Culture and process are both foundational to an effective health and safety strategy. But if you're new to this space, it can be unclear where to begin – or which one to prioritise first.
Context and organisational maturity help dictate which stage you should be prioritising when. However, it’s worth emphasising that even as a very early start-up, it’s essential to have a health and safety strategy as soon as possible.
In this article, we’ll explore when and how you can implement safety culture and processes regardless of what level of maturity your organisation is at. First though, let’s breakdown how we define these two pillar areas.
Why Culture and Process Are Both Essential
What Is Safety Culture?
Safety culture refers to the shared values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours that shape how individuals and teams within an organisation approach health and safety. It goes beyond written rules – it's the collective mindset that determines whether people speak up about risks, follow safety practices when no one is watching, and prioritise well-being over shortcuts.
A strong safety culture is visible in:
- Leadership’s commitment to safety
- Open communication about near misses and hazards
- Peer accountability and trust
- A non-punitive environment for reporting incidents
It’s often said that culture is “what happens when nobody’s looking,” and in safety, that can mean the difference between a near miss and a serious accident.
What are Safety Processes?
On the other hand, safety processes are the structured systems, procedures, and policies designed to manage and reduce health and safety risks in the workplace. These include tools and formal methods for identifying hazards, assessing risks, documenting compliance, and responding to incidents.
Typical safety processes include:
- Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
- Risk assessments and audits
- Training programs and certifications
- Incident reporting and investigation workflows
- Safety inspections and checklists
Processes provide the operational backbone for safety. They are essential for legal compliance, consistency, and accountability, but their effectiveness relies heavily on the culture that supports them.
Both are essential – process sets the guideline for how your team behaves and acts, but culture makes sure that these rules translate into consistent action.
Where to Start and Why
As we said earlier in the article, your area of focus for your health and safety strategy will vary depending on if you’re a brand new start-up or an enterprise company looking to reignite EHS practices. For each stage of the maturity journey, we’ll take a look at whether you should be prioritising culture or process.
Stage 1: Startup
Startup life can be busy and chaotic – and it can feel like your juggling a hundred things at once. Unless there’s a major incident, or you’re working in a very high-risk environment, health and safety can fall quite far down your list of priorities. However, what you do now, sets the tone for who you are as a company. So, it’s key to get it right from the beginning.
Putting processes into place is the more logical first step for a small startup – particularly, when you only have a handful of employees and it’s easier to ensure a cultural fit.
Creating standard operating procedures (SOPs) and basic risk assessment policies enables a level of compliance. It also means that health and safety processes can be embedded in onboarding for all new starters, making process the catalyst and teaching tool for a robust safety culture.
Stage 2: High-Growth Company
Similar to start-ups, high growth companies have to navigate change at a rapid pace. But, unlike start-ups, scale-ups are more likely to already have more processes and procedures in place.
Fast growth can sometimes see a significant increase in headcount and a difficulty enforcing culture when prioritising hypergrowth.
At this stage of growth, culture is often the area under the most strain – requiring intentional effort to realign and reinforce it.
Revisiting values and ensuring alignment with how the organisation is now operating can help make sure the cultural standards are achievable and realistic. Training sessions to educate new joiners on health and safety processes should be undertaken as standard, but also training leaders on how to enforce these cultural practices daily.
Communicating the importance of safety culture and how it can be a growth enabler is a good way to remove resistance and friction.
Stage 3: Enterprise Organisation
Enterprise is not a level that all companies get to, or even aim for, but if this is the stage that you’re currently operating at you’re likely to have your own unique set of health and safety challenges.
Often processes and policies will be well established and known throughout the company. There is the risk that they are viewed as a tickbox exercise and not reflective of the current ways of working if they’re not revisited often.
Focus on rehumanising safety and increasing transparency. Introduce initiatives that recognise engagement and positive safety habits. Sharing learnings and making data more visible can make your team feel more involved and likely to engage more actively with safety practices.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
Even with the best intentions, it’s easy to stumble when building your health and safety approach. Here are four common mistakes to watch for:
- Assuming one-size-fits-all: Your strategy should reflect your company’s size, maturity, and industry – not copy what others are doing.
- Over-relying on process: Policies don’t work if people aren’t engaged. Behaviour change and cultural buy-in are just as critical as compliance.
- Delaying culture work: Culture may feel intangible, but it forms early and shapes everything. Don’t wait until issues arise to address it.
- Ignoring technology: Manual processes slow you down. Embracing digital tools improves accuracy, visibility, and scalability.
How Vatix Can Help
At Vatix, we make it easy to build both a strong safety culture and robust processes – no matter your company’s size or stage.
Our Health and Safety Management System helps you streamline tasks like incident reporting, audits, and training, while also encouraging open communication and real-time visibility across your teams.
Whether you're laying the groundwork or scaling up, Vatix gives you the tools to embed safety into everyday actions – driving both compliance and culture forward.
Ready to align your safety culture and processes? Book a demo with Vatix and see how our platform can support your team from the ground up.
