DEVELOPING COMMON SAFETY CULTURE PRINCIPLES/CHARACTERISTICS/TRAITS 

Breakout Topic 2: 

During this breakout session, panelists and breakout session participants will begin to develop a 

common set of safety culture principles/characteristics/traits (traits) that describe a positive 

safety focus across the broad range of licensees/certificate holders. These traits should 

describe patterns of thinking/feeling and behaving that appropriately emphasize safety, 

particularly in “goal conflict” situations (e.g., production vs. safety, schedule vs. safety, and cost 

of the effort vs. safety). Traits should be kept at a sufficiently high level of detail to ensure that 

they apply across the range of licenses/certificate holders and the myriad types of relationships 

[single person licensees, horizontal relationships (i.e., peer to peer, etc.) and vertical 

relationships (employee to management, management to contractor, etc)] that exist among 

persons and groups engaged in nuclear safety-related activities. 

Desired outcome: A draft set of traits from each breakout group for the panelist(s) from the group to 

present and discuss at the next plenary session. 

The following traits are provided as examples: 

NRC’s Characteristics (i.e., traits): 

• Personnel demonstrate ownership for nuclear safety and security in their day-to-day 

activities. 

• Processes for planning and controlling work ensure that individual contributors, 

supervisors, and work groups communicate, coordinate, and execute their work in a 

manner that supports safety and security. 

• The organization maintains a safety conscious work environment in which personnel feel 

free to raise safety and security concerns without fear of retaliation. 

• The organization ensures that issues potentially impacting safety or security are promptly 

identified, fully evaluated, and promptly addressed and corrected commensurate with 

their significance. 

• The organization ensures that the personnel, equipment, tools, procedures, and other 

resources needed to ensure safety and security are available. 

• The organization’s decisions ensure that safety and security are maintained. 

• Roles, responsibilities, and authorities for safety and security are clearly defined and 

reinforced. 

• The organization maintains a continuous learning environment in which opportunities to 

improve safety and security are sought out and implemented. 

INPO’s Principles (i.e., traits): 

• Everyone is personally responsible for nuclear safety. 

• Leaders demonstrate commitment to safety. 

• Trust permeates the organization. 

• Decision-making reflects safety first. 

• Nuclear technology is recognized as special and unique. 

• A questioning attitude is cultivated. 

• Organizational learning is embraced. 

• Nuclear safety undergoes constant examination. 
IAEA’s Attributes (i.e., traits): 

• Safety is a clearly recognized value. 

• Leadership for safety is clear. 

• Accountability for safety is clear. 

• Safety is integrated into all activities. 

• Safety is learning driven. 

The following questions are intended to stimulate thought and discussion for generating a 

common set of safety culture principles/characteristics/traits. (Participants are not expected to 

provide specific answers to these questions.) 

Î How would you revise the traits that the NRC and INPO believe are present in a positive safety 

culture? 

Î Which of the traits listed above, do you feel do NOT contribute to a positive safety culture and 

should therefore not be included? 

Î As you develop a list of the traits that you believe are present in a positive safety culture, how 

would you tailor that list to be broad enough to cover the broad range of licensees/certificate 

holders, while specifically addressing the traits that you believe are important to your particular type 

of work? 

Î Particularly for licensees composed of one person or very small entities (vs. larger 

organizations), how would you tailor the list of traits to apply to your smaller composition? 

Breakout Topic 2 (continued, as needed): 

During this breakout session, panelists and breakout session participants will continue to 

develop a common set of traits that describe a positive safety focus across the broad range of 

licensees/certificate holders. As before, traits should be kept at a sufficiently high level of detail 

to ensure that they apply across the range of licenses/certificate holders/etc. and the myriad 

types of relationships [single person licensees, horizontal relationships (i.e., peer to peer, etc.) 

and vertical relationships (employee to management, management to contractor, etc.)] that exist 

among persons and groups engaged in nuclear safety-related activities. 

Breakout Session A produced three (or more) draft lists that the panel members from each breakout 

session presented and discussed during the plenary session. The information for you to consider 

during this breakout session is based on the panel members’ efforts to compare, contrast, and 

combine the draft lists of traits. 

Desired outcome: Alignment on a list of traits or a clear statement regarding the aspects of the draft 

list on which alignment cannot be attained at this time. 

The following questions are intended to stimulate additional discussion on the draft list of traits. 

Î What should be removed or added to the draft list of traits? 

Î How easily could you apply the draft list of trait to your type of work?