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Behaviour-Based Safety

Behavior-Based Safety (BBS) is the process that creates a safety partnership between management and workers, focuses on people’s behaviour related to how they work, and encourages all workers to be safe and to work safely all times. Behaviour-based safety (BBS) has become increasingly popular since Frederick Taylor first pioneered scientific production management in the early 20th century. Today, his basic principles of standardized procedure and interdepartmental cooperation still steer the processes behind increased efficiency and systemized safety for many corporations. BBS is based on the principle that unsafe work behaviours are responsible for the majority of workplace incidents and reduced productivity. By identifying, measuring, and correcting critical behaviours, management is able to produce the desired safety and production statistics. One key way that we can reverse unsafe behaviour patterns is by developing a system of positive acknowledgment and reward that motivates employees to engage in safe practices. This process begins with the scientific study of behaviour through identification and analysis, followed by continuous observation to determine the potential causes of unsafe work. Then, by applying what we know about the science of

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individual and group motivation, we can predict how potential methods of intervention and incentives might change real-world behaviours. Managers have been trying to manipulate employee motivation for decades with compensation-based safety programs, but these programs often create short-term gains and long-term losses as the system unravels due to the natural human desire to gain as much reward from as little work as possible. To accomplish behaviour modification, managers must first recognize that work is a social activity, meaning simple reward dynamics, when properly applied, can have drastic effects on the way people accomplish tasks. They respond to incentives, but in many cases, incentives are misplaced and don’t end up prioritizing the work behaviours they were created to modify. In systems where employees are rewarded for meeting production goals, they will often cut corners and ignore safety procedure to accomplish tasks more quickly. This is because behaviour stems directly from the consequences of our action. In respect to safety, this means that if employees can expect increased rewards for meeting production goals by skipping safety procedures and experience infrequent incidents, most people will continue to cut corners. In drastic cases, workers may even avoid reporting incidents that have occurred if they believe reporting the incident will take away their reward. So how do we remedy this misplaced motivation? Many managers may ask why they can’t just further incentivize safety goals with larger compensations. This bandage may temporarily bolster statistics, but incidents will likely soon bounce back as workers adapt to the new standard and once again find ways to further ‘optimize’ work efficiency by cutting corners, which destroys safety programs and productivity internally. So how can management effectively engage in BBS? The simplest way to shift behaviour is to apply incentives to desired behaviours as opposed to results. This requires us to use the scientific process to dissect work habits to expose employee motivation and naturally realign incentives.

The Scientific Process Step 1: Pinpoint Behaviour

BBS starts with training staff (both management and frontline workers) to identify and observe critical safety behaviours. For example, maybe employees are ignoring a safety system already in place. Perhaps unclean workstations present a safety hazard or a lack of organization is increasing the amount of time it takes to find tools—these can be areas not necessarily bound by compliance or current work procedures. During this step, it’s crucial that everyone is open and honest with themselves and others about the reasons procedures are ignored or why tasks may have been completed inefficiently. Once employees are able to recognize, collectively, the work habits that cause injury or incidents, they can agree on ways to prevent those behaviours from occurring. An employee may not be happy to admit that he doesn’t wear safety glasses to save time, but his attitude will quickly change if he finds out he will soon receive tangible rewards for taking the time to do something as simple as wear the proper protective equipment. As the group analyzes behaviour and production methods, standardization of work procedures can begin.

Step 2: Measure and Collect Data Step 3: Create Feedback and Observation Loops

Step 4: Reinforce Step 5: Evaluate Keep organizational focus on safety culture and improvement will take root top-down, bottom-up, and throughout. These improvements in safety will help avoid the huge direct and indirect costs of incidents, and these increased behavioural efficiencies tend to also have a positive effect on production statistics and overall worker satisfaction.

Online Behaviour-Based Safety Training Coming Soon! The new online Behaviour-Based Safety course is being developed in partnership with CLAC (Christian Labour Association of Canada), AMHSA (Alberta Municipal Health and Safety Association), Leavitt Machinery, and SET (Specialized Emergency Training). This comprehensive online training program will explore the ABCs of human behaviour, influence factors, selfawareness, and habit formation as they relate to safety in the workplace.

June 8, 2015 / Blog / Tags: Behaviour Based Safety, behaviour based safety training, online safety training, safety courses, safety training