Safety Differently - an exciting new approach to safety or what some of us have been doing for years?

Back when I was a relatively young new H&S professional at the start of this century, I decided I wasn't going to be what I called an "old-style safety officer who goes round saying 'ere, you can't do that!" (based on my experience of such safety officers).  Instead my approach was based on engaging the workers by respecting their expertise in their jobs.  More often, instead of telling people what to do, I would draw out of people what they perfectly well knew was the thing to do. 

Then when I was developing KPIs I consulted BS8800 (as was) which told me to have a mix of lagging and leading indicators and I developed some nice positive proactive ones.

Now from this webinar it appears that all the time I have been doing Safety Differently.  And I am sure I am not the only one.

So is Safety Differently just - safety?

It sounds a bit like they are stating the obvious really!

Originally Posted by: Kate

More often, instead of telling people what to do, I would draw out of people what they perfectly well knew was the thing to do. 

Kate

Interested in what you mean? 

You can find out more about this approach by having a look at “Talking Safety-A User’s Guide to a World Class Safety Conversation” by Tim Marsh available on Amazon and other good websites.

Originally Posted by: Kate

I mean a sort of coaching conversation.  It might start out with them asking you "Is this OK?" and proceed via asking them "What are the possible problems with it?" to them coming to the conclusion that "it's OK, so long as ..."

The number of times I have seen safety professional trying to get people to revert to "work as imagined" and expecting that to stop accidents (doing more of the same thing but harder).  Your approach is exactly as it should be.

I don’t think by saying safety differently it suggesting it is new.  The scholars of "contemporary" safety science have been around for many years.  Many of the ideas come from social psychologists like Kurt Lewin Evert Rogers (Diffusion of Innovation), Jens Rasmussen, Erik Hollnagel, Edgar Shien et'al

I think the term "safety different" is more about putting the need for more rules, more compliance etc as a response to error/failure/accidents to protect people at work in a box on a shelf somewhere and instead of seeing people as a problem to be solved involving them as part of the solution.  Don’t get me wrong compliance is not a bad thing but it can only get you so far.

On another note you mentioned indicators.  So a company I worked for had a set of leading indicators but they started to decline, in attempt to get the numbers back up they decided to put a target on them.  the problem with that is that those leading indicators instantly became lagging indicators because the people involved had to chase a target and any belief that they were a good thing dissolved just as fast.  These were things like safety observations, management interactions etc.  Submissions became pencil whipped and very low quality.  It really showed how when you make something a requirement (compliance, regulated) it does not necessarily drive the behavior or give you the outcomes you might be expecting to see.  So what did I do, find out why there were less submissions. and made it easier for them to participate which organically improved the numbers

Originally Posted by: Kate

I had no idea there was a book on this!  Thankyou A Kurdziel.  I have ordered the book to see what tricks I may be missing.

The sad thing is that as soon as I logged on to my Blackwells account and before I had even searched for the book,   the 4 suggested books I might like consisted of a handbook on passing the CITB test, a H&S textbook, the ACoP to PUWER and the HSE Law Poster.  Still at least they didn't tempt me with any books I would like to read ...

I like Fairlieg's story about indicators.  Poor quality efforts towards a target is a definite problem.

Did I mention: the book has cartoons as well!

Thanks again to AKurdziel for recommending Tim Marsh's book Talking Safety.  It was an entertaining read and it describes the approach to conversations that I alluded to above using the terms the "curious why" and the "feedback fish".

I did pick up some more good questions to add to my repertoire.  He even has a method for overcoming the problem of targets devaluing what you are measuring mentioned by Fairlieg.  It is blindingly obvious once you know it: find out the extent to which the managers have been having the kind of interactions you want not by asking the managers to record them but by asking their staff how often and how well they've been happening.

I'm going to hold on to my copy for future reference, and I certainly recommend it.