RE|Safety

Rethinking safety norms. An operations-informed critique of prevailing safety norms.

Some of the most deeply held beliefs in safety management are rarely examined. RE|Safety applies an evidence-based, operations-informed lens to the assumptions, frameworks, and standard practices that shape the profession.

Read in InsightStudio Start: Mission 45001 →

The SCAN Series · Norms

Challenging the assumptions that hold the profession back.

RE|Safety draws on operational evidence, research literature, and professional experience to scrutinise the norms that safety practitioners inherit — and rarely question.

› The evidence on zero-harm targets — do they improve performance or suppress reporting?

› Safety I vs Safety II — what the research says about where each model applies

› Why compliance culture and safety culture are not the same thing, and often oppose each other

› How industry norms are set — and who benefits when they are

› Rethinking the role of the safety professional in a systems-thinking organisation

The compliance trap

How rule-following replaced risk thinking — and why organisations that tick every box are still having incidents.

Zero harm revisited

An evidence-based review of aspirational safety targets — what the data says about their effect on reporting culture.

Safety II principles

Moving beyond failure analysis to understanding everyday work — what succeeds, why, and what we can learn from it.

The role of expertise

How professional safety knowledge is produced, validated, and sometimes captured by industry or regulatory interest.

New View vs Old View

The shift from blame and root cause to systems thinking — where consensus is forming and where debates remain live.

Norms in practice

Field observations on the gap between what is believed, what is stated, and what is actually done — and why it matters.

RE|Safety

Challenging the assumptions that hold the profession back.

Complete the SCAN Series.

Pair the full SCAN library with your live data.