Behavior based safety is a key element of any safe workplace, with your employees and supervisors at the center of it all. In the first of our five-part safety briefing webinar series, Dr. Tim Marsh, Pat Sheehan, and Rob Leech explored several aspects of behavioral safety and offered their expert insights.
But first, who are these experts?
Dr. Marsh is a behavioral psychologist who has written many best-selling books on this topic, including Total Safety Culture and The Definitive Guide to Behavioral Safety. Pat Sheehan, who is the Associate Director of SHEQ at Colas Ltd., offers his expertise with 23 years in health and safety, while Rob Leech provides a more technological perspective as the Principle Product Director of Innovation at EcoOnline with over 25 years experience in the software space.
It’s safe to say, you’re in good hands when it comes to optimizing behavior based safety practices at your organization with these experts by your side! Keep reading to find out more about their thoughts on:
- What behavior based safety is
- What is its relation to culture
- A holistic approach to behavior-based safety
- The future of behavioral safety
- And much more!
Behavioral safety
Behavior based safety is an approach organizations take where workers are observed while carrying out their job tasks. This ensures safe behaviors are used to avoid injury or illness. Identifying both positive and negative safety behaviors is vital to get to the root cause of safety behaviors enabling you to create a safer work environment.
As explained by Dr. Marsh in the webinar, there are four different approaches or strands when it comes to behavior based safety:
- Awareness raising: This method is where supervisors and trained observers raise awareness and teach workers about certain elements of a job task, so employees avoid using unsafe behaviors while doing them. You can also think of this as the “be careful” strand.
- Stop: This involves workers stepping in and saying something when they see unsafe behavior. You can use this as a coaching opportunity to help guide the employee to carry out the task safely, by asking questions like, “have you thought about the potential consequences of what you’re about to do?”
- Six Sigma Approach influenced by Deming: Dr. William Deming, most famously known for the creation of the Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle in reference to continuous improvement, influenced the statistical process control method (SPC). This method is used in the Six Sigma approach to oversee and control specific processes.
- Holistic and integrated approach: Finally, organizations can choose to take a more holistic and integrated approach to behavior based safety, looking at human error from a more humanistic perspective. With this method, you really try to get to the root of why people make certain mistakes and why they choose to cut corners, considering aspects like safety culture, mental health, and more.
Though these approaches may be different, they all should never be driven by blame (something some organizations often get wrong when it comes to BBSO's). This can be determinantal to your safety culture and make things regress, as employees will be afraid to report an unsafe incident leading to more hidden risks on site.
Culture is king
Speaking of safety culture, your organization’s culture is a reflection of how employees behave on site.
Leadership is crucial here, as they must set an example for others. If leaders show interest in how work is conducted, review the data, come on site, and stress the importance of conducting work safely, this will trickle down to every aspect of the company.
“Culture is not what we say it is, it is what it actually is,” said Dr. Marsh. “It’s incredibly powerful and important because it doesn’t matter what we say, but what we do that casts a shadow, especially if we’re a leader."
Check out what Pat Sheehan shared in reference to how leaders set an example at Colas Ltd in this clip from the webinar:
Holistic approach
A holistic approach helps you widen your scope when it comes to behavioral based safety observations (BBSO), as explained earlier. Dr. Tim Marsh explained that organizations can use this method to help optimize their BBSO’s taking into consideration external factors which may be affecting employees.
On an average day, people are not always alert and focused at all times. This may be because of a bad night’s sleep, poor mental health, etc. which could affect their quality of work the next day. It’s important to understand why individuals may be struggling or using unsafe behaviors when on the job. You also have to question whether you have provided these employees with the right tools for success such as training, effective processes, PPE, and more.
Dr. Marsh recommends taking the time to have quality conversations with your employees to get to the root of the issue, creating a sense of psychological safety while at work. Psychological safety is when employees feel safe to voice their concerns and opinions without fear of punishment or blame. It’s essential to create this sense of security on site to help you uncover the source of unsafe behaviors.
Future of behavioral safety
So, what does the future of behavioral safety hold? Check out what Dr. Marsh thinks in the clip below:
According to Pat Sheehan, the future of behavioral safety is all about clarifying your methods. You must identify whether your chosen method is clear to everyone and get them onboard so they know exactly what they should be doing.
Pinpointing competence is also a key part of this. Understand more about when employees have gotten their training, who tested them, if the equipment they were tested on is the same one they’re using, etc. It’s your job to identify ways how you can help them improve their skills and constantly check their competence levels on a regular basis.
Rob Leech believes the future is all about integrating a cloud-based software solution to help optimize your behavioral based safety observations.
EcoOnline’s Observation Module, for example, offers a mobile-first experience which empowers your employees to immediately report an unsafe behavior. Workers simply upload a photo, add some details on what happened, and submit! They can also do this through QR codes that Pat mentioned in the clip above. This then goes to key stakeholders who can do a deeper dive into why this is happening.
Customizable dashboards can also help tailor analytics to what’s important to you and your team. With all this information at your fingertips, you can get a snapshot of what’s really happening on site to identify trends and patterns when it comes to positive and negative behaviors.
A software solution can help make things more visible to your team and allow you to collect quality data in one central location. “If you don’t know what’s happening, you can’t address it,” said Rob Leech.
Your next move?
It’s safe to say that with the right behavior based safety practices in place, you can truly create a safer work environment for your employees. “It’s all about the quality of thinking and dialogue,” shared Dr. Marsh. “If you have lots of good quality dialogue and thinking, all sorts of good things will flow from that."
Curious to find out more expert tips and insights shared during the webinar? Check out the full recording now.