Safety Culture Change at The Rakem Group
Turning health & safety from something managed by QHSE into something owned across the business.
Over three years, a structured safety culture programme helped transform the way health & safety was understood, discussed and supported across The Rakem Group.
By introducing a safety committee, developing champions across departments and embedding safety campaigns into everyday operations, the programme increased engagement, strengthened employee involvement and helped reduce near misses.
The Rakem Group
Manufacturing
Safety Culture Transformation
3 Years
Engagement · Ownership · Improvement
SHE Awards 2024 Winner
The challenge wasn't simply to improve health & safety systems. It was to change the way people engaged with them.
Moving beyond compliance
The opportunity was to bring health & safety closer to the people carrying out the work every day, creating greater involvement and a stronger sense of ownership across the organisation.
01
Broader involvement
Give people across departments a more active role in health & safety improvement, rather than responsibility sitting with a small number of people.
02
A stronger voice
Create practical routes for employees to raise concerns, contribute ideas and share their experience of how work was actually being carried out.
03
Visible action
Build confidence that speaking up could lead to practical improvements, helping participation become part of everyday working life.
The goal wasn't another safety campaign. It was to change the relationship people had with health & safety.
Building involvement into everyday health & safety.
Creating the structure for change
Rather than relying on a single campaign, the programme created practical ways for people to get involved. Representation, departmental champions and regular communication helped build participation and keep health & safety visible across the business.
01
Create representation
A safety committee gave employees and departments a structured route to contribute to health & safety discussions and improvement activity.
02
Develop safety champions
Champions across departments brought safety conversations closer to day-to-day work and encouraged wider participation across the organisation.
03
Keep safety visible
Campaigns and communication kept important topics visible, helping safety become part of normal operational conversations rather than something discussed only after an incident or audit.
04
Turn involvement into action
Visible follow-through helped demonstrate that raising an issue or contributing an idea could result in practical improvement.
Safety became less about something being done to the business and more about something being improved with the people in it.
From managing safety to building ownership.
A different relationship with safety
The work was not about removing the need for strong QHSE management. It was about widening participation so that health & safety conversations, ideas and improvements could increasingly come from across the organisation.
Safety sitting mainly with QHSE
More departments and employees actively contributing to health & safety.
Communication flowing one way
Employees having clearer routes to raise concerns, share ideas and influence improvement.
Safety activity driven by compliance
Safety becoming part of normal conversations, involvement and everyday working practices.
Raising an issue being the end point
Greater emphasis on visible follow-through and turning employee involvement into practical action.
The principle
Culture started to change when people could see that health & safety was something they could influence, not simply something they were expected to follow.
Culture change you can actually measure.
Four years of evidence
The Safety Climate Tool was used repeatedly to measure employee attitudes and perceptions, rather than relying on assumption. The results provided a consistent way to identify improvement, highlight remaining weaknesses and keep the programme focused on the areas that mattered.
Reporting Culture
60th → 95th
HSE comparison percentile
Accident and near-miss reporting moved from the 60th percentile in 2022 to the 95th percentile by 2025.
Near-Miss Reporting
32.3% → 10.3%
Negative responses reduced
The proportion disagreeing that near misses were always reported fell by 22 percentage points between 2022 and 2025.
Health & Safety Trust
100%
Felt the company cared
In the 2024 survey, 100% agreed that the company really cared about the health and safety of the people working there.
Measurement Journey
2022
Baseline survey established the priorities for improvement.
2023
Repeat measurement tested progress and highlighted new priorities.
2024
Strong results across trust, commitment and safety behaviours.
2025
Measurement continued, identifying both sustained gains and areas requiring further focus.
The surveys didn't just demonstrate progress. They showed where the programme needed to go next.
The data showed improvement. The people described the change.
What employees were seeing
Alongside the scored Safety Climate Tool results, employees were asked open questions about health & safety at Rakem. Across repeated surveys, several themes appeared consistently in the things people felt were going well.
“A 100% commitment from the leadership team on H&S.”
Leadership commitment appears repeatedly in the survey comments, developing from recognition of management support into employees describing health & safety as a clear leadership priority.
“Ideas from everyone are considered.”
Employees increasingly described being able to raise concerns, contribute suggestions and take part in improvement rather than simply receiving instructions.
“Continuous improvement is at the forefront.”
One of the clearest themes across the surveys was the sense that safety wasn't static. Employees repeatedly referred to improvement, investment and the business continuing to push standards forward.
“They're more approachable if we have any concerns.”
Respondents highlighted the visibility and accessibility of QHSE support, including the value of people with operational experience being able to understand the realities of the work.
The evidence behind the comments
Employee comments and the scored survey results were telling the same story.
In the 2024 Safety Climate Tool survey, 97.1% agreed that the company encouraged suggestions on how to improve health & safety, while 91.4% agreed that the company showed interest in their views. Organisational commitment benchmarked at the 95th percentile against the HSE comparison group.
Culture change wasn't about reaching perfection. It was about creating a business capable of listening, acting and continuing to improve.
2024
SHE Awards · Winner
Best Health & Safety in Manufacturing.
The three-year safety culture programme received national recognition at the 2024 SHE Awards. But the award represented more than a single initiative. Behind it sat sustained employee involvement, stronger reporting, visible leadership commitment and a process of repeatedly measuring and improving the organisation's safety culture.
Employee voice
Safety committees, champions and clearer routes for people to contribute.
Measured change
Repeated Safety Climate Tool surveys tracking perceptions and progress over time.
Continual improvement
Survey evidence and employee feedback used to identify what needed to happen next.
The award was an important milestone. The bigger achievement was the culture developing behind it.
Safety culture isn't something you fix with another procedure.
Building change that lasts
The Rakem programme demonstrates what can happen when leadership, employee involvement, practical improvement and structured measurement work together over time. Systems still matter, but stronger culture comes from how people experience those systems in everyday work.
01
Listen before acting
Employee perception provides a different view from audits, incident statistics and compliance checks. Understanding how people experience safety helps identify cultural barriers that traditional measures can miss.
02
Involve the people doing the work
Committees, champions and open communication give employees practical ways to influence improvement and bring operational experience into health & safety decisions.
03
Make action visible
Encouraging people to speak up only works when there is visible follow-through. Closing the loop helps build trust that raising concerns and contributing ideas is worthwhile.
04
Keep measuring
Repeated Safety Climate Tool surveys allowed progress to be tested over several years, while also highlighting areas where perceptions were less consistent and further improvement was still needed.
The real outcome
Not a business that had finished improving, but one with stronger employee involvement, better evidence and a clearer process for deciding what needed to improve next.
Safety culture programme · The Rakem Group · Manufacturing
What do your people really think about safety?
Policies, audits and accident statistics only tell part of the story. Understanding how employees actually experience health & safety can reveal the cultural strengths and weaknesses that conventional compliance measures often miss.
Measure · Listen · Improve
Establish the baseline. Understand what employees are telling you. Focus improvement where it can make the biggest difference.
