Behaviour Safety

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Behavioural based safety minimizes risk by reducing the number of “at risk behaviours” that can cause an incident.  Behaviour based safety was first utilized in the early 1990’s in several manufacturing  plants to try to reduce the number of incidents that were occurring..  The level of risk had plateaued and traditional safety that utilized the, “three E’s”, was not affecting the level of risk and consequently, the incident rate. 

The three E’s of  safety are Education, Enforcement and Engineering. Engineering out the level of risk is present in both traditional safety and cutting edge safety like human error reduction where operations are trying to become “fool proof”.  This is never achieved since fools are too smart and circumvent most measures that are meant to be simple, easy to use, and  understand.  Education or training is used to reduce the level of risk by making workers competent and skilled to perform their tasks so they are much less likely to make mistakes.  Enforcement is ensuring that the rules, safe work practices and procedures and hazard assessments are utilized.  The use of Personal Protective Equipment is monitored to ensure personnel are wearing it when they are supposed to and not taking short cuts  that lead to accidents….and this is where behavioural based safety shines.

 A steering committee of workers, management, supervisors and a consultant is created which determines the values the company believes in and communicates to all employees that behavioural based safety is going to be utilized as a method of loss control.  This committee oversees and leads the implementation process for behavioural based safety.  It is initially rolled out to a select group or pilot operation.   The steering committee, working with the employees, examines hazard assessments, safe work practices, job procedures and incident reports to determine critical behaviours that are essential in performing jobs in a selected area of the company safely.  Once these critical behaviours are established, an inventory is created and one page observation forms are created.   Peers or leaders are trained to observe workers performing their jobs and they coach the workers to perform these critical behaviours and stop the at risk behaviours that are happening.  This process must be done correctly in behaviour based safety because if these observations are used to discipline workers, or fix blame….the program is dead in the water.

Observers are trained never to use their observations as disciplinary actions, to be positive and to ensure that critical behaviours or “target” behaviours are achieved.  The level and number of observations depends on the complexity and degree of risk in the company.  Observations can be done daily,  weekly, or monthly.  Usually, the more observations that are performed, the lower the resulting incident rate if they are done correctly.  The intent is not to “squeal” on the workers but to, as Geller states, create an “actively caring environment”.

 Baseline measures of critical behaviours and  at risk behaviours are established by observing the workers and making no interventions initially. 

This baseline level is used as a comparison when coaching and/or interventions occur.   The resulting decline in at risk behaviours is graphed so all workers can see the effectiveness of behavioural based safety and that their input is essential.

 The observers are trained to perform the coaching, provide feedback and reduce the level of at risk behaviours…and the results are graphed to determine how effective these interventions are.  Management provides support as many barriers to effective safety programs are identified during this process and have to be removed.

Once the program is achieving results, feedback and action planning should be initiated on an ongoing basis to ensure the program stays on track.  Great success has been achieved with behaviour based safety if it is done correctly but it is a two edged sword…it can inflict mortal wounds on morale and the company’s Health and Safety program if done poorly.  It must be stated that contrary to popular belief,  behavioural based safety does not attempt to modify behaviour.  Skinner used behavioural modification on pigeons where it works well….but not in a typical work environment.

 Many labour organizations feel that behavioural based safety is an attempt to shift the onus onto workers for ensuring that their workplaces are safe but this is not the case.  Behavioural based safety is another tool in the arsenal that any safety professional should utilize.  A systems approach works best where behaviour based safety can exposure areas at risk and save money too.  Krause, one of the originators of behavioural based safety, talks about a situation in a refinery where valves were eight  feet high that had to be changed out and a number of incidents had happened during this process so the company was thinking of retrofitting the valves to a lower height.  Through the observation system, it was observed that one valve in particular was where the most exposure occurred because it was critical to the process.  This high degree of exposure to the workers was identified and this was the valve that was retrofitted because 98% of the time the other valves were never involved in the process. Procedures were developed for these rare instances and the incident rate was reduced greatly and the company saved time and money by pinpointing the area of increased risk, noting that engineering controls were required, and implementing them.

 In conclusion, behavioural based safety is an important tool that safety professionals and companies can utilize to reduce the level of “at risk behaviours”, identify exposures and incorporate into a systems approach towards Health and Safety.  Behavioural based safety is simply the right thing to do! It’s an attitude and process that any safety professional should aspire to.

Barbara Semeniuk whose website at www.purcellenterprises.ca contains some of her articles and who publishes a free newsletter quarterly (e-mail me at firstbesafe@shaw.ca to subscribe) on Occupational Health and Safety issues like new legislation and/or best practices is a consultant that believes:  Safety matters because you matter.  She runs her own innovative consulting firm called (you guessed it) Purcell Enterprises Ltd. and has been making a difference since 1988.  She customizes programs to individual clients’ requirements because one size fits all doesn’t.