What is the difference between Safety 1 and Safety 2?

Essentially Safety 1 and Safety 2 are two different approaches to managing safety in the workplace. Here’s a simple breakdown of the key differences between Safety 1 and Safety 2:

Safety 1:

• Focuses on preventing accidents and incidents by identifying and eliminating hazards.
• Emphasizes compliance with safety regulations and procedures.
• Relies heavily on rules, protocols, and control measures to ensure safety.
• Reactive in nature, with a primary goal of reducing the frequency and severity of accidents.
• Typically top-down in implementation, with management driving safety initiatives.
• Places responsibility for safety mainly on safety professionals and management.
• Views humans as a potential source of error and aims to minimize their involvement in safety-critical tasks.

Safety 2:

• Shifts the focus from preventing failures to understanding how work is actually done.
• Recognizes that people are a valuable resource in identifying and managing safety.
• Encourages learning from successful outcomes and everyday work practices.
• Emphasizes adaptability, resilience, and the ability to respond effectively to unexpected situations.
• Promotes a “just culture” that encourages open reporting of errors and near-misses without fear of punishment.
• Encourages collaboration, active involvement, and shared responsibility for safety across all levels of the organization.
• Recognizes that safety is not just the absence of accidents but also the presence of positive outcomes.

The key distinction between Safety 1 and Safety 2 lies in their underlying philosophies and approaches to safety management. While Safety 1 focuses on compliance and hazard elimination, Safety 2 emphasizes learning, adaptability, and the active involvement of all employees in ensuring a safe work environment. Both approaches have their merits and may be suitable depending on the organization and its specific safety needs.

The Engage health and safety application sits somewhere between the two philosophies. We focus on the end worker providing a pragmatic approach to ensure they get what they need to do their role safely and to ensure health and safety is seen not as a “necessary evil” but as a positive that actively helps with a persons day to day work.

Fo more information about the Engage application and how it could work for your business, contact us here…