I have just read an article in the ‘Health & Safety Matters’ magazine where one of Unites national officers suggests that theses initiative don’t work. Apparently “Unite believes many behavioural safety programmes are designed to undermine trade union activity on health and safety, reduce the role of joint health and safety committees and shift the blame for accidents and poor health and safety from management to workers”. I would welcome colleagues comments on this view of behavioural safety.

Peter,
I must admit to being a little disappointed that one of Unites national officers suggests that theses initiative don’t work and that they shift the blame for accidents and poor health and safety from management to workers. Surely it needs both issues to be addressed if safety in the work place is to succeed and for employees to take some personal responsibility for their actions or in-actions (HASWA 1974 sect 7 & 8).

Why would you be disappointed? Since the most common use of these systems are applied to changing worker behaviour (.i.e. not management behaviour) it is easy to see why the trade union would hold the views they do.
It is also common that individual performance of workers is explicitly and publicly used whereas such information with regard to managers is often not subject to the same publicity.
I am not necessarily supporting their view, I am saying I can recognise why they arrive at that position. It is an important opinion that proponents and supporters of such approaches need to consider.

This link perhaps both outlines the position (as at 2010) of the Trade Unions and identifies some of the common pitfalls that they have identified.
http://www.tuc.org.uk/workplace/tuc-17940-f0.cfm

Walker,
It is not just Unite, it is an opinion publicised by the TUC.
I agree with your observation about the absolutely essential professionalism of managers if the system is to bring any benefits to anyone from using these systems,

P48

Merv

If you follow Petes linky you will see.

Basically they feel bosses shift blame from management failure to behavioural failures therefore its the employess fault he got injured he ought to have been more careful.

Pretty much what the mill owners used to say.

Doug

On page 12 of the Health and Safety Matters edition you refer to, I summarise the trade union’s general position in the article entitled ‘Employers Behaving badly?’

On other posts:

1 It is not just UNITE who think most Behavioural Safety Programmes fail to deliver. Dominic Cooper, a well respected Behaviour Safety specialist often referred to on this forum in relation to Behavioural Safety stated the following in his most recent book, ‘Behavioral Safety - A Framework for Success’ (2009):

‘The major underlying reason that 99 percent of all Behavioral Safety processes fail is a loss of credibility.’

Please note the word ‘all’. A 1% success rate seems to equate with UNITE’s National Officer stating ‘many’ BS programmes don’t work.

2 Another specialist, James Reason, Professor Emeritus at the University of Manchester, reflects on the ‘Perceptions of Unsafe Acts’ in his book ‘The Human Contribution: Unsafe Acts, Accidents and Heroic Recoveries’ (2008). He identifies a number of models including the ‘Person Model’ which, he states, ‘is intuitively appealing (and still remains the dominant perception of unsafe acts).’ He then goes on to state:

‘Nonetheless, the shortcomings of the person model greatly outweigh its advantages, particularly in the understanding and prevention of organisational accidents.’

This indicates that there may be inherent weaknesses in many – but not necessarily all – BS programmes.

3 BS programmes have been a feature in the remarkably successful accident record at the Olympic Development Site in London. Lawrence Waterman, Director of Health and Safety at the ODA said the following at the Allen St John Holt Memorial Lecture in 2009:

‘It’s not mountaineers and Formula 1 drivers but ordinary workers who are put at risk by poor planning, inadequate procedures, limited training, cost-cutting maintenance and a host of other failures within organisations which were the responsibility of their directors and managers. The wholehearted embracing of behavioural programmes shouldn't blind us to the fact that most accidents can be prevented by better management at work.’

4 Making the point that BS programmes work when managers do everything right is a statement akin to the world is round. While technically correct it is not particularly helpful. If everybody did everything they were supposed to, the world would be a completely different place from the one we currently inhabit.

5 From what I can gather the general thought is that we should be concentrating on developing a positive health and safety culture within an organisation that takes into account many organisational and human factors. For some, BS programmes may add a benefit but they are just a tool and there are others that are as equally effective.

UNITE and the learned people I quote are drawing attention to the point that in too many instances, BS programmes are not properly implemented; lacked credibility with both managers and workers; and – presumably – failed to deliver. From my own background, I see worker involvement as a central strategic issue for any organisation’s development.

Unfortunately too many organisations only pay lip service and fail to deliver even the basic legal consultation rights for workers. (The HSE estimate that 60% of employees are not consulted by their employers, despite a legal obligation to do so.) Not only is this illegal but such employers miss out on the opportunity to improve their health, safety and business performance by directing the practical knowledge of their workforce into improving their organisational systems. BS programmes often become a distraction from more effective worker involvement processes.

Anyone interested in buying a copy of my book on worker involvement can e-mail me!

6 Facetious remarks about UNITE – and by implication other trade unions - should be reflected against the fact that in total the TUC cover over 6 million workers and – through the individual trade unions – support around 120,000 workplace safety representatives. In UNITE’s case they have around 1.5 million members and will have 10,000s workplace safety representatives. The number of individual workplaces they cover must be huge. While it is interesting to find individuals who love BS programmes because they work in their individual organisations, UNITE are reflecting their experience in many, many thousands of workplaces.

7 Given that it is generally workers that die, are maimed and injured through workplace incidents, my main concern about BS programmes is that they tend to limit worker’s views about what health and safety is about. Instead of comprehensively going through worker’s rights to consultation; health and safety representatives rights; the effective implementation of the general principles of prevention; the effective role of workers in developing risk assessments; identifying procedures for when supervisors, managers etc fail to deal with complaints etc, the tendency is to concentrate on how to identify, log and deal with ‘unsafe acts’ thus changing worker’s behaviour. If BS programmes are so good, why aren’t they applied to company boardrooms and at executive level to change their behaviour?

I concluded some time ago that the most effective thing that many BS programmes have achieved is to get people to wear PPE. In health and safety terms this is the ‘last resort’ and the bottom of a preventative hierarchy. Quite an expensive way of supporting the least effective preventative measure.

Cheers.

Nigel

I actually interpreted that first point as 99% of those that do fail, do so because of lack of credibilty not 99% of all BS schemes fail.

Pete

Thanks for the comment.

It reminded me that quite often managers, supervisors, safety representatives and workers are generally wanting to achieve a similar result. However getting common agreement on the measures needed to improve health, safety and business performance can be quite complicated, with differing views on the action/resources needed. This is why I - and others - argue that by putting greater efforts into worker involvement across an organisation will generally deliver better results.

Thankfully in the last 12 years there has been suffcient academically verified peer group reviewed research to convince the HSE to put £millions into seeking practical ways of improving worker involvement in the last couple of years. Hence their 'Do Your Bit' initiative. However in much of my own experience, while resources may be increased in relation to worker involvement, organisations quite often fail to address concerns that managers may have and effectively engage with them.

For example on training there remains an issue in many unionised organisations about the time safety representatives have for their basic training: Stage 1 and Stage 2 courses are both 10 days long. That's before you get into a large range of 1 and 2 days courses on a whole host of specific health and safety issues.

Over the years when I have asked about how much time managers are allocated to health and safety training and updating refresher courses and it has often been somewhat meagre. So it is quite positive that the HSE is underpinning the importance of joint manager/safety representatives training. Such joint training:

a Give managers the opportunity to see what pressures the safety reps/workers are under and 'put themselves in their shoes'. It also gives them the opportunity to state directly to safety representatives the pressures and organisational constraints the managers themselves are under. It offers safety reps a similar opportunity in relations to their managers.

b Allows all parties to address any weaknesses in their own organisations. Critically it gives them the opportunity to collectively identify solutions to problems. If in such training sessions they can agree measures to problems they themselves have identified, they are more likely to support any rules, procedures etc that need to be applied. PEOPLE SUPPORT WHAT THEY HELP CREATE.

c Such sessions give the opportunity to all parties to improve their working relationships.

I take the view that around 90% of health and safety problems in most organisations can be resolved internally. Invariably programmes brought into an organisation have to be modified/kicked around/tailored etc to fit the organisation. So why not start with the people who work in the organisation and let them specify what would help them solve their own problems. While this is an easy concept to grasp, office politics, status issues, organisational barriers, cumbersome procedures, idiosyncratic information technology, personality clashes and a whole host of others issues may lead directors to conclude that Wizzo Standard Template Consultancy with its garanteed 50% accident reduction in a year or your money back, is the way to go.

We should be looking to get the best out of all the people in an organisation and create processes internally with that aim in mind.

Jason

On my first reading I thought the same. However when I re-read it the phrase '99 percent of all Behavioral Safety processes fail' I concluded that is what it meant. Dominic is very articulate. I feel sure that if he meant to say, '... of all Behavioral Safety processes that fail, 99 percent are due to a loss of credibility' then that is what he would have written.

I know Dominic has responded to the Forum in the past, perhaps he might be able to clarify this point.

David

Thanks for supporting my main point. BS programmes seem to be most successful in getting people to wear PPE; the least effective preventative measure and 'the last resort' in the view of the HSE.

Cheers.

Nigel

BS has been around for a long while and the debate on its success continues- BS is not a a magic bullet that some safety practitioners think it is - prior to any start of a BS programme a clear understanding of what the programme aims are and probable barriers to those aims should be determined- this should be done via a climate or safety culture survey. Unless the outcome of the survey shows the business has suitable safety measures and employee/management trust then a BS programme is doomed to fail unless the barriers are understood and addressed prior to the BS programme start

Safety leadership programmes work better in my opinion