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I’ve been tasked with embedding Behavioural Safety into our Organisation. Although I tried to raise with previous Directors nobody was interested, anyway fast forward to now and here I am.
So my question is what advice can you give me on the matter. What’s a good starting point and do you recommend I gain training in the subject in order to fully understand and achieve maximum results?
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Rank: Super forum user
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In my experience most senior leaders see behavioural safety as just front line obsevation programs which is actually only about 10% of the overall behavioural impact on safety... Operation managers are the people in the middle of the sandwich betwen moral pressure from the shopfloor and financial pressure from above, so most likely to err in favour of thier bonus targets.... The Kiel centre did a report into behavoural safety post piper alpha which provided a good model...I will look out the report number and post it..I have used that in the past...the model and one of the key points from my initial work essentially showed that the majority of H&S behaviours started with the boardroom which were difficut to observe (front line observations being easy to observe)... There are a number of websites to research before you do battle...I would look at the Kiel centre and also Step Change in safety which have a number of free guides to help with implementation...https://www.stepchangeinsafety.net/
I am not sure of your industry so these may all not be appropriate but they will povide the key principles...also there are some Human Factors assessments from CDOIF that will help with assessing your procedures for possible human failings...however these may need more training...HSL do a course on this. That is more Human factors than Behavioural Safety but the two are linked although not directly.
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 1 user thanked stevedm for this useful post.
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In my opinion, behavioural safety can only really be brought in successfully when you already have a good culture. It's a carrot, not a stick process and requires buy in for everyone. Without the belief that management want change for the better, it sounds like empty words and hot air .... the latest "buzzwords".
With a robust H&S management system, good communication and proof that things actually happen, then behavioural safety is an excellent tool aimed at bringing everyone on board to help themselves.
My advice, therefore, is examine your management system first, examine participation, communication and transparency with workers - see if your ducks in are a row and if not, make some obvious improvements to your H&S practices following consultation with employees to get them on board. After this, you can launch your behavioural safety programme. However, remember that Behavioural Safety Programmes are not the panacea for everything that is wrong with H&S, you need to have a robust and effective system first.
Edited by user 14 June 2019 07:38:33(UTC)
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1 user thanked hilary for this useful post.
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The first question I would ask is why? why do you or your company want to put in place a Behavioural Safety Program?
I know my previous employers only did because everyone else was and they decided that all the safety issues were down to the employees not following the processes. I did point out that the processes were pants (well I was more polite) and that the company was putting the cart before the horse, much the same as Hilary has stated.
These progams are a culture change at all levels from the Directors down and everyone has to be willing to buy into it and again it comes back to the question of why, what do you want to change?
If all your ducks are in a row, but you are finding employees are not wearing PPE, people aren't being proactive in terms of reporting, clearing up spillages etc and you want to raise the culture to one of positive re-enforcement and not negative, then thats when I would say to go down this route and if its down right it can work. I have yet to see it done right by a company as most companies are not mature enough to look at themselves and ask 'is it what we are doing thats wrong'.
There are some courses around and some good matrial on the internet and some really good books so have a little Google.
As an side, something I was looking at was using Behavioural Safety as part of the Risk Assessment and SSOW Process. Behavioural Safety is mainly focused on changing things that have gone wrong, are already in place (to some degree). I was looking at using it as a tool to identify where the issues might be before we put the process in place. For example you may decide the employees need to wear eye protection as part of a control measure, by using Behavioural Safety you could identify why people might not wear it and come up with solutions which would change their behaviour without them knowing, a bit like a 'nudge effect'.
A recent site I went to had just re-done all the line marking in the yard and put in some lovely crossings and walkways, however the crossing point was about another few minutes walk from the main entrance, so of course everyone stepped of the walkway and took a short cut. It's human nature. However if they had looked at behaviours once they had come up with the plan, it would have identified that the crossing was in the wrong place. If they had moved it closer, people would have automatically used it without even thinking about it.
Its an intresting avenue to go down, but if you come at it with the right approach it can work.
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1 user thanked MrBrightside for this useful post.
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Originally Posted by: MrBrightside  A recent site I went to had just re-done all the line marking in the yard and put in some lovely crossings and walkways, however the crossing point was about another few minutes walk from the main entrance, so of course everyone stepped of the walkway and took a short cut. It's human nature. However if they had looked at behaviours once they had come up with the plan, it would have identified that the crossing was in the wrong place. If they had moved it closer, people would have automatically used it without even thinking about it.
Its an intresting avenue to go down, but if you come at it with the right approach it can work.
Is the crossing in the wrong place? is that likely the safest crossing point away from vehicles entering the site etc? The observation here is the 'lazyness' of the workforce and disregard to site rules.
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Rank: Forum user
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You need to be careful that your BBS program does not degenerate to leadership pushing their accountability down on the workers (i.e. they made the mistake because they chose to behave in and at risk manner) Remember that context drives behaviour. if you try to fix the behavirour of 100's of workers you will go mad.... If you change they environment they work in so that they behave they way you expect you will influence the behaviour of more people. There are 5 principals of human performance 1) Error is Normal. 2) Blame fixes Nothing. 3) learning is vital 4) Context drives behaviour 5) how leaders respond to failure matters......... You can apply Demming’s principals and also take a look at some of Kurt Lewin’s Change Management literature - Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and stay in business, and to provide jobs.
- Adopt the new philosophy. Management must awaken to the challenge, learn their responsibilities and take on leadership for change.
- Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.
- End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move toward a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
- Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease cost.
- Institute training on the job.
- Institute leadership — the aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.
- Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.
- Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and use that may be encountered with the product or service.
- Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
- a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.
- b. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute workmanship.
- a. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.
- b. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by objective (See CH. 3 of “Out of the Crisis”).
- Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
- Put everyone in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everyone’s work.
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1 user thanked fairlieg for this useful post.
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Originally Posted by: Todai Originally Posted by: MrBrightside A recent site I went to had just re-done all the line marking in the yard and put in some lovely crossings and walkways, however the crossing point was about another few minutes walk from the main entrance, so of course everyone stepped of the walkway and took a short cut. It's human nature. However if they had looked at behaviours once they had come up with the plan, it would have identified that the crossing was in the wrong place. If they had moved it closer, people would have automatically used it without even thinking about it.
Its an intresting avenue to go down, but if you come at it with the right approach it can work.
Is the crossing in the wrong place? is that likely the safest crossing point away from vehicles entering the site etc? The observation here is the 'lazyness' of the workforce and disregard to site rules.
I also thought that possibly the crossing was positioned there for the reason to keep it away from what is obviously a vehicle entrance (hence you need a crossing). People will always be lazy, including me; I think to a point it has to be accepted and dealt with. In my view the thing missing /wrong was a need for a barrier along the walkway, so it made the provided crossing point the shortest distance. Thus, the easiest route is the correct route. We did similar where I worked previously and it worked well. Of course, you would have to see the set up as it may be the case that pedestrians were accessing the site via the vehicle entrance anyway, so the barrier may not work as they will walk the road. I think the very valid point Mr Brightside was making was they needed to review what they had done at a point in time afterwards to ensure it was working as planned. However, it is taking the thread in a different direction to that the OP wanted, sorry. Chris
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