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Posted By Merv Newman
A recent/current thread "Bad Safety culture" inspired me to recommend behavioural safety methods as a resolution to the problem.
This evoked one rather virulent response, and one other rather doubting reply.
As a very old and long serving safety manager/consultant, I grew up with the traditional repressive methods of improving safety - "If they don't obey the rules - kick 'em again".
It works. But it needs constant effort, costs a lot in monitoring, and will not work at 100% because people like to beat the system and get away with something - gaining a few minutes or seconds by not obeying the rules is a powerfull motivating factor.
Behavioural safety COMPLETES the range of tools which are available to the safety world. It does not replace other tools, such as detecting, punishing, eliminating unsafe behaviour. I did not advocate throwing away those tools, I simply suggest that we consider another method which has been proven to work. Any doubters can log on to appropriate sites to read the latest psychological research on safe/unsafe behaviour and the reasons why we act as we do.
What I am suggesting is that, as I did myself some years ago, if you find a situation where traditional safety "enforcement" methods do not work, why not be open minded and try something else.
Any comments ?
Merv Newman
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Posted By Robert K Lewis
Merv
It is always a hard drum to bang as the stick seems to bring such rapid results - but alas not long term. There will be a plateau level which will generally be , for my own industry - construction, about 1.0- 1.2 reportables per 100,000 hours. To get below this requires firgure fudging or real moves towards getting each individual to take a responsibility for their own safety AND that of others - recognising their dependency on each other.
I have seen 0.5-0.6 reportables per 100,000 achieved but this is the exception to prove the rule.
It is not simply about getting people to obey the rules set voluntarily it is rather about an active ability to assess work situations and tasks as the work progresses. People will tire of me referring to him again but the educationist Paolo Freire calls this a move from "banking style" education culture to one of full "conscientization" where individuals can take in, assess and make decisions for themselves.
Discipline has to be a weapon of last resort but is still necessary for the benefit of all in the face of persistent offenders.
Bob
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Posted By Merv Newman
Bob,
thanks for your comments, I think we are in agreement, the stick works but not very well.
Behavioural safety gives people opportunities to analyse their own work environment and define appropriate safe behaviours. self measuring and feedback are also excellent tools for improving safe behaviour frequencies and, eventually, attitudes.
This leads to safe people being safe even in dangerouse environments.
Incidentally, a lot of the basic behavioural safety research was carried out in the uk construction industry. There were some good articles by dominic cooper in the SHP about four or five years ago. I can look up the dates if you like.
Results were not perfect - ie zero LTI, but consistent improvements were identified.
Regards
Merv Newman
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Posted By Robert K Lewis
I am aware of Dominics work but have some reservations on the detail of his approaches - but that is not a public discussion issue. With a rapid moving environment as is encountered on site there has to be a reliance on the operative to assess risk and then control it. We will never have direct and personal supervision for every operative unless of course clients are prepared for high increases in construction costs. Some clients will go this far but not many.
With regard to Zero targets - I personally think it senseless as a target because it will fail to be met. We should however work with the Expectation that we can achieve no harm to people arising from our work.
The ultimate shift is if the message is taken into non-work life and we achieve a real culture of safety - not simply one responding to the last major or frightening event.
Bob
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Posted By Allan St.John Holt
Merv,
In fact, a few minutes worth of surfing around would bring you to quite a firm body of opinion against behavioural safety, both in terms of ethics (some people see it as a management snooping charter), practicality (it really only works well in static sites) and also because it said to be clutched at by managers who think safety is just a people problem and the technique will save them having to put physical improvements in place. The latter argument is most often put forward by unions.
I suspect it will prove to be the fad of the decade, and the basic principles will be absorbed into an overall safety management system as part of the package.
An interesting exam question - discuss the pros and cons!
Allan
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Posted By Adrian Watson
Dear all,
If you want to read some well argued pros and cons of behavioural safety read:
Current developments in behavioural safety pp 199-212 in Innovations in safety management Fred A Manual ISBN 0-471-43959-2
I suggest taht you also read:
A holistic approach to changing unsafe attitudes and behaviours Michial D Topf pp 203-224 and
A union perspective on behaviour based safety James Howe CSP pp 225-274
Both articles are in Safety culture and effective safty management George Swartz, Editor ISBN 0-87912-202-1
Regards
Adrian Watson
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Posted By Robert K Lewis
Allan has touched upon some of my concerns with the approach taken by Dominic et al in what I would term the standard BS approach. I actually believe that they are in fact remaining within the "banking" approach to cultural change by their definition of what is acceptable safe performance and monitoring against that. It still is a "These are the rules and you should follow them" path with which I disagree strongly, except as I outlined earlier.
The root of the problem in most accidents is people, but this includes those sitting elsewhere than the work, who then fail to assess the work before issuing the task to be done. I think that we have to attack the issue that many people do not recognise that many decisions have safety consequences for others remote from the point of decision.
Bob
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Posted By Sean Fraser
With all sincerity, I found this to be a fascinating thread, with surprisingly varied responses. Personally, I believe that an attitude towards safe behaviour is THE cornerstone of any safety system, since there is only so far that the engineering aspect can actually go in making any work environment safe. It is not beyond the wit and ingentuity of misguided or even maliciously oriented humans to misuse a seemingly innocuous item in a dangerous manner! It was saddening to think that the very place that needs a safe attitude towards workplace issues, a non-static temporary workplace, is the one that reportedly benefits least from this concept.
I have found that just by getting people to stop and think about what they do immediately improves their chances of completing work tasks safely, but there will always be the problems of the rogue workers, boredom through repetition, the conflicting demands on often scarce resources etc. etc.. It is a real management issue that can sometimes bely what is claimed in the boardroom (people are our greatest asset, safety is our highest priority) and the reality at the front line (get the job done the quickest and cheapest way) and it is this that makes the field a continuing challenge. After all, if there was a simple and effective way to do what we do then it would be done by everyone already!
I thought that the safe attitude and behaviour aspect was a "given" in the safety field - obviously not, according to some of the replies above - so I am now away to find out if there are any statistics demonstrating improvements in safety using STOP cards and similar systems in the offshore oil and gas environment.
I do have some questions regarding the references cited by Adrian Watson - does the Institution provide a lending library facility that would allow for reference of such materials by members? Would it be interested in setting one up, if there was sufficient member interest? If not, how would I be able to access these and similar references in future?
Regards,
Sean.
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Posted By Robert K Lewis
Sean
I am not sure if you were referring to my posting when you talk of non static temporary - But it does benefit - it can be hard work with a transient workforce which is sometimes on site one day and gone. Construction needs some industry wide solutions and we have come to rest with the CSCS cards, Passports etc and these are simply "banking" again by another name.
The need is for a concerted effort but the industry cannot yet find the way to do this
Bob
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Posted By David Brede
Having come to safety from a business management background I would suggest that there is scope for a 'horses for courses' approach.
If you have a dire safety culture then a big stick has a certain directness to it!
However if you are in for the long term especially with a stable workforce then behavioural based safety has its merits because you have the time to get it firmly into everyones conciousness.
As was said elsewhere it is part of your toolbox, not the toolbox itself.
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Posted By Tim Marsh
What an interesting thread of discussion! Not often you find yourself agreeing with nearly all the points made.
My own perspective is that behavioural safety is primarily about design - designing out risk, designing out temptation and designing out weaknesses in systems - but also about involvement, measurement (as in "what gets measured gets done" and "if you can measure it you can manage it"), awareness raising and feedback.
One point I would like to make however, is that if all efforts are made to undertake the above:- working with people and trying to involve and understand them in a genuinely adult way then the "stick" becomes a more legitimate tool. This because far fewer people will be "behaving unsafely" (so will stand out more) and because they are far more likely to be doing so for "poor" reasons.
In broad terms I couldn't agree more with the "don't blame the victim" view of the unions but find it quite impossible to engage them in any sort of meaningful debate. Soap box polemics followed by walking away with fingers in ears wont do much to advance safety - which is surely the whole point.
Thanks for such a rational debate of the topic...
PS See also "Men Behaving Badly" (editor's title!) an article I wrote for the SHP about BBS and construction sites in 1996.
PPS If anyone has any joy getting hold of the articles quoted could you please let me know how?
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Posted By Robert K Lewis
David - It has to be applicable to more than stable workforces. The major risk operations involve transient workforces. The big stick only works up to a plateau level - people will still be injured and killed. It is not just about treating people as adults either - it is giving them the tools and ability and desire to monitor their own activities.
Bob
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Posted By Merv Newman
Bob,
I agree with you that we are not just talking about "stable workforces", we should try to establish normes of acceptable behaviour in the work place. A stable workforce makes the job much easier.
Tell a new employee that he must wear hearing protection in the signposted noisy areas, and he will do it, on day one. If he sees that most of his new colleagues are wearing ear-plugs, and that wearing them is rewarded with visible approval from from colleagues and supervision, then there is a strong chance that he will repeat the approved behaviour.
If very few wear them, and supervision do not react, then there is little chance that he will wear hearing protection on day 2. And after day 2, even the eventual threatening of the big stick will be unlikely to change this behaviour for the better.
For the construction industry, it just (!) takes longer for the acceptable behaviours to be adopted by a critical mass of the population. 20 years ago, no-one in the building trades would wear a hard hat. It was too sissy. Now wearing a hard hat is becoming a sign that you are a tough guy, doing a tough job (becoming, but a long way from 100%)
The long hard slog of construction safety advisors is only to be admired and encouraged. Don't give up, just try being nice to the B********
Merv Newman
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