Posted By James P W The only behavioural programme I've known started off well - training from top down to site managers (in construction industry). 50% of site ops were then put into teams and they met fortnightly. Results from site ops meetings were good but only 50% of workforce was involved. The message from the top was strong (although I question its sincerity) but most of the momentum was lost by the time things hit construction/contracts managers. Despite £££,£££ investment in training there was little strength to the whole programme three years on. Keeping it going day-by-day was the toughest challenge, so a fair chunk of the money spent on training was a real waste. Hope these points help.

Posted By Peter MacDonald I think simply that behavioural based initiatives fail as the majority of employees don't see the benefit of all the time and effort put into a scheme that's core aim is achieving "zero accidents". Most people outside of the health and safety profession (and I would guess a large section within it) don't see "zero accidents" as an achievable goal and certainly not anywhere near as important as job satisfaction and security. We've got to the point where we see "fair and just culture" as the strap line for behavioural safety initiative's that lead to people being interrogated by management and the safety department and branded as a "failure" of the system because they've had a minor first aid. They get told that they've brought the company closer to a fatality (shown the accident triangle and their stain of an statistic on it), and sent for re-programming by getting re-inducted and placed with a safety monitor who will help explain their failure by way of route cause analysis. For a first aid?!??! Pete

Posted By Dominic Cooper Hi Guys Good Question and some thoughtful answers. Like any improvement intiative there can be problems. Most of the problems with behavioural safety boil down to a lack of management's commitment and lack of employee ownership. These problems tend to stem from the design of the process and the way it is implemented in the first place (see http://www.behavioural-safety.com/images/White.pdf). For example, [1] not targeting the 20% of behaviours responsible for 80% of the incidents, relying instead on 'generic' observation cards that attempt to cover everything; [2] minimal observation 'contact rates'; [3] not collating or using the observation data to give feedback to the workgroups, etc, etc. Nigel is also correct that many behavioural safety intiatives only focus on 'employees' behaviour, not the behaviours of everyone involved throughout the acccident causation chain (e.g. managers). I am a strong believer in using Behavioural Safety to create a 'Safety Partnership' between management and employees, that covers the safety-related behaviours of everyone (e.g. purchasing & supply, HR, Engineering, etc) shown by root cause analyses to be heavily implicated in incidents. British behavioural safety research has shown managements safety leadership behavior is related to employee safety behaviour by anywhere between 35-51% ( see http://bsms-inc.com/Docu...mmittment-Cooper-013.pdf). Thus, managements inclusion in a behavioural safety process is vital to success. In addition (in accordance with James Reason's 'Swiss Cheese' model) the involvement of those in typical support functions such as HR, Purchasing & Supply, etc is equally as vital (ABC anlyses shows these functions are consistently involved in about 40% of all incidents!). I would wager many have not even considered focusing on the decision-making and safety-related behaviours of these functions as part of their Behavioural Safety process. The quality and effectiveness of behavioural safety processes can be assessed using the 'Behavioural Safety Maturity Ladder (see http://www.b-safe.net/be...ety_maturity_ladder.html) to help overcome some of the typical problems. In essence the ladder shows that increasing coverage, use of leading indicators and more involvement lead to greater injury reductions (the Maturity Ladder is underpinned by sound, scientifc behavioural safety research and 20 years practical experience in the field). As for zero injuries, it is possible with time and effort: e.g SABIC Petrochemicals (UK) Ltd on the Wilton Site at Middlesbrough has acheived a TRIR of 0.05 (inclusive of contractors), but it took 12 years of concerted effort. Another client with 47,000 third-party nationals on LNG construction in Qatar (RasGas) achieved 136 million man-hours LTI free (within 2 years). OGP and Shell Global Solutions both recognised RasGas as the safest 'upstream' Oil & Gas company in the world, 2 years running! Behavioral Safety was a fairly major part of the overall SMS system. These examples make the point that it is important to integrate the behavioural safety process into the mainstream SMS from the outset, and keep working at it: as my grandmother taught me' you only get results out of something, if you put something (i.e. effort) in. Behavioural safety requires a consistency of focus, purpose and execution. How many of the problems described result from a failure of one or more of these three attributes?

Posted By mark linton I used to be skeptical about some Companies claims about length of time without accidents or lost time accidents. It occurred to me however that for you to ignore the achievements and that they have only done that well because of 'clever accounting' you have to assume that under reporting is so rife that it would require the whole organisation lying to itself to such an extent that it makes the mind boggle. A local factory I am aware of has not had a lost time accident in over seven years (450 employees, fast moving environment), even if they were under reporting by 100% they would still only be having a lost time accident every 3 1/2 years - IMO still an enviable accident performance. Under reporting even at that level, let alone higher, I would struggle to believe as it would go against the best interests of the organisation (we are not talking incidents, we are talking LTI's - much harder to brush under the carpet). The example above - 136 million hours without a LTI, even if they had 'misplaced' 136 LTI they would still be 1 million hours without one, again enviable - although I might be stunningly naive.

Posted By Jim Walker If I visit a site with one of those big boards at the entrance saying "XXXXX days since the last LTA". I immediately think "incident event reporting driven underground here".

Posted By Jim Walker Dominic, I think generally behavioural safety is "turning around", in its infancy it was a poorly used tool. Many managers saw it as a way of shifting blame. Certainly in my industry its now reaping rewards. However as with many initiatives (& not just the H&S field) the law of unintended consequences rules. Which is why the current financial recession will weigh heavy on our shoulders for decades. Too many people tell the CEO what they want to hear. And too many CEOs only listen to what they want to hear. By CEOs you can include government ministers and other public services heads too.

Posted By GT C. Hartman, In response to Dominic's reply can I say I think Dominic was the first to use these statistics to promote the success of BS. I think BS has its place and I think with effort, focus, purpose and execution we will change the mind set we have at the moment. I was merely saying don't rely on any credence these statistics may signal that BS is the panacea for safety. I know Dominic and I will disagree about the statistics he quoted and he is entitled to his beliefs. Issues of effort, focus, purpose and execution vis a vis Behavioural Safety, that Dominic was trying to convey have also to be put into perspective. As BS is only one spanner in the tool box of safety. The Country where this maybe engaged,the nationality of the work force,education, experience,training,supervision etc all have a bearing on the success of BS. Changing any culture towards safer working in Western Europe is proving difficult enough, in other parts of the World is no easier. Regards GT

Posted By Jim Walker Nicely put Andymak. Pretty much reflects what I have seen too. However I'm involved in one system where the company (a client) did not give up after falling at this first hurdle and as I say things are beginning to reap rewards in terms of people's attitude.