Its hard to comment without knowing the context in which the rules are being broken. BBS folk would say name, blame, shame retrain etc, negative consiquence for "bad" or at risk behaviour positive for good etc. (not sure if you can tell I am not a fan of what BBS has to "Sell").

What have learned about how they do the work.  Have you asked them why they don't do it according to the "rules".  If your trying to find out what makes them tick thats usually a good place to start.  If the "rules" keep getting broken is it the people breaking them thats the problem or the rules themselves...

....if you keep doing more of the same but harder and not seeing the result you're expecting it might be time to try something different....

some places to go looking 

http://www.safetydifferently.com, 

http://preaccidentpodcast.podbean.com/, 

http://www.scheinocli.org/, 

http://erikhollnagel.com/books.html, 

http://www.mindtherisk.com/publications 

Edited by user 13 May 2019 09:26:36(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Fairleg, thanks for your reply.  I'm not a believer in rules for rules sake and always try to build a relationship with site personnel whom I consider as preofessional colleagues.  The rules I tend to adhere to are PPE, particularly glasses and hi vis.  

Recently we were working on a site with various other trades.  The main contractor was a stickler for ladder safety.  Work had to be performed from a podium ladder with the gate closed.  This was explained at induction, at TBTs and was included in all RAMS. I still had two guys stood down for breeches of the rule.  When asked why the reply was along the lines of "I forgot"

My question is why do some people ignore / forget safety rules.  I understand the root cause can be deep rooted and I'm not going to solve the issue totally.  I'm trying to achieve sensible H&S and treat people as adults.

Back to what #3 says: it even has a name ABC.

A=antecedents, what are the things leading up to the particular behaviour, this  is really down to the culture of the organisation,; do manager walk the walk as well as talk the talk? Are the rules sensible and proportionate and intended to get the job done safely bit without too much unnecessary hassle or are the just tick box fodder?  

B= Behaviour- actions that you are looking at and

C= what are the consequences? You can tell people that if you don’t do that this will happen but most of the time nothing happens and they get away with it.  You should, in an ideal world be getting people to do things for positive reasons not because of fear of being caught.  

Have you identified any reasons why they are not follow the rules, other than pure gittery? “I forgot” is not really a reason. Do the gates stop them doing something (or slow them down)? If something is seen as slowing them down do they lose out financial?  Do they get home quicker  if they cut corners etc?

Originally Posted by: Mark-W

He was asked to stop and go and get his RPE, his response,

So even when asked nicely this tradesman defied the rules and paid the price. So it can't be down to education for some people, just sheer bloody mindedness

Was he asked or was he told 'stop what you are doing and go and put on your RPE'. Was he asked if he was aware of the need to wear RPE, why he should be wearing it, why he wasn't wearing it? This is a job he has done hundreds of times before and is still alive, so for him he can't see the point.

RPE can quite often be hot and uncomfortable, was this asked?

The rail industry (Network Rail specifically) use a behavioural safety approach to this issue through what they term the 'Fair Culture Flowchart'. It's designed as an investigatory, not not a disciplinary, tool but the outcome of the process could lead to disciplinary proceedings

There are a number of examples of the flowcharts available on google images, but Network Rail's own guidance document is freely available on the web and can be downloaded as a pdf document here:

https://safety.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/A-guide-to-using-the-fair-culture-flowchart.pdf

Its a very detailed document which is well worth reading even if you decide to approach the subject in a different way.

It does of course require managers and supervisors to have the right mindset, and in some cases undergo some 'reeducation' in order to take this approach!

In this situation my first instinct would be to coach the supervisor or ganger, possibly you have had them some time & they are set in their ways?, get them doing the right thing and then leading by example can be quite effective.

You can achieve this by involving the supervisors in more of the decision making in what goes into the safe system of work and toolbox topics etc as opposed to  having them brief out TBTs compiled by someone else.

Without the supervisors buy in, nothing much is likely to change in my experience.

We found that once the supervisor/ganger turned up for work in full ppe, everybody else started following suit(pardon the pun) unprompted.