Posted By Merv Newman EE, (have already replied to your plea to the moderators) We have implemented BBS on sites ranging from 30 to 7 000 employees. Most difficult is of course the small site. I think the most relevant to your question was for motorway employees. Here we had two groups. First the patrollers, single employees who took out a van and drove up and down the motorway waiting for something to happen. When something did happen they had to stop the van and get out. Their place of work was now a motorway with vehicles going past at about 1 meter from them at 90 mph. Or they were the first on the scene of a, probably, fatal accident. Hard men who frequently saw the results of dangerous behaviours. I spent a lot of time observing them at work and eventually said "they don't need BBS. Their behaviours are impeccable". I was present with them at two fatal accidents. You wanna talk about stress ? You really don't want to see what makes one of those guys cry. OK. Second group were the "gardeners". These are two people who go out in the van together, picking up litter, mowing the grass, setting out the cones and so on. They actually have two seasons : Winter and not Winter. Come the winter and their lives are all about ice and snow, snowplows and gritting. So we had to develop, with their help of course, two different lists of behaviours. What we asked them to do, at the end of every shift, was to evaluate together their level of respect of the safe behaviours. This turned out to be a very good exercise. One which they liked to do. Management were only given the overall results. Or informed of problems which made one or other of the behaviours difficult. So, for your "garage" situation, what would I recommend (apart from a highly expensive consultant, like wot I am) ? Develop, with lots of employee input, a number of "critical" behaviours (if you don't do it that way you are injured or dead) Go for four or five. Each visit to a site you announce that you would like to observe how they work with the critical behaviours. EVERY SINGLE TIME THEY GET IT RIGHT - TELL THEM ! This is called "positive feedback and re-inforcement" Should they get it wrong then ask, politely, if there is a safer way of doing that. When they cite the "critical behaviour" then congratulate them. This is called "reminder and re-inforcement" Overall you are looking to develop safety awareness, knowledge of critical safe behaviours and good, safe habits. But you gotta be positive. Our account is in the post. Merv

Posted By Merv Newman Bernard, Perfect. Ownership by the workforce is the key. They must believe that it is THEIR programme. Even if safe behaviours are pre-defined. Merv

Posted By Merv Newman Kieran, thankyou for your comments. With BBS you have a choice of who does the observations. With a largish site the most effective way is to have a colleague do the observations, scoring and feedback. Training of these people (maybe one in thirty of the workforce) is cost-effective. However, with a large number of small sites, training can become a lot more complicated. Think of a 24-hr petrol station with a shop, pumps and maybe a workshop. Maybe only three or four people on site per shift. Total coverage including weekends may require about 15 to 20 employees. It makes more sense in those circumstances to just tell everyone about the programme, how user friendly and easy it is, get their advice on critical behaviours and so on and to train managers who visit the sites in observation etc. I don't know the frequency of management visits to such sites. Maybe once a week, maybe once a month. (I was sort of suggesting that the H&S person gets round every three weeks or so. But that was just a WAG) However, if such visitors can make the BBS observations as part of their routine then the recognition/reward/reinforcement/reminder event will occur more frequently. Just as an example : One of the "critical" behaviours for those in the motor way toll-booths is to keep their hands INSIDE the cabin. Don't reach for the money, let the driver stretch towards you. Avoids dog bites and grabbing by agressive or over amorous drivers. Same in the shops. Avoid hand-to-hand contact. It's already a beautiful day. First mug of coffee has gone down. Birds are singing and the sky is a clear, clear blue. Now for the wheatabix Isn't H&S wonderful. Merv. Have a nice day

Posted By Merv Newman Kieran, Acknowledging your evident superiority, I think I'm on to my "learning something new every day" bit. "Principles of learning conversations" Would you mind developing that please ? Merv