BEHAVIOURAL SAFETY

Stopping Tomorrow’s Accident Today

Why do we need Behavioural Safety?

 Every time there’s an accident, we try very hard to make changes and improvements that mean it won’t happen again. This is important, of course, and will continue, but really, it’s too late. It took someone to get hurt before we got it right. Every time there’s an accident, we react to it. What we really need to do is be proactive, seek out tomorrow’s accident and take action now, before it happens. Many good businesses these days have good behavioural safety initiatives which, can help stop tomorrow’s accident today!

The traditional approach to safety is to first deal with the basics like the guarding of machinery and electrical isolation. The natural next step is to look at safe systems of work and develop procedures and instructions. This is right and proper, but in itself it doesn’t stop all accidents happening. Many companies who’ve done this find their safety performance better, but on a plateau.

Even where companies have put all this in place, there is evidence that accidents and injuries are still happening at work. Companies that have done all of this have realised that at some point the safety performance stops improving – it levels out. They have realised you cannot achieve zero injuries without tackling behaviour as well.

To get off the plateau we must also implement behavioural safety. This is because most accidents these days aren’t complicated, and most accidents could be prevented with a few seconds thought. Across industry, experience tells us that people suffer the same type of injuries – slips, trips and falls, cuts to hands, bruises, strains and sprains, hurt backs and banged heads – all behavioural type injuries. Implementing a behavioural safety observation programme is key to improving reducing the risks.

Even if you had the best systems and procedures in the world, and the most immaculate and tidy workplace, injuries will still occur if people break the rules, defeat guards, take short cuts, don’t wear their PPE and so on, all of which are unsafe behaviours.

At least 95% of incidents and near miss events at work have an element of unsafe behaviour – the things we should do but don’t do when we should. On the positive side because it’s PEOPLE that have accidents, and PEOPLE that cause some accidents, it’s also PEOPLE that can prevent them, hence the role of BEHAVIOURAL SAFETY as well as the other things described above.

Why do people behave unsafely?

A few examples are…………

• Sometimes we don’t have the tools and equipment to do the job safely. (Sometimes we do have the tools and equipment, but don’t use them).
• Sometimes the rules and procedures haven’t been put in place (Sometimes they have, but we don’t follow them).
• Sometimes we take shortcuts because it’s easier, simpler, saves time.
• Sometimes we are just not thinking or tired, stressed, distracted, unwell or preoccupied (We’re only human after all!!!).
• Sometimes we see people behaving unsafely, but we don’t say anything or do anything.

So how does behavioural safety work?

What it’s really all about is getting key stakeholders such as Senior Managers, Team leaders, Safety Representatives all out on a regular basis talking about safety with the people who know where and how the accidents have, and more importantly can happen. There’s no doubt that the people who have the knowledge about the hazards and risks on the job are the operators who do the jobs! The aim, therefore, must be to engage, talk about safety, swap knowledge, swap ideas, swap information and improve safety.

To do this safety discussions focus on behaviour. The idea being to observe, watch people work and then give them feedback. When they see safe behaviour – when people get it right – they say so. When they see unsafe behaviour they discuss why the person was doing what they were doing, and how we could change it, so they are not hurt in the future. Safety discussions give people the chance to share their concerns and get involved in preventing TOMMOROW’S ACCIDENT.

So, what do we do?

Firstly, we need to be clear on the safe behavior’s we expect of people so it’s clear what’s acceptable and what’s not. And we need to enforce it.

Secondly, we need to have a workplace where we never ever ignore an unsafe act. Whenever we see somebody doing something where they are at risk, we say something or do something. TO IGNORE IS TO CONDONE!

Is it that simple?

No, clearly if it were that simple, we would have done it already! Right? and would have zero injuries. Clearly, it’s more complicated than that, and goes much deeper aiming to address the Health & Safety Culture in the workplace. The Culture (“the way we do things round here”) is also critical in achieving our goal of zero injuries. Everyone must be given the opportunity to behave safely, look after themselves, and others, i.e. the need to create a culture where SAFETY is valued higher than anything, ‘including production’.

Finally, “We’re absolutely convinced to improve health & safety at work, you need to create a safety climate and culture where we truly believe that NOTHING we do at work is worth being hurt for. NOTHING we do here is so important we cannot take the time to do it safely. Even better, I am sure that good safety is good business. It doesn’t have to be one or the other; we don’t have to have good safety or good production output. The priority should always be safe production”.

In our next addition we look at “How can we Influence a Safety Climate and Culture”?

A fascinating insight based around true events following a workplace fatality.

A Safety Culture that took 5 years to build.