Page 168 - CW E-Magazine (10-6-2025)

Special Report

Living Indicators: The next frontier in safety culture

ABSTRACT behind safety is uncomfortable – it SHAIK A KHADAR VALI
n high-risk industries such as exposes cultural blind spots, behavioural Vice President – Safety & Occupa-
chemicals, safety must evolve from risks, and systemic weaknesses. But tional Health
Iprocedural compliance to a deeply without this honesty, we cannot grow. CFI Global Business
embedded organizational ethos. This In the chemical industry, where risk is Aditya Birla Group
paper introduces the concept of Living inherent and consequences are unfor- Email: shaika.vali@adityabirla.com
Indicators – real-time emotional and giving, safety cannot remain a checklist
behavioural cues that reveal the au- or a slogan. It must evolve into a lived, EMILY ELROD
thentic state of an organisation’s safety breathing practice. CEO, Workzbe
culture. Distinct from traditional lag- Email: emily@workzbe.com
ging and leading indicators, Living Traditionally, we’ve managed safety
Indicators capture subtle, often unspo- through lagging indicators (post-incident is already weakened. Living Indicators
ken signals: a moment’s hesitation to metrics) and leading indicators expose these gaps – not to shame, but
voice a concern, a quiet instinct to verify (preventive measures). While these are to heal.
a procedure, or the silence that follows essential, they often miss the human
hierarchical pressure. These micro- dimension. What they don’t capture is the What are Living Indicators?
signals refl ect the psychological safety, silent hesitation before speaking up, the Living Indicators are the invisible
trust, and relational dynamics within decision to cut corners under pressure, signals embedded in our day-to-day
teams. Grounded in neuroscience, this or the uncertainty a worker feels when behaviours and interactions. They include
paper explores how brain chemistry left unsupported. To bridge this gap, we moments such as an operator double-
infl uences safety behaviour – where fear must introduce and embrace what we checking a lockout tag not because it’s
responses inhibit communication and call Living Indicators – the real-time, written in the SOP, but because some-
initiative, while trust adopts proactive, emotional and behavioural cues that thing felt off. Or a young engineer
engaged participation. The work urges refl ect the health of our safety culture. choosing not to ask a question during a
a paradigm shift from mechanistic pre-job brief because they fear looking
audits toward human-centred diagnostics, What metrics don’t show inexperienced. These are subtle signals –
emphasizing the need for leaders to Metrics are important – they pro- but profound. They reveal where the
become aware of their own Leadership vide structure, trends, and account- culture stands in terms of empower-
Brainprint – the emotional legacy they ability. But they often fail to capture ment, trust, and psychological safety.
imprint on teams through everyday the nuances of human experience. For Living Indicators emerge in hallway
interactions. Leveraging tools such as example, a monthly report may refl ect conversations, in toolbox talks, during
behavioural mapping, narrative analysis, zero incidents, but what it doesn’t show shift handovers, or when a fi eld tech-
and immersive frontline engagement, is that a near miss went unreported nician decides whether to voice a con-
Living Indicators provide a powerful because someone feared blame. It won’t cern. They are dynamic and context-
new lens to assess and shape safety tell you that a contractor felt rushed dur- specifi c. They tell us if safety is truly
culture in real time. They function as ing shutdown maintenance and didn’t internalized or just superfi cially fol-
early warning signals and cultural diag- fully check the permit. These invisi- lowed. These indicators don’t replace
nostics in today’s fast-paced industrial ble moments are where culture lives. traditional metrics; they elevate them
environments, enabling organisations Lagging indicators tell us what went by adding human context.
to detect drift before it leads to failure. wrong after the fact. Leading indicators
show us what systems we’re putting The neuroscience connection
Living Indicators: The next frontier in place. But neither gives insight into Neuroscience helps us understand
in safety culture the mindset of our people in real time – why Living Indicators matter. Our
Safety isn’t a sugar-coated message – their confi dence, doubts, trust levels, brains are wired to detect threats. When
it’s meant to touch minds and hearts. or perceived freedom to act. Safety people feel psychologically unsafe –
It’s not designed to make people com- exists in these grey areas. A system may unsure whether it’s okay to speak up
fortable; it’s meant to awaken respon- appear robust on paper, but if a person or whether mistakes will be punished –
sibility and resilience. Often, the truth feels hesitant to stop a job, the system the amygdala takes over. It triggers

168 Chemical Weekly June 10, 2025

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