Corporate Training Magazine

Behavioural-based Safety 101
Vol 1 Issue 2- Nov 2005

By Dennis Merrill

Traditionally, industry has viewed and addressed safety in terms of incidents‹individual circumstances in specific areas leading to isolated incidents. But is this approach too narrow and ignore systemic behavioural issues?

In 60 to 90 percent of all accidents, employee behaviour provides an important link--the link that often paves the way for many pre-existing factors to come together in a negative event. These can include the organizational environment, management attitude and commitment, the nature of the job or task, and the personal attributes of the individual. By addressing these major influences and preventing the last link from occurring, companies can reduce injury rates.

Behaviour-based safety is a natural progression of safety management. From the highly disciplined early approaches with prescriptive legislation and punishment, through the engineered systems, to an approach that recognizes workers as mature individuals with a genuine interest in their own well-being, who contribute best when they can see that they can have an influence on their own safety. To achieve this transition is to change the culture and attitude of the work group involved.

Human behaviour is often categorized as reflex/automatic, intended and habitual. The habitual category is the focus of the behavioural approach. Focusing on behaviour is not for the purpose of blaming or punishing workers. The effective approach is to identify and measure the safe and unsafe ("at-risk") behaviours that are occurring in the workplace, and manage them.

The identification and subsequent monitoring of safety behaviours is the crucial link to the reinforcement of safe behaviours (good habits) and the reduction and eventual removal of unsafe behaviours (bad habits).

How It Works
Behaviour Identification
Identification of the behaviours that are important to safe working can come from this knowledge of the people involved, from past experiences or near misses, and from accident information. This 'inventory' is used to define what will actually be observed. By including representatives from all levels of the organization--management and supervisors, observers and observees--and from all areas within the process, it helps to ensure that everyone is looking for the same behaviours and the likelihood is reduced that any individual's opinion being either over- or undervalued.

Observation and Feedback System/Loop
Following the observation process, companies need to put in place a feedback system to extract the crucial information to reveal the real cause of the behaviour.

Underlying this is that people need regular reminders of how to behave safely. However, observations may be regarded as intervention in the normal pattern of work. A practical approach is that reach individual should be observed at a frequency of about once per month. Less frequent observation is not enough to emphasize the appropriate behaviour and develop the safe habit. More frequent observation may be required for behaviours that are particularly difficult to change, such as proper posture.

Empirical evidence has shown that peer-to-peer observations and feedback is an effective behavioural change strategy and solves a problem previously unaddressed--namely the division created when supervisors attempt to change the behaviour of the workers reporting to them. Research has also identified that the most effective implementations are employee- rather than supervisor-driven. One method is to use peer-to-per observation of safety-related behaviour followed by positive verbal feedback, information collection and problem-solving to improve the identified behaviours and the management systems that produce them.

It is the feedback that delivers the information to allow corrective and preventative action to be taken. The reasons for the "at-risk" behavour must be sought from those being observed, and possible solutions should be discussed with them. Of course, if the observations are being carried out by the peer groups, there is no need to seek details of the task being done--they already know. Workers have a detailed knowledge of what is really happening at the workplace, and can often suggest very practical solutions. Besides, they are the ones exposed to the risk, and their 'buy-in' to the process is an essential factor to success.

Identification of Corrective Actions
The final step in the process is to analyze the observation information and feedback for barriers to continuous safety improvement, remove those barriers and install positive consequences for safe behaviour. Achievements are measured by the improvement in safe behaviour.

Making the Choice: What to Consider
While straightforward in concept, behaviour-based safety is difficult to apply in some organizational settings. Employee involvement in the safety process is a key to its success, but how do you involve all levels of employees in a meaningful and productive way so that they will become interested in the process and committed to its long-term success?

Ideally it should be a system that enables front-line employees to identify the critical behaviours that can lead to accidents, to measure workplace performance, to use information to identify barriers and to work together with management to remove these barriers.

It is also essential that the process is information-driven. It needs to provide information so that workgroups can see--in advance of any accidents‹where their task-related behaviours put them at risk of injury. Employees thoroughly trained in observation and feedback are often the best source for this kind of information. It's also important to note that employees are generally more willing to participate in the process and provide this kind of information analysis and action when they are involved in all aspects of safety performance management.

Barriers to Implementation
Organizational Safety Culture and Commitment
Commitment of time and effort is required. A behavioural approach to safety will not succeed unless there is strong management support and good underlying systems to achieve the improvements that will be identified. Support will have to be long-term, because changing a culture takes time.

Ineffective Management Systems
Management will need to be seen to be supporting, not imposing, the behavioural approach. Procedures and relationships may need to be changed.

Employee Perceptions
In some cases, skilled personnel think that less-experienced employees cannot make proper observations. This perception will remain until it's understood that the technical content is not being observed only the bahaviour. Supervisors, union officials, safety committee members and others may feel their authority is being undermined for differing reasons.

Conflicting Payment and Reward Systems
It is possible to run systems that reward safe behaviour. However, it should be possible to achieve sufficient buy-in to eliminate the need for reward schemes.

Lack of Consensus on Safe Practices and the Need for Improvement
The use of the list or inventory of behaviours critical to safety means that the behaviours are defined and agreed upon before any observations are made.