SAFETY CULTURE IN PREVENTION OF OCCUPATIONAL ACCIDENTS

Abstract

Accidents and occupational diseases; It causes loss of physical and mental health for employees and high amounts of income loss for employers and countries. In order to prevent all these losses from happening, technical and engineering measures are not enough and an internalized safety culture perception is required in management and employees. The common principle in order to protect it from accidents and diseases is to ensure that the employees act with safety awareness at every moment of the work, with the understanding of safety culture, which is defined as the set of values and rules, under the leadership of the management. Behavior and attitude patterns that do not change in a short time are shown as the main causes of accidents in business life. It is essential to create a culture that embraces safe behavior patterns and, as a result, a safe work environment created to prevent these accidents. In the implementation of this culture, the employees should be included in the process at every stage. In the study, a literature review on safety culture as a preventive factor in occupational accidents was carried out. As a result of the research, it was determined that the most appropriate method in the long-term in the prevention and reduction of accidents is the safety culture.