SMS Pro Aviation Safety Software Blog 4 Airlines & Airports

What Are Mandatory and Voluntary Safety Reporting Policies

Mandatory and voluntary safety reporting policies are an extremely important part of providing guidance for safety reporting in aviation safety management systems (SMS). Yet, we rarely see these policies published and communicated in aviation SMS implementations.

A mandatory and voluntary reporting policy (or policies) outline what types of safety issues employees:

• MUST report as soon as they are identified; and
• CAN report, but are not obligated to do so, as they are identified.

What Is Confidentiality in Aviation SMS

Confidentiality in aviation SMS is how much personal information is included in available safety reports and concerns. When safety issues are reported, employees may or may not have access to details about the reported issue. When employees do have access, or when you release information about a reported issue, you will need to decide if employees can see information like:

Quality Leadership Stimulates Teamwork

A mature, effective aviation safety management system (SMS) will always incorporate imaginative ways to stimulate teamwork and good communication between employees.

It’s a tricky area though because teamwork and communication are beset by:

• Poor interpersonal relationships;
• Different teamwork needs;
• Cultural differences; and
• Separate problem-solving strategies

What Aviation SMS Needs for Successful Hazard Reporting

Aviation safety management systems (SMS) needs input from three levels of your organization to be successful. Without total involvement of your company, hazard reporting will fail.

The three levels of your company and their corresponding responsibility for setting up a successful hazard reporting program are:

What Is Participation in Your SMS

Employee participation in your aviation SMS is critical to its maintainability. We this over and over, where the SMS is being pushed by one person and when that person leaves the program falls apart.

One of the primary goals of generating good involvement is creating a sustainable SMS.

How to Quantify Resistance to Your SMS Using This Article

Grab a spare pen and paper so you can write down some notes. What we are looking for is a total score. It works like this:

Transparency, a Hot Topic:

In recent years, managerial concerns surrounding organizational transparency have become extremely important at all levels of industry and government. So important in fact, that most sensational news stories in recent years - namely Edward Snowden, Wikileaks, the Sony Hack, Bradley Manning - are issues of organizational transparency.

For individuals who defend transparency, we even have a name that has acquired the show-stopping power of words like "terrorist" and "hero," or "whistleblower."

What is Confidentiality in Aviation SMS

Confidentiality in aviation SMS refers to how much personal information should be made available to your organization. By personal information, we are mainly talking about personal information in safety reports, such as people involved or the name of the reporter.

Why Is Safety Culture So Important?

In many of today's articles about aviation safety management systems, there is something about safety culture. Why? Safety culture ties into every part of your SMS, feeding it as your SMS nurtures your safety culture in return.

It’s a symbiotic relationship, like honeybees and flowers. Each one needs the other to grow and thrive. When your safety culture thrives, your SMS is easier to build and maintain.

So, how do we feed our safety culture in our day-to-day operations?

What Is Safety Culture?

Safety culture is a set of values that a company has in relation to safety and is one of the main characteristics that distinguish one company from other companies.

Some industrial sectors, such as aviation, require a level of safety culture which is higher than in other sectors.

The maturity of the safety culture sometimes depends on the type of business, but this does not mean that industrial sectors, which should have and have a higher level of safety culture, cannot improve. As a matter of fact, safety culture can always be improved.