Testimony to Congress last week by the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concerning recent mishandling of deadly viruses by scientists at his agency highlighted the problems organizations face when they don't embrace a “culture of safety.”

Instilling such a culture can have great value in reducing accidents, injuries and losses, but many organizations don't understand how to implement the necessary changes, experts say.

In his testimony, Tom Frieden, director of the Atlanta-based CDC, said incidents of CDC scientists mishandling live anthrax and bird flu resulted from “an insufficient culture of safety,” something that must be improved at the agency, he said.

What likely happened at the CDC is what happens at many organizations when other issues take precedence over safety, said Steve Thompson, principal at Aspen Risk Management Group, a safety consultant in San Diego. At a place like the CDC, for example, high powered researchers might not be inherently unsafe people but their primary focus is not safety, he said.

“In the world of the culture of safety, the way we look at safety is safety isn't a priority, it's a value,” Mr. Thompson said. “In a really strong safety culture every single person is in essence their own risk manager, their own safety manager.”

Instilling a culture of safety reaches into basic beliefs and practices of an organization, Mr. Thompson said. “It's things like how are people hired and how are they handled in the hiring process ... what sorts of questions are asked,” he said. “It's happening throughout. You ask employees to make a commitment to safety. You ask heads of departments to commit to safety, to write it down.”

Achieving a culture of safety requires commitment from an organization's top-level executives as well as a true understanding of the organization's culture, according to Ward Ching, vice president of risk management operations at Safeway Inc., who was involved in implementing an internally branded Culture of Safety at the Pleasanton, Calif.-based grocery store chain.

“The question is, what is your culture, how do you influence behavior and how do you influence processes to make it all work,” he said.

Safeway's effort to build its Culture of Safety drew several disciplines together, Mr. Ching said. One is behavioral economics, focusing on creating the right incentives and deterrents to drive behavior. Another is behavioral safety, identifying behaviors that contribute to losses. Safeway also employed some Big Data and Six Sigma elements into its Culture of Safety.

Safeway estimates that the program has saved the grocery chain $100 million in four years through lower workers compensation and general liability costs.

Ann Masse, global safety, health and environment leader-strategy at E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. in Wilmington, Delaware, said safety is ingrained in the company's culture. “We had our first safety rules in 1812,” Ms. Masse said. “Our leader, our owner at that time, E.I. du Pont...said we have to have safety rules, all our supervisors have to understand safety.”

“The most important thing is safety comes from the top,” Ms. Masse said. The emphasis on safety then flows down through line leadership into every department and every employee, she said. “We start every meeting with a safety contact,” Ms. Masse said. “It really happens throughout the organization, every day, every time.”

DuPont's culture of safety helps the company attract and retain talent, Ms. Masse said. “It helps us retain people in the company. It's all about employee engagement,” she said. “We get incredible business value out of that.”

Aspen's Mr. Thompson cited the Institutional Grassroots Safety Committee at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. as another example of the successful implementation of a culture of safety.

According to Herk Van Noy, chair of the IGSC, Lawrence Livermore's grassroots safety program was prompted by employee suggestions and started in 2009. “In addition to enabling a stronger safety culture at the lab, it has helped boost employee morale and improved communication between employees and managers,” Mr. Van Noy said.

Creating the IGSC program required the backing senior management, identification of as many grassroots teams from across the organization as possible and a mission and vision for the committee, Mr. Van Noy said.

The committee includes 15 active members, each representing their organization's grassroots team or an area of the laboratory. The IGSC chair participates in regularly scheduled meetings with senior management to present the committee's views, Mr. Van Noy said, and the IGCS's mission and vision is reviewed yearly, with the updated mission and vision presented to senior management.

At Lawrence Livermore, “The IGSC has provided an avenue for sharing unfiltered safety concerns with senior management, and a means for distributing safety information from senior management through our grassroots safety teams,” Mr. Van Noy said. The effort also “stimulates safety-oriented communication,” he said, which leads to increased safety awareness and safe work practices.