We, as humans, are known to make mistakes. However, it is not always obvious how these mistakes affect our incidence rates.
According to the behaviour-based safety (BBS) school of thought, safety managers can use behavioural data to not only prevent risky behaviours, but also to encourage safe ones.
BBS or behaviour-based safety makes use of safety observations to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of workplace safety initiatives.
BBS recognises that safety depends on more than just engineering and technological procedures. The technological elements of design and the control of human behaviour may coexist in harmony.
Safety professionals are required by BBS to gather data on both safe and unsafe activities as well as working environments.
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Both scheduled and unplanned observations must be included in a safety programme to determine the genuine capabilities of a specific person; and determine whether they carry out their tasks in accordance with their training.
This approach relies heavily on planned and unforeseen observations, according to a concept known as the ‘Hawthorn Effect’.
According to the Hawthorn Effect, people act differently when they are aware that someone is watching them.
Teams scramble to don personal protective equipment when the safety manager arrives. As a result, planned safety observation capture may not accurately depict how a worker performs an activity on a regular basis.
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Safety experts should keep in mind two factors when thinking about BBS. The first is the significance of the observations themselves. The second is that providing feedback is equally crucial to conducting the observation.
In other words, simply monitoring employees and gathering data is insufficient. It is important to talk about ways to become more self-aware and to make a strong case for how worker conduct affects their safety.
In the end, integrating BBS into a safety programme entails setting up a never-ending feedback loop. No workplace can use BBS successfully as a yearly campaign or as a one-time attempt to stir things up.
Safety personnel must continuously observe, identify and offer feedback for BBS to be most successful. Consistency is key.
The advantages of BBS are found in the understanding that there is a human component to safety.
Recognising the human element of safety acknowledges that human conduct influences results even when the hierarchy of controls is strictly followed.
BBS gives safety professionals a system for clearly defining safe and unsafe behaviours; involving employees in safety and decision-making processes; promoting desirable behaviours through education and shared understandings; and providing a way to formally recognise positive behaviours.
BBS enables safety professionals to respect the human aspect of safety.
Safety professionals are able to create consistency for employees through these acts, which is crucial for employee engagement.
For employees, there are few things more frustrating than not knowing what is expected of them and then getting contradictory information.
BBS enables safety professionals to collaborate closely with employees to recognise, evaluate and correct risky behaviours, reducing risk.
The ability of safety teams to identify and correct risky behaviours before they result in losses is perhaps their most useful tool.
The outcomes for enterprises include cheaper costs due to fewer accidents (both direct and indirect costs of insurance); fewer operational disruptions; increased productivity; and smooth, regular production as the norm.
BBS cannot, however, serve as the first, second, or third line of defence for worker safety. It will ever take the place of the control hierarchy.
As an alternative, BBS supplements safety programmes by helping to: identify programme deficiencies; build on programme strengths; make improvements based on worker feedback; empower self-aware workers; and give teams the chance to actively participate in safety every day.
They will not be obtained if an organisation uses BBS wrongly or runs a careless application.
These observations turn into a time-consuming box-checking exercise that does not add anything to useful measurements.
Even worse, safety teams will actually cause harm by condemning the employee for their actions while failing to offer a solution. Instead of fostering cooperation, they will foster resistance.
The basic line is that while BBS might contribute to your safety culture, but it should not serve as its mainstay.
To develop a comprehensive safety management system and culture, safety teams can utilise it in conjunction with human and organisational performance or safety by design as well as compliance initiatives.
The intention is to demonstrate safe behaviours, reward them and persuade others that they are the optimal behaviours because they put the safety of workers first.
