomes

Almost all participants responded positively to this course. Visiting the Fukushima Daiichi NPS site
has a very big impact and is a cornerstone for them to understand the identity of the regulator. As
time passes since the accident, it is vital to maintain the lessons learnt through site visits.

Pros

n/a

Cons

It has been difficult to accommodate as many staff members as the regulator expects to haveparticipate at the same time due to capacity limits.

Method D6: Safety culture of the regulatory body training
Overall objective

To raise knowledge and awareness of safety culture.

Specific objectives•

Provide an overview of the meaning and concept of safety culture to build a common
understanding.

•Introduce key elements of safety culture assessments and results.

•

Provide a forum for questions and discussion on safety culture.

An additional objective is to promote participation in the future safety culture self-assessment of theregulatory body.
Target audience

All staff.

Frequency

Up to four seminars per year.

Duration

Four-five hours (one morning).

Steps and activities

The training programme includes seminars for commissioners and senior management (small groupsof 15-20 people) and seminars for all personnel including technical and non-technical people (50-60
people). The seminar has an interactive format, allowing the exchange of experiences, points of view,
doubts, etc. The format is classroom training and discussion around a table, with presentations andexamples from other industries.
The seminars are introduced by senior management and conducted by an external expert with wide
experience in the field.

Outcomes

The seminars have achieved a positive exchange of points of view and experiences.

Pros

Acceptance of the seminar has been very high, with a very positive feedback from both senior levels
and across the rest of the organisation.

Cons

n/a

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Method D7: Behaviour and communication training course
Overall objective

To improve awareness on how behaviour and communication of individuals influences the learning
abilities and safety culture of the organisation.

Specific objectives

Non-violent communication can impact personal development, relationships and social change.
Appreciative inquiry is a strengths-based, positive approach to leadership development, behaviourand organisational change. Reflecting in action supports “double-loop” learning. This enables
organisations’ creativity and innovation, going beyond adapting to change to anticipating or being
ahead of change.
These methods support inspectors to be more aware of ways in which their behaviour andcommunication (interaction with others) influences their own learning abilities as well as those of theorganisation and its safety culture.

70

Target audience

Inspectors.

Frequency

Once per year/on demand.

Duration

42 hours training over a period of approximately 6 months.

Steps andactivities

A practical training programme for inspectors on:•

Non-violent communication (also called compassionate communication or collaborative
communication).

•

Appreciative inquiry.

•

Reflecting in action.

Outcomes

Inspectors improved their communication skills. Most were positive about their newly acquired skills,
even those who were sceptical in the beginning.

Pros

A noticeable, recent development is the need to discuss substantive topics, which can then be
supported by agreements on manners and awareness of group dynamics.

Cons

Some experienced safety-related cases turned out to be an insufficiently safe context for someinspectors.

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Category E methods:•

Overall objective: To demonstrate leadership in fulfilling the regulatory mission.

•

Target audience: All staff.

Method E1: Leadership model
Overallobjective

To provide a roadmap to communicate how staff, individually and collectively, demonstrate leadershipin fulfilling the regulatory mission.

Specific
objectives

A leadership model has the following specific objectives in relation to safety culture:•

It complements the agency’s mission, vision and values; these elements interact to help explain theorganisational culture.

•

It elaborates upon six fundamental characteristics: participative decision-making; receptivity to
new ideas and thinking; empowerment and shared leadership; diversity in thought; innovation andrisk tolerance; collaboration and teamwork.

•

It describes specific leadership behaviours associated with these characteristics that are expectedfrom individuals, supervisors and team members.

Target audience

All staff including individuals, supervisors and executives.

Frequency

Continuous.

Duration

Integrated into daily activities.

Steps andactivities

The leadership model aims to positively influence an activity or group of people. Leaders are expected
to apply conscious, balanced effort and behaviours across three core categories: people, processes andpartnerships.
• People – develop and maintain our workforce through:o Learning and development.

o Nurturing diversity of viewpoints and backgrounds.

o Applying individual performance management and performance appraisal systems.
o Demonstrating recognition and appreciation.

• Processes – establish goals and systems to execute plans via:o Strategic planning.

o Management system.

o Organisational performance management and quarterly performance reviews.
o Strategic workforce planning.
o Corporate support.

• Partnerships – engage stakeholders to inform our plan of work and decision-making via:o Communications and information sharing.

o Partnerships, collaborations, networks and councils.
o Safety culture.

• The module on leadership and management for safety covers:o Core values and behaviours resulting from a collective commitment by leaders and individuals
to emphasise safety to ensure protection of people and the environment.
o Support values and traits of a healthy safety culture on a daily basis.

o Expressing and resolving differing views are available to all employees whenever needed.
Outcomes

This model allows a work environment that focuses on safety and security, and encourages all
employees to raise concerns and listen to concerns of others.

Pros

The section that focuses on partnerships ensures the practice and promotion of safety culture values
and traits in interactions to demonstrate respect and co-operation, and to set the tone for good decisionmaking for all activities including safety decisions related to licensing and oversight.

Cons

There is some overlap between this model and other courses on specific topics.

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Annex B: Catalogue of methods for self-reflection
and self-assessment

An overview of all the methods of self-reflection and self-assessment, as well as their specificobjectives is provided in Table 4.1 of this report. Further details about the methods can be foundin this annex. 1 Allocation to categories is indicated in the title row by the relevant numbering,i.e. Fx for self-reflection and Gx for self-assessment.

Category F methods: Self-reflection (understanding)Overall objectives:•

Foster self-reflection of individuals, groups, units or the entire organisation.

•

Increase overall awareness and understanding of safety culture within the organisation.

Method F1; Update and revision of the organisation’s mission statement
Objective

To reflect the authority’s organisational culture with broad participation of all employees and tofoster common views and values.

Context of use

An existing mission statement was discussed and updated.

Steps and activities

1. Planning by a project team.
2. Performing workshops with a facilitator.
3. Evaluating and summarising the results by the project team.

1

Frequency

Intended to be applied once (a similar process can be applied after several years).

Involved parties

All employees.

Involvement of senior
management•

Take up the need for further development and improvement.

•

Provide resources.

•

Send invitation letter to the launch event, signed by the department head.

•

Participate during workshops.

•

Express thanks to the project group and appreciation of the results.

•

Take decision on the new mission statement and ensure its integration into the
management system.

Outcomes/products

Updated mission statement (statement on the organisational culture).

Pros and cons

The product, i.e. the mission statement, is of great value. However, the participatory process ofdeveloping the product, which led to a common understanding and identification, is the main
benefit.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture

If workshop participants feel open to talk and discuss, the group process promotes reflection andassessment of individual, as well as underlying (shared) organisational values.

Additional information

The mission statement is available in English by contacting the WGSC Secretariat via the NEA
website: www.oecd-nea.org/wgsc.

More detailed information regarding the activities collected in the catalogue is available by contacting
the WGSC Secretariat via the NEA website: www.oecd-nea.org/wgsc.

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Method F2: Development of a common understanding on safety culture of the regulatory body consisting ofdifferent authorities
Objective

To develop of a common understanding among different organisations of the regulatory bodyand fix it in a policy document.

Context of use

Common preparation for an upcoming International Regulatory Review Service (IRRS) mission ofdifferent authorities forming the national regulatory body.

Steps and activities•

IRRS self-assessment.

•

Launch event and discussion meetings among the organisations.

•

Communication and discussions within the organisations.

•

Enactment of the policy paper.

•

Discussion during the IRRS mission.

Frequency

Once.

Involved parties

A few people of each organisation were involved in preparing the policy document. They
communicated the intermediate results within their organisations, collected feedback andprovided it for the next step.

Involvement of senior
management

Support for the project and final adoption of the policy document.

Outcomes/products

Safety culture policy document for the whole regulatory body based on and firming up the fiveprinciples of the NEA Green Booklet (NEA, 2016).

Pros and cons

The chance and the challenge of this process is to integrate and discuss the viewpoints ofdifferent authorities that partly cover different tasks in the area of nuclear safety to find a common
understanding.
A challenge is to sensitise and involve the staff in the project and give it due priority.

74

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture

The method mainly deals with the layer of values. It helps to make implicit values more explicit.

Additional information

The policy document is available in English by contacting the WGSC Secretariat via the NEA
website: www.oecd-nea.org/wgsc.

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Method F3: Seminars for reflection on leadership and management
Objective

To improve and develop leadership by giving and receiving feedback within a management groupor to develop a working group by doing the same among colleagues.
• Direct feedback on leadership in a management group or on each person as a colleague withina section.

Context of use• Management groups.
• A section with their manager.

Steps and activities• Performed in management meetings and/or in section meetings (check-in or check-out).
• One person at a time in focus.
• The person in focus makes a brief description of no more than a few minutes according to thesentences below.
1. What do I think my colleagues think my best strength is to be a good colleague?
I think my colleagues think my strength is …
2. What I think my colleagues think is my need for improvement to be a good colleague?
I think my colleagues think I should improve…
3. What do I think my best strength is to be a good colleague?
My best strength is …
4. What do I think I want to improve to be a good colleague?
I need to get better at ...
– All members in the group then give feedback to the person in focus to reflect the image thateach presenter has.

Frequency

Carried out at every management check-in or check-out section meeting, ideally when all are
together, without the presence of external participants. It will be continuous until all staff members
have been in focus.

Involved parties

Managers for leadership feedback and in small groups as colleague feedback.

Involvement ofsenior management

All types of management.

Outcomes/products

No products, only an exercise in courage to give and receive feedback.

Pros and cons

Pros: Openness and transparency into the management group, learning to know each other andgetting closer, as well as direct feedback on your own leadership.
Cons: Needs time for this kind of exercise.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers ofcultureProvide an opportunity to reflect and learn about your leadership and/or as a colleague in order todevelop your leadership or your role in a group. Also to get a deeper understanding of how you
affect and are perceived by the group.

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Method F4: Department-specific activities of organisational climate
Objective

To improve transparency and openness in the department.

Context of use

A workshop in sections and departments within an organisation.

Steps and activities–

After identifying a culture weakness in a department (e.g. could be identified in an external
assessment of safety culture), work within the department in several steps, such as:–Group discussion on what the weakness means. This was done in small groups andthen presented in plenum.

–

Build dilemma exercises around the identified weakness: i.e. construct a written
potential scenario/problem and give four response options that each person has todecide on. There are no correct answers, only four ways to handle the situation.

–

Each person in the group will have four colours (coloured paper) corresponding to thefour answers. At the same time, every person holds up a colour to show their answer.

–

The different colours show how the problem can be handled in different ways in theorganisation. When people with different answers are encouraged to elaborate about
their thinking, it will open up good and interesting discussion.

–

Before and after one can do a very simple activity with basic software (e.g. Kahoot is a
simple tool to measure answers to questions from a large group with their cell
phones), to see more specifically what the department thinks (how many agree withthe weakness and how many do not) in this specific question. After 1-2 years, the sameactivity can be carried out to see if things have changed.

Frequency

Every time the whole department is together and there is time for exercises.

Involved parties

All staff.

Involvement of senior
management

Managers within departments are of course included.

Outcomes/products

No specific products other than the results from the group exercises. However, since thisactivity was a part of a programme to address identified weakness within the organisation,
designated people documented it. These people were continuously documenting, informing
and introducing activities within this programme to improve safety culture within thedepartment.

Pros and cons

Pro: All can be involved to build transparency and openness; everybody involved hears thesame things. It is a very fun, team-building activity.
Cons: Difficult to find time and have the whole department available.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture

It has a potential to reach deeper layers of the culture. Since everyone in the department ishearing the same things and is able to reflect and be involved in discussions about weakness,they can all help to understand and develop improvements and a way forward.
It is a very open and transparent activity, which helps to understand and reflect on the culture
within the organisation and what can be done to change it.

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Method F5: Regulatory nuclear interface protocol
Objective

To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of working relationships between the regulator andstakeholders.

Context of use

All interactions between regulatory body and stakeholders are considered.

Steps and activities

1)

Development of a mutual framework for more effective ways of working (shared set ofvalues/behaviours).

2)

Each party gathers feedback on their own and the other party’s compliance with thedesired ways of working (including preparation of overview reports).

3)

Meetings between the regulatory body and stakeholders for strategic dialogue.

Frequency

Continually, six-monthly meetings.

Involved parties

Regulatory body and licensees.

Involvement of senior
management

The process is overseen by senior representatives from the regulatory body and from thestakeholders.

Outcomes/products

Local improvement actions, six-monthly overview reports.

Pros and cons

It is a simple system of reflecting on the “health” of regulator/licensee interactions, capturing
both good practices and areas for improvement.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture

Six-monthly overview reports provide a mechanism to ensure up-take of wider opportunities
for continuous improvement.

Additional information

English information is available by contacting the WGSC Secretariat via the NEA website:www.oecd-nea.org/wgsc.

Method F6: Discussion during periodic meetings
Objective

Promotion of self-reflection and self-assessment.
Promotion of safety culture, as well as good communication and co-ordination among adepartment’s units.

Context of use
Steps and activities

Periodic meetings of the whole staff at which aspects of safety culture are discussed.
With no special methodology.
One external workshop with a psychologist to stimulate openness and frank discussion withstaff.

Frequency

Monthly.

Involved parties

All staff.

Involvement of senior
management

Support by directors of departments who are personally involved in these discussions.

Outcomes/products

Positive feedback from participants. Involvement of inspectors. Internal communication
enhanced.

Pros and cons

The periodic meetings help to raise safety culture aspects and promote better communication
with the staff about general assumptions of safety culture.
The most important issue is to have openness and strong involvement of top management.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture

This method is rather indicated for regulatory bodies that start to develop and implement asafety culture programme.

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Method F7: Metaphor workshops• To prompt the group (e.g. organisational unit) to reflect about their own safety culture byfinding a metaphor of their way of working and the values to which group members attach
particular importance in their oversight work.

Objective• To prompt collective reflection on subcultures within the organisation.
Context of use

The method was used within the frame of an organisation-wide project on oversight culture.

Steps and activities• Instruction to each group to answer the following questions:o What are our main values/principles and goals for oversight?

o How do we perceive the licensees and our relationship to them?

o What is our image of our role in oversight?

• Select a metaphor, using free choice of the form (e.g. paintings, drawings, handicraft works,
texts, plays) and materials (e.g. coloured paper, pencils, scissors, glue, Lego bricks, cotton
wool, modelling clay). Approximately 1.5 hours to complete the work in the group;
approximately 0.5 days including discussion.
• Presentation of each group’s metaphor to the greater organisational unit; collective
discussion of commonalities and differences of subcultures within the unit.
• Possibly, further analysis and interpretation of all metaphors by a dedicated group, andderivation of conclusions for the overall organisation.
Frequency

One-time application.

Involved parties• All members of the groups (e.g. organisational unit), including leaders.
• Facilitation by project team and/or external expert.

Involvement of senior
management• Senior management support and engagement before and during the workshops is crucial;
motivation of staff to participate.
• Participation by senior management and heads of organisational units in the workshops.

Outcomes/products

Rather than in the concrete outcomes (the materialised metaphors), the value of the metaphor
workshop lies in the process of developing them within each group and in discussing them withthe greater organisational unit.

Pros and cons

• Positive reception by participants; positive atmosphere with amusing elements.
• Preservation of metaphors (e.g. as photographs) for later reuse in the organisation andcontinuation of self-reflection within groups during daily business.
• Interpretation and derivation of conclusions was challenging.
• Considerable amount of human resources needed.
• Clear communication about confidentiality issues and further use of metaphors needed
beforehand.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture• Potential to reach deeper levels of culture through reflection and discussion about values,
norms and basic assumptions.
• Depending on openness and trust existing within the groups.

Additional information

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Method F8: World Café
Objective

Context of use

Steps and activities•

Practising interdisciplinary reflection and collaboration among staff of different
organisational units and hierarchical levels.

•

Participative development and consolidation of a policy (or other) document (e.g. new
mission statement) or other product.

•

The method was used within the frame of an organisation-wide project on oversightculture.

•Iterative procedure: The World Café was performed over five workshops in total.

•

Method can be used with groups of varying size, even large groups.

•

Interdisciplinary groups of staff from different organisational units and hierarchicallevels.

•During the first workshop, small mixed groups begin discussing one excerpt of thepolicy document in question and revise the text in written form.

•

After ~45 minutes, remixing of groups so that each participant changes table and works
in the new group on a different excerpt of the document. One participant per tableremains as a ”host” and explains the results of the previous group to the newcomers.
This procedure is repeated three times (or more).

•At the end of the workshop, the project team processes and edits the outputs as an
input to the next World Café workshop with new participants.

•

Over five workshops, the policy document is finalised by the responsible project team;
it includes the iteratively formulated and consolidated inputs from all participants.

Frequency

The procedure is meant to be used once to accomplish a specific task (e.g. revision of themission statement).

Involved parties

Ideally, the entire staff to ensure inclusion of diverse viewpoints and build broad support ofthe output within the organisation.

Involvement of senior
management

Support and active involvement of senior management is paramount, especially in case ofdeveloping policy documents.

Outcomes/products

Consolidated version of the document in question (e.g. mission statement).
Improvement of overarching collaboration and mutual understanding by fostering
exchange, discussion and reflection among employees of different organisational units andhierarchical levels.

Pros and cons

Suitability to reach deeper
layers of culture•

The interdisciplinary setting helps foster overall co-operation and exchange within theorganisation, across organisational units and hierarchical levels.

•

Significant amount of human resources needed (in particular extensive work by the
project team).

Potential to reach deeper levels of culture, depending on the topic chosen, through reflection
and discussion about values, norms and basic assumptions.
Depending on openness and trust existing within the groups and the organisation.

Additional information

More information in English is available by contacting the WGSC Secretariat via the NEA
website: www.oecd-nea.org/wgsc.

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Method F9: The “Serious Game”
Objective

Start and maintain a dialogue on safety culture and collect ideas from employees about whatis necessary to improve it. Present an overview, to both management and employees, about
this reflection and increase awareness of safety culture. The ideas will be used support further
steps on this topic.

Context of use

The method was comprehensive in that it was extended to all employees via small groups.

Steps and activities

Employees were asked to pick from an array of toys and random objects that had been placedon a table. Employees were then asked to free associate the object with an aspect of safety
culture. The objects were not intended to have a particular meaning, but rather served as sortof Rorschach inkblot. The exercise was meant to be fun, like a game, but with a serious intent,
namely to generate reflections and insight about the organisation’s safety culture.
This activity was developed by newly hired employees to gain a fresh perspective within theorganisation. A prototype was tested and then the activity was repeated with the entire
organisation.

Frequency

This activity was performed once in several groups, so everybody could participate.

Involved parties

It can involve everyone in the organisation.

Involvement of senior
management

All of senior management sponsored the activity.

Outcomes/products

Increased awareness and more common understanding of safety culture through an activity
that was highly entertaining. A list with ideas for improving safety culture and theestablishment of a working group tasked with assessing these ideas and the possibilities totranslate them into practical measures.

Pros and cons

Pro: Great fun, people enjoyed doing it. Good results and practical ideas for further action.
Con: Takes time to organise and play the game (approximately half a day). Is not somethingthat can be repeated often for the same group of people.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture80

No, it is not suitable. It is meant to start the conversation but not reach a deeper/causal level.

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Method F10: Self-reflection on regulatory approaches
Objective

To identify examples (both successful and unsuccessful) of different regulatory approaches used in
the regulatory body.
To provide input for a series of workshops (within the graded approach initiative) with personnel
to reflect on the role of the regulatory body and the different regulatory approaches, their limits
and advantages. Ultimately, to identify recommendations and improvements.

Context of use

The regulatory body representative in the NEA working group initiated the analysis, and selected
the regulatory body staff responsible to analyse each topic proposed (around ten people). The work
was co-ordinated with the five other countries participating in the study; every country analysed
the same topics identified by the group.

Steps and activities

Steps:
1. Identify examples (both successful and unsuccessful) of different regulatory approaches used
for each topic defined by the NEA group.
2. Assign each topic to two people.
3. Classify examples according to the different regulatory approaches represented.
4. Analyse results: after completing the work with the NEA group, the regulatory body performs
further analysis to gain better understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of eachapproach, and to develop recommendations for their use.
5. Communication phase (seminars). Currently, results of this analysis are part of the initial trainingof new technical staff. For the future, there is the intent to use the results as an input for a series
of workshops with regulatory body personnel, which will reflect on the role of the regulatory
body and the different regulatory approaches.

Frequency

One-time method that resulted in information to be used in both initial training and in futureseminars.

Involved parties

People related with the NEA working group and those interviewed by them, in the identification
phase.

Involvement ofsenior management

Activity was led by senior management.

Outcomes/products

The regulatory body intends to use results of this review as an input for a series of workshops (within
the graded approach initiative) with regulatory body personnel, to reflect on the role of theregulatory body and the different regulatory approaches, their limits and advantages. Ultimately,
they can be used to identify recommendations and necessary improvements.

Pros and cons

Pros: The review gave senior management a better understanding on the options available to theregulator to develop its role. The results now need to be disseminate across the organisation tobuild a common understanding and improve regulatory effectiveness.
Cons: This approach consumes a very high amount of resources.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers ofcultureThis method help us to understand our role as regulator and ultimately how we can impact safety
by using different regulatory approaches. It also helps to identify areas for improvement.

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Method F11: Guidelines “Pot of Safety Culture”
Objective

To gain a deeper understanding of safety culture and act according to it.

Context of use

Safety culture brochure as an educational material for all staff.

Steps and activities

1) Project group developed first edition.
2) Distribution of brochure to all staff.
3) Further workshops and questionnaires to collect comments.

Frequency

The brochure may be revised periodically (without specific frequency).

Involved parties

Young staff members formulated content in collaboration with experienced staff members.

Involvement of senior
management

Senior officials involved from the beginning; reporting to commissioners/senior officials whenestablished/revised.

Outcomes/products

The brochure is a compilation of guidelines, tips, specific examples and tangible elements ofsafety culture.

Pros and cons

The main benefit was for those individuals who prepared the brochure or who participated in theworkshops.
It has not yet received much attention from other people. It may be necessary to include moredetailed and substantial examples or to find ways to encourage staff members to elaborate theirown thoughts of safety culture and discuss with each other using the brochure.

Method F12: Seminars with regional offices
Objective

Exchange across the different hierarchy levels of the regulatory body.
Common identification of actions for improvement.

Context of use

One-day meeting of the entire regional office staff with the department supervisors, the director
generals and two commissioners.

Steps and activities

Agreed meeting agenda including the opening speech of the Director General, presentations andpanel discussions. A summary record is issued to keep track of the discussions.

Frequency

Every two years per regional office.

Involved parties

The entire regional office staff (including administrative staff), the department supervisors (ortheir deputy), the director generals and two commissioners.

Involvement of senior
management

The senior management participates in all meetings.

Outcomes/products

Identification of an action plan on different topics.

Pros and cons

Pros are the direct connection and information flow between senior managers and operational
staff, opportunity to discuss issues that senior staff do not usually deal with, and the freedom ofspeech.
Cons are the extensive travel effort and a lack of concrete, short-term results.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture82

It helps to question, define and share a common strategy.

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Method F13: Behaviour framework
Objective

To support creation of a more open and inclusive culture.

Context of use•

Steps and activities

Publication of a behaviour framework containing expected behaviours of staff aligned to thestrategic themes of the regulator.

Whole organisation.

The behaviour framework promotes regular conversations between staff and their line
managers on the behaviours relevant to a specific context, how to achieve the behaviours inpractice and personal development needs.
Staff performance is formally rated at mid-year and end-of-year.
Frequency

Continually.

Involved parties

All staff.

Involvement of senior
management

Use and promote effective use of behaviour framework and performance management
process; lead moderation exercises; leadership by example.

Outcomes/products

One-to-one conversations on behaviour; personal development plans; coaching andmentoring.

Pros and cons

Key lessons learnt:

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture•

Need to link expected behaviours to organisational values.

•

Need for clarity and simplicity in behavioural expectations.

The behaviour framework promotes regular one-to-one conversations with staff in support ofthe organisational drive for a more open and inclusive culture.

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Category G methods: Self-Assessment (Evaluation)
Overall objectives:•

To obtain an overall picture of the SC within the organisation by:–

Assessing against existing principles/norms.

–

Comparing with previous results/other organisations.

–

Identifying areas for improvements and strengths.

Method G1: Self-assessment (SA) to measure employee motivation, satisfaction, attitudes based on total quality
management (TQM) system
Objective

To evaluate and map the actual state of the safety culture against existing principles/norms andidentify areas for improvements and strengths.

Context of use

The questionnaire is distributed to all regulatory body staff except for the top management.

Steps and activities

Four phases for this activity included:•

Preparation for the SRSA.

•

Conductance of SRSA.

•

Evaluation of the results, approval of improvements of leadership for safety and of safety
culture.

•Recording and records keeping.

Frequency

The evaluation is performed regularly in three-year period.

Involved parties

Internal staff of regulatory body (inspectors) were questioned and interviewed.
An external psychologist was contracted for updating the questionnaire and conducting
interviews. They also participated in evaluating the results.

Involvement of senior
management

Senior management members were questioned and interviewed.

Outcomes/productsThis activity provides:

Pros and cons•

A mapping of the actual status of leadership for safety and of safety culture at regulatory
body.

•

Suggested improvements of leadership for safety and of safety culture.

Pros:
The most beneficial, regarding in order to strengthen the safety culture within the regulatory
body, is the implementation of the standardised and internationally accepted management
system and its further development.
Cons:
Self-evaluation results including interviews are considered as indicative. Frequent selfassessment at the regulatory body has led to an unwillingness to self-assess and thereby todistort the results obtained.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture

84

Results, including interviews, are considered as indicative.

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Method G2: Self-assessment (SA) to measure employee motivation, satisfaction, attitudes – based on selfassessment methods described in IAEA SRS-83 Performing safety culture self-assessment
Objective

To identify various aspects of regulatory body behaviour focusing on safety culture andleadership.
The results from questionnaire will be transferred into the scoring system and evaluated.

Context of use

The scope of this activity included the regulatory body staff with primary focus on inspectors.

Steps and activities

The four phases for this activity included:•

Preparation for the SRSA.

•

Conductance of SRSA.

•

Evaluation of the results, approval of improvements of leadership for safety and of safety
culture.

•Recording and records keeping.

Frequency

This activity was intended for use as needed and thus irregularly scheduled.

Involved parties

Internal staff of the regulatory body (inspectors) were interviewed.
An external psychologist was contracted to update the questionnaire, conduct interviews andparticipate in evaluating the results.

Involvement of senior
management

Senior management members were questioned and interviewed.

Outcomes/productsThis activity provided:

Pros and cons•

a mapping of the actual status of leadership for safety and of safety culture;•suggested improvements of leadership for safety and of safety culture;•

fulfilment of international obligations.

Pros:
The most beneficial to strengthen the safety culture within the regulatory body is theimplementation of the standardised and internationally accepted management system and its
further development.
Cons:
Self-evaluation results, including interviews, are considered as indicative. Frequent selfassessment has led to an unwillingness to self-assess, which can distort the results obtained.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture

Results from interviews are considered as indicative.

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Method G3: Self-review of safety culture based on specific events
Objectives

Identify actions for improvement by reviewing events.
Increase safety culture awareness.

Context of use

An ad hoc team reviews a specific current event with respect to the regulatory body’s safety
culture.

Steps and activities

1)

The chronology of the event is traced (Who was informed when and by whom? Whatactions were undertaken by each interested party?).

2)

Each step of the chronology is evaluated by the team (e.g. Did we react in a timely andadequate manner? Did we apply a graded approach?).

3)

Drawing conclusions, lessons learnt and actions for improvement.

Frequency

Two to four reviews/year (each review consists of approximately two meetings of two hours).

Involved parties

The team is composed by the safety culture co-ordinator, and typically involves two to four
people who were directly involved in the event and one to three people who were not, buthave sufficiently broad knowledge. (Additionally, external people could be involved).

Involvement of senior
management

Outcome of the review is communicated to senior management.

Outcomes/products

Conclusions, lessons learnt and actions for improvement.

Pros and cons

The review is very flexible, and applicable at any time with little or no formalism.
The quality of the review, however, depends on the competence level of participants, as wellas on their questioning attitude.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture86

The method needs to be completed with other tools, such as observations and interviews, toreach deeper layers.

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Method G4: Safety culture matrix
Objective

Provide an overall picture of the organisational culture.
Identify maturity levels of different safety culture dimensions and sub-dimensions (rating step).
Identify drivers for change.
Foster awareness of staff.

Context of use

The self-assessment is conducted by means of workshops involving a group of seven staff members
belonging to different departments and with different functions or level of experience.

Steps and activities

A first application of the tool has been conducted over a two-month period. Operationally
speaking, each workshop session has been dedicated to assessing one or two key safety culture
dimensions. As a first step, each staff member proposes their view regarding good practices,weaknesses and opportunities for improvement, and selects a rated level (individual phase).
Then, supported by a moderator, the group challenges the different positions through questions
and enters in a debate mode (collective phase).

Frequency

The method was applied in 2016. It is scheduled to be applied again over the coming years (as of2019).

Involved parties

Mainly the assessment group and the moderator for the assessment phase; management board
and staff during the communication step.

Involvement of senior
management

The assessment results have been discussed with the management board.

Outcomes/products

Maturity models are highly flexible and could be tailored to the requirements of a specificregulatory body.

Pros and cons

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture•

In terms of “usability” – application of the model does not represent significant difficulties.

•

In terms of “relevancy” – the list of sub-dimensions could be fine-tuned to match specificregulatory issues.

•

In terms of “diagnostic capability” – the tool exposes deep-seated cultural assumptions
that impact on safety oversight practices.

•

The model can be applied to both large and small groups.

The method needs to be completed in conjunction with other tools, such as observations andinterviews, to reach deeper layers.

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Method G5: Independent assessment of safety culture (internal)
Objective

Context of use•

Illuminate all aspects of safety culture within the organisation.

•

Focus on weaknesses identified from the results of internal survey and departmentlevel inputs.

•

Find further insights and improvement areas.

First attempt for self-assessment of safety culture within the organisation. Individual andgroup interviews were conducted with approximately 10% of the staff. Interviewees wereselected considering departments, job positions, ages and gender.

Steps and activities

1) Plan the assessment and get the approval.
2) Distribute questionnaire survey to all the staff.
3) Department-level self-reflection.
4) Independent assessment by ad hoc team.
5) Develop action items and feedback.

Frequency

Every two years.

Involved parties

All staff of the organisation. Seven members, with one team leader, participated in the ad hoc
team. Additional administrative assistants were provided from the department in charge ofsafety culture.

Involvement of senior
management

Top management approved the activity plan and supported the process of assessment. In
particular, self-assessment by each department was carried out by the management’s
leadership.

Outcomes/products

An official assessment report was prepared and shared within organisation, with core insightreported to top management. The report was circulated through the intranet. Based on thereport, the department in charge of safety culture set up an implementation plan to address
the findings and seek approval of management.

Pros and cons

Pros: The assessment experience itself is a small victory as it increased safety culture
awareness among involved staff.
Cons: The resource to conduct the whole cycle of assessment is quite large. Hugeorganisational change during the assessment can hinder progress.
Possible Con: Development of survey items, self-assessment forms and interview
questionnaires, and interpretation of the answers relied on the personal expertise individual
team members.

Suitability to reach deeper
layers of culture88

It is not plausible to know whether the activity reached the deeper layer. This is revealed only
when the behaviour changed in real actions, conversations, decisions, etc. However, theassessment team members revealed their understanding on the meaning of safety culture
principles and the overall view on our safety culture in epilogue.

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Method G6: In-depth survey and follow-up focus group interviews with licensees
Objective

To understand the main causes of complaints raised by licensees.
To have licensees’ view on any good or bad practices and areas for improvement regarding
interactions with regulatory staff.
To ensure mutual understanding between licensees and regulators by sharing the results.

Context of use
Steps and activities

Survey involving staff at nuclear power plants who have contact with regulatory body staff.
1)

Detailed methods were discussed between performance departments of the regulatory
body and the licensee.

2)

Survey administration in co-operation with the licensee for three weeks.

3)

Based on survey results, focus group interviews with the licensee took place.

4)

Results were shared within the regulatory body and to the licensees.

Frequency

This activity was intended for use as needed.

Involved parties

Two internal members of the regulatory body conducted the interviews.
Employees of licensees who work closely with regulators.

Involvement of senior
management

Focus group interviews with licensees were conducted with the support of top management.

Outcomes/products

Based on the report, an ad hoc education course on inspector attitude was prepared andconducted. In general, licensee staff appreciated the activity. However, there were gaps between
the perceptions of staff the regulatory body and the licensees.

Pros and cons

Licensees’ answers were based on the motivation to make their work easier. Some regulatory
body staff expressed dissenting opinions with a number of the improvement items based on the
expectation on the regulatory body to help licensee to operate safely. Approximately 20 mandays to conduct the online survey and analysis.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture

The emergence of gaps between the perceptions of inspectors and licensees provided
opportunity to understand and reflect deeper layers.

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Method G7: Safety culture external evaluation
Objective

To have a baseline measure of the organisation’s safety culture.
To focus an independent measure on our own safety culture within the regulatory body.
To compare with previous results/other organisations.
To identify areas for improvements and strength.

Context of use

In all organisations for independent baseline or other measurement.

Steps and activities

Interviews and focus groups, document reviews of parts of the management system, survey to all
employees.
Interviews with ten people (mainly managers). Interviews/discussions in four focus groups (twoconsisting of section supervisors, two consisting of staff), in total 26 people.
Observations at an all-managers meeting – workshop on the five principles.
Questionnaire sent to all employees at the regulatory body (response rate 65%).
Analysis of some regulatory documents and related material.

Frequency

Every third year.

Involved parties

All employees in the organisation, including management.

Involvement of senior
management

Senior management should lead and support this work. The outcome should be presented bysenior management, who should also point out actions put forward to address findings thatneeds to be improved.

Outcomes/products

Final report with recommendations, seminar on the results and DG communicated the three mostimportant recommendations for improvement, reflecting variations in the climate within theorganisation (e.g. openness and the possibility to raise issues; weaknesses in the management
system; variations in understanding of the concept of safety culture and what it means for the
regulatory body). Several activities done concerning one of the most important issues. Senior
management has work with external consultants in this matter.

Pros and cons

Pros: The result led to several other activities and actions. All employees in the organisation areable to answer questions and raise awareness of weaknesses in the organisation and in theleadership. Management will get a picture about weaknesses in the organisation and in theleadership that need to be improved. It is easy to manage using an external company and aquestionnaire.
Cons: It is hard to get a 100% response rate. The interviews may be time-consuming.

90

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture

The outcome is only information. Then it is up to the organisation decide what to do with theoutcome and how to proceed with actions related to strengths and weaknesses.

Additional information

Have led to local initiatives for self-reflection.

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Method G8: Staff survey
Objective

To provide staff with the opportunity to express their views on the regulator and its future.
To find out about the performance of the organisation.
To assess the ability to retain and develop staff, resources and capabilities.

Context of use

The whole organisation was invited to participate.

Steps and activities

The regulator has undertaken full staff surveys in 2013, 2016, 2017 and 2018. The survey uses
an anonymous, standardised approach and is administered through a third party. Comparison
companies include over 80 public sector organisations. The survey themes are: managing
change; systems tools and resources; communication and voice; views of the regulator and its
culture; leadership, performance and accountability; learning and development; working forthe regulator; your manager; and health, safety and wellbeing.

Concrete activities,
steps/phases fromplanning to analysis andaction plan

Examples of specific statements in the survey relevant to safety culture are:•“I am committed to helping the regulator achieve its goals”.

•“I understand the standards of behaviour expected of me”.

•

“I feel able to approach my Career and Development Manager regarding any concerns”.

•“The work of the regulator impacts positively on public safety”.

•“I know how to report accidents and incidents within the regulator”.

•“I am satisfied that my personal safety is treated seriously at work”.

•“The regulator effectively captures and retains the knowledge of staff that leave theorganisation”.

•“I think the regulator is doing a good job of retaining its most talented people”.

•“The management manage change well”.

•“I feel comfortable expressing views that contrast with the management team”.

•“The integrity and independence of the regulator has improved over the past 12 months”.

Frequency

Every one to two years.

Involved parties

Administered and supported by third-party organisations.

Involvement of senior
management

Promoted use of survey and addressed findings.

Outcomes/products

The regulator has developed local and organisation-wide action plans in response to thefindings of staff surveys. The most recent action plan shows what work has been completed todate, and what’s left to do before the next survey. The Executive Management Team agreed onfour key themes: feeling valued; leadership and management; behaviours; and managing
change. These are areas of focus for improvement.

Pros and cons

Key lessons learnt:

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture•

Timely analysis and follow-up of survey findings.

•

Frequent communication.

•

Use of measures to increase staff confidence in how the survey is conducted andfollowed up.

•

Open and transparent publication of survey findings and progress in implementing
improvement actions.

The regulator followed up the staff survey with focus groups to understand the reasons behind
the answers to the survey, analyse themes and propose improvement actions.

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Method G9: External stakeholder survey
Objective

To better understand how we are regarded by those we work with.

Context of use

Stakeholder survey across a wide range of stakeholders such as licensees, duty holders,
government, academics, international regulators and interested parties.

Steps and activities

1) Survey.
2) In-depth interviews with a sample of respondents.
3) Analysis and conclusions.

Frequency

Annually.

Involved parties

Administration and support by third-party organisation.

Involvement of senior
management

Management promoted use of survey and addressed findings.

Outcomes/products

Refinement of communications to stakeholders, among others.

Pros and cons

Survey provides direct view of stakeholders on the regulatory body’s performance in regulating
the nuclear industry.
Senior management commitment to follow up on the findings in a timely manner is key.

92

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture

The in-depth interviews with a sample of stakeholders help explore the factors underlying thesurvey responses.

Additional information

More information (in English) is available by contacting the CNRA-WGSC Secretariat via the NEA
website: www.oecd-nea.org/wgsc.

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Method G10: Regulatory assurance activities
Objective

To provide assurance of the adequacy and effectiveness of the regulator’s risk management,
control and governance processes.

Context of use

Whole organisation.

Steps and activities

Tiered system of assurance:•

Tier 1: Regulatory oversight including observation of inspections carried out by inspectors.

•

Tier 2: Risk-informed compliance assessments and strategic reviews including assessmentof topics such as enforcement management, internal capability and capacity, knowledge
management etc.

•

Tier 3: Government internal audit agency delivers priority, independent internal audits.

Frequency

Continually.

Involved parties

Assurance teams (internal and external).

Involvement of senior
management

The system of assurance is overseen by the Board and other senior committees.

Outcomes/products

Individual assurance reports, annual report, good practices, etc.

Pros and cons

Key lessons learnt:

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture•

Use of a tiered system of assurance.

•

Use of competent resource to support assurance activities.

•

Introduction of the Regulatory Oversight Manager (Tier 1 assurance).

•

Publication of assurance reports.

The method provides in-depth assessment against relevant good practice.

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Method G11: Self-Assessment of safety culture using a questionnaire
Objective

To assess the current level of the organisational safety culture, thereby discovering weaknesses
and potential areas for development.
To evaluate and compare with the results of the subsequent self-assessments.

Context of use

This group was heterogeneous with representatives from major organisational units, because
everyone can interpret the questions and answers differently.
The questionnaire was distributed electronically to all staff including management and high-level
management.

Steps and activities

1. The head of the organisation established a five-member project group of that
accompanied and organised the entire self-assessment process.
2. The questionnaire was distributed electronically.
3. Participation in the questionnaire was anonymous.
4. Collection, assessment and evaluation of the results by an evaluation group, which had aheterogeneous composition.
5. An evaluation based on the survey results was performed. The group elaborated results ina report and submitted a summary to management.
6. A discussion among management was held concerning the results and development/
explanation of the action plan to improve the safety culture inside the organisation.

Frequency

The authority applied a similar process of self-assessment of safety culture in the organisation in1997 and 2000. The most recent self-assessment process was conducted in 2018.

Involved parties

All the staff of the organisation participated. The project group consisted five members fromseveral parts of the organisation.

Involvement of senior
management

Senior management was involved with the following activities:

Outcomes/products•

Taking up the need for further development of the safety culture.

•

Making available resources to conduct the self-assessment process.

•

The Deputy Director general discussed the results and decisions on the action plan.

•

The Director General approved the action plan.

Using the questionnaire, the outcomes were:

Pros and cons•

The questionnaire should be updated with more relevant questions.

•

The self-assessment should be conducted more often.

•

The employees will be more familiar if the questionnaire were conducted more frequently;
in turn, the answers would be more comprehensive and honest.

Pros:
•

The participants gave their opinion honestly in comments.

Cons:

94

•

The process should involve more members of the organisation.

•

The assessments are conducted infrequently.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture

This method was definitely suitable for communicating the importance of safety culture, and of
the contributions of employees.

Additional information

Promoting participation in the assessment can result in development of safety culture.

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Method G12: Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS)
Objective

The FEVS serves as:•

A tool for employees to share their perceptions of whether, and to what extent,
conditions characterising successful organisations are present in their agencies (allowing
managers to see where improvements within work units are necessary).

•

A way to provide valuable insight into the challenges that the agency’s leaders face inensuring that the federal government has an effective civilian workforce.

Context of use

The entire organisation is invited to participate.

Frequency

Annually.

Involved parties

The FEVS is administered electronically by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to all
federal agencies and departments. The OPM is a separate government agency than theregulatory body.

Involvement of senior
management

All staff, including senior managers, are asked to participate in the survey. The Office of the
Chief Human Capital Officer, in co-ordination with the Office of the Executive Director forOperations, handles the agency-wide dissemination of FEVS results.

Outcomes/products

Each year, the offices and regions use the new FEVS data to refine and recalibrate their actionplans to ensure that action items reflect necessary changes or improvements. In addition, theregulatory body creates several action items from an agency perspective, which apply to all
staff members.

Pros and cons

Offices are able to use this information to examine what areas were most impactful to them, inparticular by looking at the survey feedback on a more granular level and identifying actionplans that would be most relevant to their local organisation.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture

Because of the breadth and depths of both the safety culture climate survey (SCCS) and the
FEVS, the regulatory body is able to build an extensive database of perceptions and behaviours
that indicate the health of safety culture.

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Method G13: Safety culture climate survey (SCCS)
Objective

To measure safety culture and climate to identify areas of strength and opportunities for
improvement.
To compare results of the SCCS against survey results reported previously.
To provide, where practical, benchmarks for the findings against other similar organisations andhigh-performing companies.
To understand key drivers to engagement.
In response to the SCCS results, the staff develops and implements action plans to improve safety
culture within the organisation.

Context of use

The safety culture climate survey is administered electronically to the entire organisation andcompleted on a voluntary basis.

Steps and activities

The most recent SCCS included 132 questions grouped into different categories such as job
satisfaction, empowerment, leadership and communication. This SCCS also included a category
to support the agency’s desire to better understand and support improvements in its
environment for raising concerns – a key component of safety culture. This category included
questions related to elevating issues up the chain of command and communication of concernsand differing views, perceptions about expressing differing views, and processes for raisingdiffering views.

Frequency

The SCCS is administered every three years. As such, the offices/regions are expected to create
new action plans every three years, identifying action items from the SCCS to focus on during thesubsequent three-year period.

Involved parties

Questionnaires and surveys: The SCCS is administered by an independent and objective unit withexpertise in the field. This ensures that the methodology used is valid and objective in relation to
three aims: to conduct and supervise audits; to conduct investigations relating to the agency’s
programmes and operations to prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement;
and to promote efficiency and effectiveness in the agency’s programmes and operations.

Involvement of senior
management

Surveys are heavily supported and encouraged throughout the agency and at all organisational
levels. Each office/region has an assigned Culture Champion (typically a senior manager) as well
as a Culture Analyst (supports the Culture Champion). The Culture Champions are high-level
office managers who have been identified to lead results-driven actions in their respective offices.
The Culture Analysts are staff members responsible for analysing the survey data and supporting
office actions.

Outcomes/products

The agency uses the SCCS results to develop action plans. Each department or office creates anaction plan that identifies two to three action items that will help to improve or sustain a positive
work environment. In addition, the agency creates several action items from an agency
perspective that apply to all staff members. These are reassessed yearly led by senior staff.

Pros and cons

The survey methods were the most beneficial as they provided employees with opportunity toshare confidential feedback on safety culture-related areas. Furthermore, offices are able to use
this information to examine what areas were most impactful to them, by looking at the survey
feedback on a more granular level and identifying action plans that would be most relevant totheir local organisation.
The SCCS is conducted every three years and complements the Federal Employee Viewpoint
Survey (FEVS), which is conducted every year across all federal government agencies. This
dynamic process produces a constant feed and refresh of data that the staff incorporate into
agency and office action plans. Keeping this a seamless process to ensure that momentum andprogress on action items are not lost can be challenging. In addition, responding to these surveys
and developing continuously revised action plans can be resource-intensive. Still, It is important
to do so that staff can see survey results to build engagement, morale and trust.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture

96

Because of the breadth and depth of the SCCS and FEVS surveys, the department or agency canbuild an extensive database of perceptions and behaviours that indicate the health of safety
culture. Further, the surveys allow the department or agency to see changes over time and react
appropriately to downward trends.

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Method G14: Assessment of systems, programmes and processes: assessment of non-concurrence process anddiffering professional opinion programme
Objective

To assess and optimise existing programmes and processes.
To identify areas for improvements and strength.

Context of use
Steps and activities

Studies investigating potential improvements of the regulatory body processes, e.g. process
on raising concerns.
1)

Employee surveys.

2)

Further detailed information through interviews and targeted surveys.

3)

Analysis of results and identification of improvement recommendations for senior
management.

4)

Decisions on and initiation of improvement actions.

Frequency

Overall assessment of processes approximately every three years.

Involved parties

Special working group responsible for the projects; involvement of staff, including management,in the assessments.

Involvement of senior
management

Support and recognition by management for the assessments; further study was a directivefrom senior management.

Outcomes/products

Outcomes for the raising concerns programme include:
1)

Revisions of the management directives.

2)

Set of recommendations for fostering a climate of trust; strengthening the positiveenvironment for raising concerns; promoting a culture of fairness, empowerment, andrespect; and establishing clear expectations and accountability for managers.

3)

Concrete improvement action, such as a campaign to increase awareness for the raisingconcerns process and to affirm management commitment.

Pros and cons

Responding to the surveys and interviews is voluntary, potentially limiting the data.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture

Combination of methods allows reaching different levels.

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Method G15: Safety culture self-assessment
Objective

To gain information concerning the status of safety culture within the organisation.
To increase overall awareness and understanding of safety culture within the organisation.
To provide valuable input for various improvement actions (e.g. revision of safety culture
programme).

Context of use

Self-assessments require a core team responsible for conducting and steering the safetyassessment activities. They also involve various individuals and groups from different parts of
the regulatory body.

Steps and activities

After initial planning, a core team responsible for the self-assessment is appointed. The
planning encompasses:•

Data capturing.

•

Data analysis.

•

Communication of results.

The planning results in an action plan with defined steps, methods, responsibilities and timeframes.
The self-assessment process takes total of 2-4 months, depending of the scope and chosen
methods.
Frequency

The frequency of self-assessments is based on the safety culture programme and the planned
cycle of different assessment methods. Also, the need to initiate a new self-assessment may
arise (e.g. from real-life events taking place in the regulatory body).

Involved parties

Safety culture self-assessments require internal resources as the work is carried out internally.
The amount of resources is determined by, for example, the scope and the selected methodsof the assessment.

Involvement of senior
management

The initiation of self-assessment, allocation of adequate resources, and importance of safety
culture and safety culture self-assessment must be highlighted by senior management.

Outcomes/products

Previous self-assessments of the regulatory body’s safety culture have provided detailed
information regarding its status in different parts of the organisation. This information is avaluable asset when revising development activities and programmes.

Pros and cons

Pro:•

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture98

Self-assessments are effective in evaluating the status of safety culture in the regulatory
body.

When properly conducted, self-assessment is an effective method for attempting to reach the
deeper layers of safety culture as it promotes genuine self-reflection and evaluation ofunderlying cultural factors.

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Method G16: In-house questionnaire on safety culture
Objective

To determine the status of 1 ) individual awareness; 2) current activities on safety culture; and
3) institutional awareness.
To identify areas for improvement and consider specific activities.

Context of use

The questionnaire was distributed via the intranet to all the staff; participation was encouraged
but on a voluntary basis. Over 70% of >1 000 staff members responded.
This method is based on lessons learnt from the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
power plant.

Steps and activities

Approximately 70 questions, referencing the traits in IAEA GS-G-3.5, covered each of the eightaction items in the Statement of Nuclear Safety Culture. The questions were designed to target
specific perspectives in two areas:•

Questions using “you” as the subject, meaning centred on each individual staff member).

•

Questions using “the division you belong to” as the subject, meaning each division,
focusing on the state of the organisation.

Responses were aggregated and analysed. Additionally, response rates were comparedaccording to the grade (level in the organisation) and experience of the staff.
Through analysis of responses and correlation among questions, the issues of interest
identified were strongly associated and correlated with the levels of understanding, as were
the actions taken to implement two statements: one on nuclear safety culture, and the other, acode of conduct on nuclear security culture.
Frequency

Conducted annually.

Involved parties

Relevant divisions and offices in the regulatory body, including the Management System Office,were involved in this activity.
The questions were reviewed in collaboration with the Safety Research Department at thedesign phase.
A consulting firm was contracted to gain the viewpoint of a third party on the survey and totally its analysis.

Involvement of senior
management

A report on this questionnaire on safety culture, prepared by the Management System Office,is submitted to commissioners/senior officials. It is also posted on the intranet to share
information with every staff member.

Outcomes/products

The questionnaire survey functioned as a first step of a reflection activity to understand andbegin monitoring the general status of safety culture in the regulatory body.
The consulting firm analysed the data from the viewpoint of a third party and gave theregulatory body advice and recommendations on how to further promote safety culture.
The regulatory body plans to refine survey items and interview each staff member andinstitution as a more intensive, in-depth approach.

Pros and cons

Pros: These results aided in the understanding of:•

Attitudes of average staff members.

•

The strengths and weakness regarding how well and how thoroughly desired safety
culture behaviours have permeated the regulatory body.

•

How the safety culture slightly differs according to the division, position, job categories,
length of career and age of staff members in the regulatory body.

Cons: Generally, the responses have not changed very much over the past three times thequestionnaire was administered. Thus, at this periodicity, no new insights were gained fromeach set of responses.
Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture

It is not suitable as the survey does not necessarily help comprehend underlying factors at
deeper layers that determine the status of safety culture articulated in the survey.

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Method G17: Safety culture assessment
Objective

To evaluate the actual state of safety culture against principles and attributes set in the NEA
Green Booklet (NEA, 2016) and to identify the factors that contribute to or compromise its
robustness.

Context of use

The main approach used during the safety culture self-assessment was a questionnairedeveloped to collect responses from staff of the technical support organisation.
The method was used to randomly select 60 participants — in an organisation with 350 people– to take part in the assessment.

Steps and activities

A number of tasks was undertaken within this activity:
A. Justify the need to perform self-reflection and self-assessment (SA) of safety culture.
B. Analyse the current environment and conduct extensive research into SC elements.
C. Develop the assessment tool and questionnaire.
D. Conduct the safety culture self-assessment.
E. Finalise results and develop recommendations.

Frequency

It is the first time this method has been used in the organisation.

Involved parties

In total, approximately 65 people participated in the method. Five were in charge of developing
this method, organising and conducting the self-assessment, and reporting on the outcomes.
So far, 60 people have taken part.

Involvement of senior
management

The heads of the organisation took part in SCSA, thereby ensuring the leadership role andcommunicating to participants the importance of this work, its expected results, code of
conduct, etc.

Outcomes/products

A broad range of recommendations emerged, with proposed action focused on six areas:
1. Devise and better articulate a safety culture strategy.
2. Develop a set of lectures on safety culture management.
3. Improve communication within the organisation.
4. Improve internal control systems and reporting mechanisms on possible risks related towork.
5. Propose better use of resources, depending on the safety significance.
6. Develop a plan on safety culture self-assessment in the regulatory body.

Pros and cons

100

Pros: The activity was valuable in that it:•

Accurately reflected the current status of safety culture in the organisation.

•

Provided comprehensive insight into safety culture elements and allowed to comparethem with the current environment.

•

Increased staff awareness of safety culture-related issues.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers of culture

This method could partially access deep layers of safety culture but can also demonstrate theweaknesses of elements that constitute safety culture. Interpretation of the outcomes could
partially touch deep layers.

Additional information

The safety culture questionnaire should be accompanied with a glossary, a list of acronyms or
any other relevant information that could help respondents to understand the terms andquestions.

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CATALOGUE OF METHODS FOR SELF-REFLECTION AND SELF-ASSESSMENT

Method G18: Regulatory Safety Culture Self-Assessment (RSC-SA)
Objective

To improve the regulatory body’s awareness and understanding of safety culture and associatedexpectations.

Context of use

Includes a representative sample from the entire regulatory body.

Steps and activities

Frequency
Involved parties

A. Preplanning phase of the assessment, followed by information gathering and normative
framework discussions via the Regulatory Safety Culture Working Group (RSC-WG).
B. Data gathering of plans and priorities in workplace governance.
C. Descriptive then normative analysis of documentation, surveys, town hall reports, an RSC survey,
and focus groups producing collaborative and iterative interpretations of the data.
D. Assessment report drafted by the assessment team in consultation with independent experts.
E. Management action plan collaboratively developed based on the RSC assessment final report.
F. Presentation to Management Committee and the Commission to obtain approvals and buy-inof methods, approach and improvement measures.
Every three to five years.
• Staff and managers during the data gathering.
• RSC-WG is responsible for execution and project management.
• RSC management oversight group, including a few senior and middle managers, to provide
oversight of the assessment.
• External safety culture expert and an external organisational development consultant
contracted to provide feedback and independent perspective on the assessment, to prepare
final report and actions, and to present to the Commission.
• Commission members via a public meeting format (with open access via webcast) anddocuments made available online.

Involvement ofsenior management

Senior management provided oversight throughout the assessment. The president shared theassessment report with all staff; it was then discussed openly through a manager’s forum, at a
subsequent safety culture town hall meeting, and at team meetings.

Outcomes/products• Final report including corporate strengths, opportunities for improvement andrecommendations.
• A management action plan to document, address and track the completion of resulting
actions.

Pros and cons

Pros:
• Used existing data from surveys, town halls and working groups.
• Third-party expert oversight provided additional robustness.
• Reduced burden on staff (e.g. sampling) and management (e.g. consulted only to address
remaining gaps).
• RSC-WG execution of the assessment improved the regulatory body’s understanding of safety
culture and associated expectations.
• The final report and management action plan were shared with all staff.
Cons:• Did not use interviews for data collection during the first self-assessment.
• Use of dated information may weaken the validity of the data sample.
• Potential for reduced openness during focus group sessions conducted by colleagues.

Suitability to reachdeeper layers ofculture• Using a range of complementary data collection methods allowed a focus on perceptions andgroup dialogue (e.g. focus groups, questionnaires) while balancing these with more typicalartefact-level methods (e.g. analysis of reports, processes and procedures).
• Integrating considerations for deeper levels of culture was deemed to be implicit throughout
each stage of the assessment, and explicit in the principles outlined in the final report. The
assessment should be completed according to the organisation’s readiness level: the mannerin which it is conducted should be commensurate with the organisation’s level ofunderstanding of RSC and the resources available. The resultant findings andrecommendations must resonate with staff and management to produce the requiredchanges.
• Every subsequent RSC-SA will provide opportunities to reflect on deeper layers of safety
culture and greater awareness of RSC through lessons learnt, supporting activities andexperiences.

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CATALOGUE OF METHODS FOR SELF-REFLECTION AND SELF-ASSESSMENT

Method G19: Multi-method self-assessment
Objective

To gain understanding of the status of the regulator's safety culture and valuable input forvarious improvement actions.

Context of use

Various activities within the regulatory body are used to gather information such as
interviews, panel discussions, observation, questionnaires, topical workshops anddocument analyses.

Steps and activities

1) A core team plans data capturing, data analysis and communication of results,
leading to an action plan with defined steps, methods, responsibilities and timeframes.
2) Data capturing by using various methods.
3) Data analysis and identification of key findings and areas for improvement actions.
4) Writing of final report.
5) Communicating and discussing results and development needs (e.g. meetings,
discussion groups, workshops, training).
6) Development of action plan(s).
7) Safety culture training before, during and after the process.

Frequency

Frequency of self-assessment is based on the safety culture programme. Additional needcan be triggered by specific events in the regulatory body. Self-assessment takes two tofour months depending on chosen assessment methods.

Involved parties

The internal core team, various individuals and groups from different parts of theregulatory body, and safety culture experts.

Involvement of senior
management

Initiation of self-assessment, allocation of adequate resources, communication ofimportance of safety culture and safety culture self-assessment, participation in workshops
and discussion groups: such engagement highlights the importance of improvement
actions based on the self-assessment results.

Outcomes/products

Detailed information regarding the status of safety culture in different parts of theorganisation.
Input for revising the development activities and programmes.

Pros and cons

Self-assessments are effective in evaluating the status of safety culture. The process
involves and activates most of the staff. Use of independent assessments is similarly
beneficial as the approaches (self-assessment and independent assessment) and theirresults (with pros and cons) complement one another.
Use of multiple methods requires a good understanding of each. The multi-method
assessment is demanding and time-consuming for safety culture experts and members of
the core team.

Suitability to reach deeper
layers of culture

102

When properly conducted, self-assessment is an effective method for attempting to reachthe deeper layers of safety culture as it promotes genuine self-reflection and evaluation ofunderlying cultural factors.

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Methods for Assessing

and Strengthening the Safety Cultureof the Regulatory Body
It is essential that organisations in the nuclear community maintain a healthy safety culture to achievecommon goals regarding the safe operation of nuclear facilities and the safe use of nuclear material.
Regulatory bodies are no exception, as a key element of the interconnected system which includes
licensees, research institutions, technical support organisations, as well as governmental organisations
and other stakeholders. By their very nature, regulatory bodies deeply influence the safety culture andthe safety of the organisations they regulate and oversee. Based on their regulatory strategy, the way
they carry out their daily oversight work, the type of relationship they cultivate with licensees, the values
they convey and the importance they give to safety, regulatory bodies profoundly impact the licensees’
safety culture, their sense of responsibility for safety and, by extension, the safety of their installations.
Regulatory bodies apply a number of methods, practices and approaches to foster and sustain a healthysafety culture. This report provides an overview and practical examples to build the regulatory bodies’
safety culture competence and to perform self-reflection and self-assessment with regard to their own
safety culture and its impact on the safety culture of the organisations they oversee. Drawing directlyfrom the experiences from OECD Nuclear Energy Agency member countries, the report discusses effective
methods to disseminate safety culture throughout the regulatory body, to build competence in safety
culture, and to develop self-reflection and self-assessment activities. Finally, the report presents ten
conclusions based on lessons learnt and best practices to inspire managers to continuously develop theirregulatory body’s safety culture.

Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)
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92100 Boulogne-Billancourt, France
Tel.: +33 (0)1 73 21 28 19
nea@oecd-nea.org www.oecd-nea.org

NEA No. 7535