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Behavior Based Safety - fact or fable

Written by: Robin Pullen

Article Overview: What is BBS and how is it different to behavioural safety? How does behavioural safety evolve within an organisation? How can you know if BBS or behavioural safety will work in your environment?

Behavior Based Safety - fact or fable

I have a friend that I have come to know as JOB. JOB really loves his job. By that I mean that JOB appreciates the opportunity to have work and he is willing to work hard at his job.

JOB tries his very best at the job however sometimes he just does not understand what the company wants from him. JOB does not have a great education but he is willing to learn and ready to try just about anything that is asked of him. But recently JOB has found himself and his colleagues in a bit of trouble. It seems that some of the managers have learned a new language and it feels like they are attacking them on all sorts of issues. It's like there is always something wrong with his behaviour, no matter what he is trying to do. No one seems to care, no matter how hard he is tries.

These days JOB keeps on talking about the all the BS that is going on at work. Before the BS he and friends were getting along just fine. Sure they know that they could do some things a little better, and they were willing to admit that they had something to do with some of the incidents, in a very small way of ‘course. But that was before the BS. Since this new stuff has come to the company it feels like everything is their fault?!

What is BEHAVIOUR-BASED SAFETY?

Behaviour-based Safety (BBS) is intended to be an effective approach to preventing occupational injuries. It can be described as the psychology of prevention. However in practice it only reaches its potential when everyone in the organisation understands the behaviour-based safety principles and practices the BBS procedures.

Wikipedia describes it as the ‘application of the science of behaviour change to real world problems'. BBS ‘focuses on what people do, analyzes why they do it, and then applies a research supported intervention strategy to improve what people do". At its very core BBS is based on a larger scientific field called Organizational Behaviour Analysis.

It is more about changing the behaviour of front line employees. It is about identifying the barriers to safe behaviour and designing and implementing a strategy for ensuring that work environment, practices and policies support behaving safety.

Scott Geller writes that behaviour-based safety has helped employees understand why at-risk behaviours occur and why we see some behaviour is not happening on a regular basis. Practical speaking it has provided strategies for obtaining objective evidence of at-risk behaviours. It has enabled us to define barriers to safe behaviour. Many BBS process are entrenched through teaching ways to substitute safe for at-risk work practices and holding people accountable to improve their safety related behaviours and help others do the same.

How effective is BBS?

Research shows that behaviour-based safety interventions typically produce improvements in the region of 30% upwards.

If implemented correctly it is a positive, employee driven safety system that can be highly effective in improving a company's performance of safety. If not, and statistics show that as much as 70% of the initiatives embarked on in companies in the USA fail, the process has a probability of failure.

To be successful a BBS program must include all employees. This includes the CEO to the floor associates. To achieve changes in behaviour a change in policy, procedures and/or systems most assuredly will also need some change. Those changes cannot be done without buy-in and support from all involved in making those decisions. BBS is not based on assumptions, personal feeling, and/or common knowledge. To be successful, the BBS program used must be based on scientific knowledge.

BBS is said to have originated with the work of Herbert William Heinrich. In the 1930s, Heinrich, who worked for Traveller's Insurance Company, reviewed thousands of accident reports completed by supervisors and from these drew the conclusion that most accidents, illnesses and injuries in the workplace are directly attributable to "man-failures," or the unsafe actions of workers. His work is still-cited as finding that 88 percent of all accidents, injuries and illnesses are caused by worker errors. However Heinrich's data does not tell why the person did what they did to cause the accident, just that an accident occurred. BBS programs intend to look into the act that causes the accident.

There are many consultants who promote behaviour-based safety programmes and most have several common elements. Lists of "critical worker behaviours" are developed with input from workers themselves. Inevitably these lists end up with elements such as "staying out of the line of fire," "proper body position," and "using personal protective equipment." Workers (and/or supervisors) are trained to observe workers doing their jobs and, using the "critical behaviour list" generated in that workplace, noting down when workers are using safe behaviours or committing unsafe acts. There is training for those who will be observing, and frequent observations of workers. There is often management commitment of substantial resources to promote the behavioural safety approach.

What will make it successful?

The success of the concept relies on creating an environment that has a culture in which each and every individual feels directly responsible for his or her own, and his or her colleague's safety. The systems and procedures depend heavily on people implementing and adequately managing the tools.

A fundamental principle of behavioural science is that (a shift in desired) behaviour will not be sustainable unless it continues to be reinforced over time.

What are some of the effects of a BBS process?

We notice a couple of challenges that can develop in workplaces that have adopted behaviour based safety. The "hierarchy of controls" is abandoned. By that we refer to a system of addressing workplace health and safety problems established in an order of preference for hazard control measures:

1 > eliminate the hazard by redesign, toxic use reduction or other means;

2 > use engineering controls to prevent workers from coming in contact with the hazard;

3 > use warnings to notify workers of the danger (e.g. back-up alarms on trucks);

4 > training and procedures; and

5 > use of personal protective equipment

Often some managers are delighted with BBS because it seems to shift the responsibility for health and safety to the frontline employee and does not require significant change in the work process, engineering design or management system. It is considered less expensive because the company can use current employees to identify hazards rather than employing consultants.

What is required of leadership and management to do?

From our exposure to industry we notice that there are a couple of critical leadership behaviours required for a behaviour-based safety process to be established in an environment. First the leadership will have to learn to walk the talk. Secondly the leadership team will have to learn to show that they care. Overall the company will have to ensure that leadership and management play a significant role in the process to ensure that it does not become primarily the responsibility of the employees.

What is required of employees to do?

The success of a BBS process relies in the ownership of the employees. This requires continuous participation from the design and implementation of the project, in training and ongoing observation in their work groups. It is expected of them (you) to use the resulting data to develop action plans to address hazards and encourage safe work practices.

What about getting the feedback?

When was the last time someone offered to give you some "feedback"? How did that interaction make you feel? Do you ever anticipate a positive experience? Most people do not expect to enjoy a feedback session. Many safety consultants assume that feedback is naturally accepted and frequently used. Our experience is quite different. So how does one manage a system that so heavily relies on accurate timorous feedback?

Practically speaking, when untrained supervisors witness employees offering feedback to peers on safety performance they can feel left out of the process. This can lead to supervisors alienating themselves from the process.

What are you actually measuring?

The success of a BBS process is based on a particular set of measurements. However the quality of the intervention depends on the numbers and indicators that one chooses to evaluate on. Most interventions measure against ROI and LTI / TRIR / TFR. None of these indicators give guidance to why behaviour is or is not changing. Rather than been proactive, those who focus almost exclusively on accident rates as a measure of safety performance tend to be reactive in their approach to safety.

We believe that a more appropriate set of indicators are those that relate to desired behaviour practices which can be identified through the Behaviour Practice Observation (BPO*) instrument.

Can you DO safety?

I guess, like you can do coffee or hot chocolate. My friend JOB prefers tea with milk and two sugars. That makes me think. How would JOB and his friends respond to a notion of creating a safer place to work if they understood behavioural safety from an OBM perspective?

How is this different to behavioural safety? (An OBM perspective)

Yes, behavioural safety is simply the use of behavioural psychology to promote safety in the workplace. It is however a systemic approach to understanding the prevailing worldviews and their influence on culture and allowing an opportunity for management to make appropriate responses.

Behavioural safety within an organization should involve 1) creating a systematic process that defines a finite set of behaviours that reduce the risk of work-related injury, 2) collecting data on the frequency of critical safety practices, and then 3) ensuring that feedback and reinforcement encourage and support those critical safe behaviour practices.

In a traditional behavioural process, employees conduct observations and provide feedback to associates within their work areas. These observations provide data that is used for problem recognition, problem-solving, and continuous improvement. This information is intended to help fashion more appropriate ways of thinking about the way that a group of people approach their work.

How do you know if behaviour safety will work in your company or environment?

Perhaps if the company that JOB was working for could have accessed if they were really ready for behavioural safety, they would have been better prepared. There are three evidences that would have indicated to the company that they are ready for something like this.

1) If JOB and his colleagues believe that management are dedicated to safety.

2) If their management demonstrate such a commitment by ensuring that the working place is free from hazards and eliminates risk through management and design.

3) If the employees are willing to work with management to minimise the risk of injury.

How can your company get ready for behaviour safety?

The notion of safety has been described as a principle or value that finds itself in the culture of a group of people. The company that my friend JOB works for can prepare the way for a process of addressing behaviours that alleviate risk and promote safety. They would need to develop a way to adequately develop trust relationships and communication between its leader, managers and people. Secondly, the leadership and executive management will have to be willing to aggressively deal with physical hazards and working conditions that lead to at risk environments. One way to achieve this is to invite the participation of a Journey Partner who can facilitate behavioural strategies with your team.



Does it only deal with "safe" behaviour?

An outcome of a good behavioural safety process is data that can provide valuable insights to addressing the conditions and behavioural practices of our working places. Management can use these insights to effectively allocate resources to engineer solutions to the risks that your people are exposed to.

Memoirs of a Journey Partner

I have so enjoyed the opportunity to sit in on project committee meetings. It creates a space to listen to the behavioural language change over time. So often when we first begin a process we encounter a typical set of phrases. Perhaps you have heard them? Some of the best are, "Yes, but around here we..."

or " but this is mining* mister, and you have to understand that.."(*insert your own industry here)

or "I know that, but this is how we have done things for the last 30 years..."

or the best, "Yes I hear you, but when I was..."

As the projects evolve through the implementation, and more people are exposed to the new language that nurtures the notion of safety we begin to see changes. First we notice that the project team begins to use new word sets. They seem to change their frame of reference. It seems as if one-by-one, one day at a time, people stop looking back in time and start to learn to look forward. We see that people in the project team start to learn to talk with one another rather than at each other. This is far more noticeable in working environments that are trying to approach the process development in a learning mode.

It was by accident that I authored the Behaviour Practice Observation (BPO) instrument. It is really the result of struggling through frustrations of linear and traditional auditing functions as they were not providing the information or observation that we needed. The challenge of communication in such a way that it supports a change in behaviour is closer than we think.

We were invited to address the development of mental models for the chamber of mines lead behaviour adoption project. In my analysis and preparation it became clear to me that we need to find a way to look at what is happening between individuals during their work, more than at the place or location of work and what had been done. Many of the data and information available to date lacked evidence of the notions of behaviour of the people under observation.

This is where I realised that the communication challenge is closer than you think, but further than you know.

I am often taken by surprise at the first responses that we get at leadership forums. The most common of these are the notion that they were expecting a "how you are going to do this...in three easy steps." The pragmatic need for outcomes often overshadows the solutions that are right in front of us, those hidden "between our people".

What are we talking about today?

What we have come to realise is that there are two people who can really make a difference in an organisation. The one is the CEO and his or her ability to convey a behavioural message about the notion of safety.

The second is you, the HSE. I don't really care why exactly you landed up in this role however I do care a great deal that you have the opportunity to really touch the lives of the people around you. You have access to both leadership and management structures, as well as so many informal networks among your colleagues.

Often at the end of a training or facilitation session I am asked what

"gift" I have to leave with the participants. It was in one particular moving session that we were challenged to think of the greatest gift that we can leave with people.

It is the notion that if something were to happen to you and you lose this opportunity or even your life, "friends may remember you for a while, but your family and children will never forget."

The greatest value we can add to an organisation is that opportunity to get home safely to be with your family today, tomorrow and until we meet again.

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Article Tags: all sorts, bbs, behaviour analysis, behaviour based safety, behaviour change, bs, changi, colleagues, great education, intervention strategy, job, new language, new stuff, occupational injuries, organizational behaviour, prevention, psychology, real world, safety principles, wikipedia



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