Safety drift: your safety program is working – until it isn’t.

• Safety drift occurs when small deviations from safety procedures gradually become normal.
• Normalisation of deviance and workplace safety complacency can quietly increase organisational risk.
• Operational pressures, changing workplaces and ineffective change management all contribute to safety drift.
• Identifying early warning signs helps organisations prevent safety culture erosion before incidents occur.
• Proactive safety practices and digital tools can help detect and reduce safety drift over time.

Introduction

In our recent webinar on the topic of safety drift, EcoOnline’s Principal Product Director Rob Leech spoke with Andrea Korney, VP of Supply Chain and Sustainability for JS Held, a global consulting firm. In this webinar they discussed the factors that can lead to safety drift and practical steps safety professionals can take to address it.

This blog will break down their discussion, focusing on what exactly safety drift is, where and why it can occur in organisations, and practical tips on how to address it.

Table of contents

Click on a specific section below to navigate to that area:

• 1. What is safety drift?
• 2. Where does safety drift hide in the workplace?
• 3. Why does safety drift occur?
• 4. Tips on tackling safety drift
• FAQs

What is safety drift?

Safety drift is the gradual erosion of safety standards over time, where small deviations from documented procedures become accepted as normal practice. Closely linked to the normalisation of deviance and risk normalisation, safety drift develops when organisations unknowingly adapt to unsafe ways of working until they become embedded in everyday operations.

It has its roots in the work of sociologist Diane Vaughan, who coined the term ‘normalisation of deviance’ when researching the factors that lead to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986.

An example would be a supervisor shortening a pre-job briefing because it’s a task that the team have performed hundreds of times before. Another example would be a permit being completed because it’s required for a job, but there is no discussion behind it.

The resulting incident that occurs is not the beginning of the problem. Rather, it’s the moment that the organisation realises how far they have drifted away from the original controls. This ‘drift’ is usually a slow process that has accumulated over time.

Where does safety drift hide in the workplace?

According to Andrea, safety drift can be seen when everyday situations change in the workplace:

• Production demands increase and the resulting pressure
• Staffing becomes constrained
• New contractors on-site
• Experienced workers taking shortcuts

The acceleration that occurs with the addition of many new people to a jobsite is another factor. In this case, workers may bring many different kinds of safety culture with them. There are then many different practices at play, with a hand-over that is not done correctly.

Safety managers must continually ask themselves how their safety policies, assessments and training packages apply to the work being done on that specific day, in that specific environment and with those specific workers.

Organisational reappraisals not keeping up with workplace pressures

2026 has been a time of volatility for many businesses, between growing regulatory pressure, constantly changing international politics and their effects on global trade.

If a business can no longer source particular materials and must find a new supplier, or an unfamiliar contractor shows up on a construction site, it changes the circumstances that have to be assessed and disconnects workers from controls that are in place. Information silos between departments are a notable source of safety drift.

Adapting to imperfect procedures

Take the example of a lockout procedure. The typical sequence of events is that the isolation is verified, the permit is obtained and a supervisor reviews. The work is then completed.

However, the reality is often different. There may be a production emergency, the supervisor may not be present, and the equipment may be needed immediately.

Workers adapt to changing circumstances by creating workarounds that feel more efficient. Over time, this risk normalisation becomes accepted practice, even though it differs from documented procedures. Even if official procedure is followed for the most part, small changes creep in and become part of the process. It is within these gaps that safety drift can occur.

Why does safety drift occur?

Workplace safety complacency and apparent success are among the biggest drivers of safety drift. When incidents are rare, organisations can begin to normalise small deviations, leading to safety culture erosion over time.

The idea that nothing will ever happen – because nothing ever has, means that processes are not being interrogated or reviewed. This is especially true if audits are routinely returning with no issues.

Another factor is the effect of decisions being made far from front-line workers and safety teams. Commercial pressure can lead to cost-cutting measures, for example acquiring cheaper PPE or allowing supplies of critical materials to run low. These decisions contribute to the risk of safety drift even though they do not occur on the site where a potential accident may take place.

In the same vein of decisions being made further up the chain, incorrect management of change also contributes to safety drift. Organisations will have a process in place for large-scale change e.g., a restructuring or a merger/ acquisition.

This is unlikely to be the case for changes such as hiring a new supervisor. However, new onsite management can completely transform the working dynamic. A handover procedure in a manufacturing plant may not be completed and the effects are only felt when the risk rating increases months later.

Finally, both speakers were in agreement that safety drift is becoming more common as workplaces become more complex:

Tips on tackling safety drift

A risk assessment is a structured process used to identify workplace hazards, evaluate the likelihood and severity of harm, and implement controls to reduce risk and protect workers.

The significant findings of this process are often recorded in a written document that captures:

• 1. Compare the work as imagined to the work as it is done – Safety managers should get in the field, observe and speak to workers about how tasks are actually completed vs. what written procedure dictates.
• 2. Don’t focus on incidents as your lagging indicator – there are often better early indicators of developing safety drift and control degradation. These might include:
  
  • repeated audit findings
  • overdue corrective actions
  • decline in near – miss reporting
  • high contractor turnover
  • training completion without performance improvement
• 3. Focus on re-occurring themes and patterns (both good and bad) – patterns will reveal systemic weaknesses long before an incident occurs, and much longer before the results of your incident investigation.
• 4. Have a process in place for feedback – is there a way for workers to challenge controls that are in place that have become too rigid or are not agile enough, or do not fit the work being done? Why has following the rules become less efficient?
• 5. Investigate when a job is done well, or when controls work – discover exactly why jobs have positive outcomes. Is it because workers are following procedure to the letter? Is it because modifications have been made? Is it due to a particular employee or supplier?
• 6. Understand that risk happens in layers – risk can spread further than safety risk and environmental risk. There might also be operational, financial, reputational and geographical risk. As you are performing your risk assessment, think about things in terms of layering. Safety drift can happen at any stage in the chain.

How can technology help in preventing safety drift?

Technology plays an important role in detecting and preventing safety drift by identifying trends that people may overlook. Digital inspections, permit-to-work systems and risk assessment software help organisations identify early signs of safety complacency, procedural drift and control degradation before they contribute to incidents.

Being able to see how much (or how little) time it takes to complete a checklist can indicate if they are being treated as more of a tick box exercise. Using AI capabilities to generate checklists that are subtly different each time can also help in this. It’s not about catching people out but refocusing attention during frequent or repetitive tasks.

Having a digital permit to work system can help to combat common issues such as re-using permits across jobs, while ensuring handover procedures are not skipped.

Risk assessment software can standardise your approach to risk assessments across your business, while remaining flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances.

EcoOnlines EHS software helps you to uncover invisible risk, increase safety visibility and pivot from a reactive to proactive safety approach.

Want to see how the system works? Check out our quick video below:

Combat safety drift with intuitive EHS software

What if managing inspections, audits and risks was as easy as opening a dashboard? Connecting every team member, no matter where they are. Did you know companies with digital safety systems report thirty percent fewer incidents? EcoOnline’s suite of EHS products simplifies every step of your safety programme, improving adoption in the field and giving management teams better insights. From employees to contractors, we help you stay compliant and proactive with ease. Complete safety inspections effortlessly. Use EcoOnline to attach photos, assign corrective actions, and track progress all in one streamlined view. Plus, use AI to create inspections in seconds. With our QR code feature, frontline workers can report hazards and near misses in seconds, driving faster response times and stronger safety participation. Create task based risk assessments to ensure every step is safe and compliant. Dynamic risk assessments help you adapt to changing conditions in real time. Manage high risk work confidently. With Permit to Work software, ensure all risk assessments and approvals are in place before tasks begin. No safety programme is complete without safety training and learning. Frontline workers can easily stay on top of training from their mobile devices. Reducing admin time so you can spend less time at your desk and more time building safer work environments. Make informed decisions with the power of robust analytics. Monitor safety KPIs, track corrective actions and demonstrate proactive safety management. Whether you’re in the field or at your desk, EcoOnline’s EHS Software Suite empowers your entire team. Ready to see how EcoOnline can transform your safety programme? Talk to our team to get started.

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