Safety culture for us at Carelli
According to the Swedish Work Environment Authority, safety culture is defined as the shared attitudes, values and
perceptions that all employees have about the relationship to safety and the work environment. The safety culture
has a major impact on how people work. The characteristics of a good safety culture in a
workplace is that management prioritizes and addresses safety issues at all levels of the business
and that they are part of the "culture" (Work Environment Authority 2022)
As an employer in the personal assistance sector, an industry that involves lifting, moving, etc,
difficult working positions, working alone, etc., a vibrant safety culture is a necessity to
our employees have a sustainable working life. In addition to ensuring that all employees are secure in their
work, we also want to give our customers, our beneficiaries, a safe, secure and quality
assistance. These two perspectives require that we have a vibrant safety culture at all levels.
For us, it means:
Having an approach to identify risks and injuries
Actively working to minimize risks and harm
A supportive work environment where all employees can easily report, discuss and
ask questions about security
That we encourage all employees to make risks and errors visible
That we never blame individual employees but see causes at the organizational level
That we learn from all mistakes and negative events that have happened
The safety culture in Carelli assistance
In order to maintain the high quality of Carelli, we work on continuous improvement of our operations.
Our goal is that all deviations, incidents and occupational injuries should be reported as soon as they occur in order to
prevent more serious incidents from happening. We are all our work environment and everyone has a responsibility to
point out and contribute to a good working environment, both physical and psychological. All employees also have a responsibility
in creating a safe workplace and safe assistance for our customers. Our CEO Anneli describes that
"Personal assistance are human beings working with human beings, we know that many tasks involve the risk of an assistant being injured or at risk of injury. It is important that there is an action plan at each workplace for how the work is to be carried out safely for the assistants. Since it is people we work with, the work environment is also constantly changing, which means that we must constantly be on our toes and dare to see and talk about the shortcomings and risks that exist in the workplaces and in the business. Our focus must always be to operate in such a way that no one gets hurt in their work."
While one of our employees describes it as:
"The safety culture is not something that is just there, but it is something that we constantly have to remind each other of. We assistants are so concerned about providing our clients with their assistance that we easily forget, minimize or overlook what risks, for example, a transfer between wheelchair and bed can be for me as an assistant".
Some of the things that are done in the management team and in the work groups, in addition to offering training in ergonomics and transfers and in approaches to personal assistance each work group has workplace meetings every six weeks where they talk about deviations and if any risk arises, make a risk and action plan.
We have a uniform and user-friendly operating system where all deviations, incidents and occupational injuries are reported, a message goes directly to the area manager who takes action and follows up. The quality department is also notified of what has happened and can both follow up and support the area managers so that the measures are sufficient. The quality department also compiles all deviations, incidents and occupational injuries received each month to comprehensively analyze and detect risks or deficiencies that are recurring or particularly serious. This information then forms the basis for revisions or the creation of procedures, training or other forms of information flow to the business.
We educate all employees that reporting deficiencies and deviations is positive and that a
person who makes "mistakes" should never be blamed, but the starting point is that the shortcomings lie in the organization. We strive to ensure that all employees have such good conditions that it should not be possible
to make mistakes, should there still be a deviation, it is a sign that we need to improve or
change something in the business.
Every year, work environment rounds are conducted at each workplace, where one part is to pay attention to and create
dialogue on what the risks are and what can be done to reduce or remove them. We want all our
employees have their safety in mind at all times when performing their duties and if there is a
situation where safety is compromised, we want employees to feel comfortable talking to their manager
about this and report the incident so that we can improve the working environment.