The Asian continent has been a driver of global economic growth for more than 50 years and the aviation industry in Asia is booming. Aircraft ground handling plays a significant role in the aviation supply chain and with the congestion of several Asian hubs ramp safety is of paramount relevance even in this region of the world. The ramp is an environment where it is important to highlight safety concerns to management and safety management systems (SMS) rely heavily on employees reporting actual or perceived safety concerns; management, however, may not want to hear concerns and/or it may actually be somehow involved in the causation chain leading to the materialisation of safety events.
We have spoken with an organisational studies researcher who has experience in dealing with organisations in China, Korea and Japan. She believes that in general in these countries societies and organisations do show a high level of respect for the hierarchy and for seniority. It is not that necessarily people will not report a safety issue and hide it because it might offend senior management. It is only that senior managers often have absolute respect in terms of authority. This means that in case of hazardous situations being generated there are two main behavioural patterns that can be identified.
“If employees were able to convey a message without pointing the fingers to the top management by diluting the responsibility across multiple layers of management then it might be easier for line operators and management to talk about safety issues,” she says. “If the raised safety issues are directly linked with some responsibility of the top management then the situation might lead to potential danger caused by hidden reports. I think eventually things come down to how employees communicate and convey the message regarding safety issues.”
Enabling Reporting
Ivar Busk, former head of airside safety at SAS Scandinavian Airlines, says that, despite cultural peculiarities, enabling the reporting of safety hazards sits very high in the agenda of the Civil Aviation Authority of China (CAAC).
“In aviation the authorities are very strict and actually perform audits regularly as well meetings to encourage reporting and fact finding,” he says. “Service providers have internal systems for reporting at different levels of management. The penalty is severe if incidents or accidents are not reported timely.”
According to Maurizio Anichini, a ground operations consultant based in Southeast Asia, there is no “ideal” culture for the open reporting of operational hazards, risks and exposures.
“In any cultural environment it is not necessarily easy for people to spontaneously report on their actions or omissions, mistakes or violations, to use the ICAO terminology,” he says.
In his view the practice of safety hazard reporting in the Southeast Asia region demonstrates two main characteristics. From the one end, he says, it is possible to obtain open, spontaneous reporting of hazards and exposures when fostering a true and just safety culture, where people are not systematically disciplined when reporting or in the event an incident or accident takes place. From the other end, in various companies the concept of open reporting and just safety culture are novel concepts and are not well understood by the executive and operational management levels. Therefore, open reporting is not practised for fear of repercussion by operational staff, who fear retribution, pressure and even the possibility of losing their employment.
As a recent achievement Anichini mentions of having facilitated the evolution of “just” safety cultural thinking amongst the numerous stakeholders at a major international airport, serving more than 90 airlines and 50 million passengers in Southeast Asia, by using simple techniques both from the top down and the bottom up.
“This has led to increased understanding of just culture, true engagement from airport authorities, reduction in near-miss event on the ground not to mention significant reductions in injuries, incidents and accidents” Anichini says.
Ramp Safety Communication
The communication of safety hazards is never easy, and in this respect Asia is no different from the rest of the world. According to Busk, direct reports in the ramp environment, especially if on paper, are quite rare. As far as the actual reporting modalities is concerned, in most cases a team leader highlights deviations at meetings. Normally local service providers do not encourage anonymous reporting and occasionally staff members highlight the concerns to relevant managers or team leaders verbally. Reporting against department heads or the company is unusual, he says.
The organisational studies researcher believes that confidential or anonymous reporting mechanisms are difficult to generate effective outcomes in organisations in Asia.
“According to my research many East Asian firms have this kind of western style reporting mechanism,” she says. “I would like to point out, however, that a participant to one of my research interviews even said that these kinds of reporting mechanisms are completely useless. Despite duties of anonymity or confidentiality people may still think that, for example, their hand writing will be analysed: there is indeed a huge fear of sanction.”
Anichini adds that in many Southeast Asian countries language barriers may exist for multiple reasons, such as imported labour whose native language is not the one practised in the host country as well as cultural differences in the way key messages are passed on, which are to be communicated from the top of the hierarchy and not by peers at the same level.
“Moreover some staff in various Southeast Asia locations may not have the same level of safety mindedness as other regions and therefore does not assimilate the safety hazard being communicated as a real danger,” Anichini says. “An example that comes to mind is when people drive motorcycles without using a helmet or drive against traffic. This is an unthinkable practice in many parts of the world, not only because it is illegal and punishable, but because of the inherent risks in the event of an accident. Clearly, when a person is raised in an environment where preventive safety is not always practiced and rules are not enforced, it will be a challenge to explain that whilst working at the airport in ground operations, certain safety precautions must be taken systematically to avoid injury, accidents and the safety of flight.”
Another Foundation
If employees in Asia are not culturally inclined to report, then SMS implementation effort must be based upon mechanisms other than the western system of reporting.
Busk stresses that SMS has been widely introduced in China and that managers and companies in aviation are very serious about safety matters and normally take corrective actions accordingly.
“There are working procedures for analysing deviations and corrective measures taken including management participation,” Busk says. “Competent bodies such as the CAAC have emphasised safety significantly for both flight and ground activities. The penalty for non-conformities are severe and top management may be dismissed depending on the situation.”
He points out that, while there are some limitations about staff making official reports, staff must also be given credit to the very fact that companies encourage them to work through the SMS.
“Most people choose to make an official or unofficial report in the manners that suit their individual personality and behaviours,” he says. “It must be borne in mind that a job is important to many local employees that need to feed families.”
According to our organisational studies researcher, any kind of change management initiative in Asia, including SMS implementation, does not lend itself to be successful if performed in the bottom-up manner. While SMS has been developed to function both bottom-up (reporting from the line) and top-down (management must visibly endorse it), in Asia it is the top-down direction that must be emphasised.
“Leadership is what matters in many Asian countries,” she says. “In my research I have found that some leaders are willing to change because they are fed up with a given situation and that there is some potential for change management if the leaders are willing to change and adopt a top-down approach. Leaders must be willing to admit that they will commend line personnel for reporting potential issues as soon as possible so that interventions can be timely. I would not trust any bottom up approach, it must be a top-down enforcement of believes that must not just be made of nicely resounding slogans but really lived on.”
Anichini believes that SMS must first and foremost be based on a “just” safety culture. “In and of itself it is not the SMS in its documented or implemented form that will guarantee reporting,” he says. “SMS is a series of processes, documents, procedures, communication, etc. that make up the framework for how the company manages safety in a systematic way.
“But it is trust that people need to sense in order to spontaneously report on hazards, near-miss events, incidents and the likes. Without fostering an environment of mutual trust, raising people’s awareness and communicating with people the characteristics of a positive, just safety culture, the SMS will remain a documented item that is not in practice” he concludes.
