It’s one thing to have a well-documented safety management system (SMS) within an aviation organization, but it’s another to have SMS ingrained among workers across that organization. That was the topic of a Wyvern webinar Wednesday afternoon presented by Andreas Mauritzson of Southern California-based FBO, MRO, aircraft charter management firm Sun Air Jets.

Mauritzson, Sun Air’s business strategy v-p and a former aviation director, stressed that an organization’s SMS must be “lived” by every employee in every department: administration, accounting, sales, maintenance, and operations. That, he said, is how an organization establishes a pattern of behavior where safety is “basically front and center of people’s minds.”

Accomplishing that involves strong communication across all departments, monthly safety meetings for department heads, and incentives for employees to report when they see a safety issue or SMS violation occur. “It’s not something that’s bad if somebody submits an SMS report,” Mauritzson said. “It’s an opportunity [to improve].”

Wyvern senior director of quality and education Andrew Day added that managers must respond quickly to employees reporting a safety issue. “You have to thank them…handle them quickly and over-communicate so [employees] feel like [those reports] are important.”

Mauritzson also recommended frequent but brief written communication within the organization, what he called a “weekly note of awareness,” consisting of an excerpt from the company’s SMS documentation, to reinforce the safety culture.