The state-of-the-art application of a survey protocol targeting safety leadership behaviours, which have a foundation within transformational leadership theory, is instrumental in develo
Trang 1SAFETY IN ACTION 2006, Melbourne Exhibition Centre, AUSTRALIA, 16 – 18 May 2006
Leading your Safety Culture toward Best Practice;
Improvement System within Traditional BBS Programs
David G Broadbent Safety Psychologist TransformationalSafety.Com
PO Box 250 MAITLAND NSW 2320 AUSTRALIA
Safety is known by the ABSENCE of events, which makes it a difficult challenge to
achieve We know that essentially all major safety events have their roots deep into the
past practices of the organisations involved and grow out of long causal chains involving
the way that people work In most cases the pre-cursors of events were there to see, but
the organisations were seemingly unable to recognise them
Safety requires people to adopt a set of habits and ways of thinking that are often
difficult and unnatural (e.g reporting one's own mistakes, stopping a job in the middle,
etc.) As such, building a strong safety culture is a specific challenge of leadership
Safety never sleeps and organisations cannot achieve exceptional performance without
a deep-rooted set of beliefs, practices and behaviours that guide people's decisions and
action at all times
I believe that the culture of an organisation embraces everything it does It includes the
policies, procedures and standards It includes the housekeeping, the procedures and
tools A strong culture is one that is widely shared and based on a common and
well-understood identity A weak culture is diverse and differs from area to area in the
organisation But a strong culture is not necessarily an effective culture (i.e it may not
achieve the required results) and it will also be resistant to change Safety culture is
becoming more and more recognised as a fundamental foundation of effective and
sustained safety outcomes1 For an explanation of some of the factors that contribute to
the development and maintenance of safety culture refer to “The Structure of Culture” at
Attachment1
Optimal safety cultures typically provide the necessary support for employees to strive
beyond minimal efforts Organisations relying on conventional safety and leadership
approaches often fail to inspire the necessary safety-related behaviours and attitudes in
their employees In addition, these organisations have difficulty identifying, and then
removing barriers to safety excellence Although most individuals possess the necessary
values and intentions, their actual behaviours may not support an effective safety
culture The Transformational Safety® Culture Improvement System has as its prime
objective, one of assisting organisations gain an understanding and appreciation of their
own unique safety culture along with providing proven insights toward strategies which
enable employees to close the gap between their values, intentions, and actual
behaviours The state-of-the-art application of a survey protocol targeting safety
leadership behaviours, which have a foundation within transformational leadership
theory, is instrumental in developing a culture which shall maximise the sustainability of
effective safety behaviours within the workforce
1
Broadbent, D.G., (2004) “Maximising Safety Performance via leadership Behaviours”, 28th International Congress of
Psychology, Beijing, CHINA
Trang 2Since its inception, the concept of safety culture has been a key topic in discussions of safety across many industries There is “a general recognition that while the importance
of engineered safeguards and formal management systems to control risks is essential,
it is equally important to win the commitment of the workforce to treat safety as a priority through a genuine corporate commitment to achieve high levels of safety2”
The concept of ‘”safety culture” has largely developed since the OECD Nuclear Agency observed that the errors and violations of operating procedures occurring prior to the
Chernobyl disaster were evidence of a poor safety culture at the plant, and within the
former Soviet nuclear industry in general3 Safety culture has been defined as:-
‘‘….that assembly of characteristics and attitudes in organisations and individuals,
which establishes that, as an overriding priority, plant safety issues receive the attention
warranted by their significance4”
Safety culture is important because it forms the context within which individual safety
attitudes develop and persist and safety behaviours are promoted5 It is interesting to
note that the concept of safety culture developed in response to major organisational
accidents; however, it is now being more widely applied to explain accidents at the
individual level6
Safety climate is regarded as a manifestation of safety culture in the behaviour and
expressed attitude of employees7 The number of dimensions of safety climate remains disputed, although recurring themes across safety climate surveys include management commitment, supervisor competence, priority of safety over production, and time
pressure8 Elements of safety climate emerge as predictors of unsafe behaviour or
accidents in numerous structural models9,10,11,12 and non-linear models13,14, and it is
increasingly becoming accepted that a favourable safety climate is essential for safe
operation15
Lisa Ronald in her excellent literature review16 of factors contributing to successful safety programs concluded that the following dimensions were recognisable predictors of
improved safety outcomes:-
2 International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group, INSAG-15 (2002) “Key Practical Issues in Strengthening Safety
Culture”, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria
3 Pidgeon, N., & O’Leary, M., 2000 “Man-made disasters: why technology and organisations (sometimes) fail” Safety Science, 34, 15–30
4
International Atomic Energy Agency (1986) “Summary Report on the Post-Accident Review Meeting on the
Chernobyl Accident”, VIENNA: International Atomic Energy Agency, ISBN: 92-0-1231
Cox, S., Flin, R., (1998) “Safety culture: philosopher’s stone or man of straw”? Work and Stress, 12, pp.189–201
8 Flin, R., Mearns, K., O’Connor, P., Bryden, R., (2000) “Measuring safety climate: identifying the common features” Safety Science, 34, pp 177–193
9 Brown, K.A., Willis, P.G., Prussia, G.E., (2000) “Predicting safe employee behaviour in the steel industry:
Development and test of a sociotechnical model” Journal of Operations Management, 18, pp.445–465
10
Cheyne, A., Tomas, J.M., Cox, S., Oliver, A., (1999) “Modelling employee attitudes to safety: a comparison across sectors” European Psychologist, 1, pp.4–10
11
Thompson, R.C., Hilton, T.F., Witt, L.A., (1998) “Where the safety rubber meets the shop floor: a confirmatory
model of management influence on workplace safety” Journal of Safety Research, 29, pp.15–24
12
Tomas, J.M., Melia, J.L., Oliver, A., (1999) “A cross validation of a structural equation model of accidents:
organisational and psychological variables as predictors of work safety” Work and Stress, 13, pp.49–58
13
Guastello, S.J., (1989) “Catastrophe modelling of the accident process: evaluation of an accident reduction program using the Occupational Hazards Survey” Accident Analysis and Prevention, 21, pp.61–77
14
Guastello, S.J., Gershon, R.R.M., Murphy, L.R., (1999) “Catastrophe model for the exposure to bloodborne
pathogens and other accidents in health care settings” Accident Analysis and Prevention, 31, pp.739–749
15
Wiegmann, D.A., Zhang, H., Von-Thaden, T., Sharma, G., and Mitchell, A., (2002) “A Synthesis of Safety Culture and Safety Climate Research”, Technical Report ARL-02-3/FAA-02-2, Federal Aviation Administration, Atlantic City International Airport, NJ, Contract DTFA 01-G-015.
16
Ronald, L., (1998), “identifying the elements of successful safety programs: A literature review” A Report prepared for the Prevention Division, Workers' Compensation Board of British Columbia, 6711 Elmridge Way, RICHMOND,
BC, V7C 4N1
Trang 3• Joint Health and Safety Committee Activities
Specifically Ronald makes the observation, “active safety leadership/ management
commitment variables appear to play an integral (if not the most crucial) role in ensuring safety success”
It is also worth noting the 1982 report by the US Committee on Underground Coal Mine Safety17 which outlines why management commitment may be so essential to safety
program success Specifically, it states that while legislation has contributed to improved safety performance, compliance will not by itself produce an outstanding safety record
"The initiative to achieve and maintain excellent safety must come from management ,
they alone have the authority within their companies to establish the policies and
priorities and to communicate them throughout their organisations… they alone have
the authority to implement safety programs, commit resources, and reward their
managers and employees for achieving the goals of those programs The goals may not
be attainable without the cooperation of employees, but only management has the
authority to request of its employees the actions needed to realise those goals."
Additionally, the authors state that
"commitment provides a sense of purpose, identity and direction to those responsible for
managing a company [which] must be highly visible and effectively communicated to all
ranks of workers It must be genuine and backed by the highest levels of company
management, including the chief executive officer and the board of directors or owner." But
importantly, the authors state, "it must be accompanied by actions that convince everyone
in the company of the sincerity of the commitment, [since] commitment can create only an
illusion of accomplishment unless it results in action." (Committee on Underground Coal
Hofmann and others21 label the individual attitudes and behaviours discernible in safety climate as the micro-elements of an organisation, which themselves are determined by macro-elements of the safety management system and practices In this sense
management attitudes and behaviour are critical components toward safety; permeating down through the organisation to the workforce
More recently Barling22 and Broadbent23 both explore the impacts that specific
management systems and approaches to leadership can have upon safety outcomes in measurable terms and have drawn some powerful conclusions In 2004, whilst
presenting his own thinking on the value of transformational leadership competencies
Broadbent coined the term “transformational safety®; to describe a particular range of
observable leadership behaviours directly related to the safety environment21
Mattila, M., Hyttinen, M., Rantanen, E., (1994) “Effective supervisory behaviour and safety at the building site”,
International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 13, pp.85–93
20 Simard, M., Marchand, A., (1994) “The behaviour of first line supervisors in accident prevention and effectiveness
in occupational safety” Safety Science, 17, pp.169–185
21
Hofmann, D.A., Jacobs, R., Landy, F., (1995) “High reliability process industries: individual, micro and macro
organisational influences on safety performance” Journal of Safety Research, 26, pp.131–149
22
Barling, J., Loughlin, C., and Kelloway, E.K (2002) Development and Test of a Model Linking Safety-Specific
Transformational Leadership and Occupational Safety, Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, No 3 pp.488-496
23
Broadbent, D.G (2004), “Maximising Safety Performance via Leadership Behaviours”, Proceedings of the 28th
International Congress of Psychology, Beijing, CHINA, 8th – 14th August, 2004
Trang 4This paper is primarily concerned with how to better lead your businesses toward Best Practice outcomes by implementing/integrating the constructs of Transformational
Safety® within your more traditional behavioural based safety (BBS) programs To
achieve this goal we are going to have to spend some time thinking about BBS in
general, and maybe considering some of the socio-historical context from whence it
came
BBS programs have become increasingly popular over the past couple of decades To quote a very famous American physicist, who was also well known within Australia,
Julius Sumner-Millar, “Why is it so24?”
This is something well worthy of consideration as the amount of “take-up” for BBS style programs appears to have been exponential in their application At the most simplistic of levels it is believed to deliver cost savings25 In real terms that often means less people experiencing occupational injury; that has to be a good thing Another factor is that it is relatively “simple” to explain, even if that explanation is only part of the story
You often hear behavioural safety advocates saying things like “ninety percent of your
accidents are caused by unsafe behaviours; therefore if we can modify the unsafe
behaviours we get rid of the accidents” Now, this is actually nothing new It is actually
the work of H W Heinrich Heinrich was an Assistant Superintendent of the Engineering and Inspection Division of Travellers Insurance Company during the 1930's and 1940's Thus the claim that 90% (or a similar number) of injuries are due to unsafe acts is a
“straight lift” of Heinrich's work
Heinrich's conclusions though were based on poorly investigated supervisor accident
reports, which pretty much held workers accountable for their own injuries; accident
causation, as a science, did not exist at the time Heinrich actually concluded that 88%
of all industrial accidents were primarily caused by unsafe acts (his actual data only gave 70%) DuPont says that 96% of injuries and illnesses are caused by unsafe acts
Behaviour Science Technology (BST) has stated that between 80% and 95% of all
accidents are caused by unsafe behaviour When we really try and explore the science behind these claims we find a fair bit of “poetic licence” being used
Almost all of the behavioural safety advocates conveniently leave out the rest of
Heinrich’s findings For example if we take the time to read the original work we can see that another of his conclusions, "ancestry and social environment are factors in every
accident26", does not seem to receive much airplay; despite it being the first domino in
the sequence; and this is a sequential model! We also find that many conveniently
forget to identify the second domino (accidents are the fault of the person concerned) One of the regular criticisms of BBS programs is that workers feel that it is “fault based” and part of a “blame game” We spend quite some time trying to convince workforces this
is not the case, when maybe it is partly so?
Trang 5It has been said, somewhat unfairly I believe, that Heinrich was both racist and strongly class conscious within his conclusions27 If we are going to allow such a criticism to
stand then we also have to discard the conclusions of almost all of the scientific thinkers
of the 1920’s, 1930’, and even the 1940’s Even within my own field of applied
psychology we have been equally effective in taking the same path of the times28
Psychologists at the time were very keen to support the hypothesis that intelligence was race related29 It’s only a small step to jump from that view, to linking intelligence (read
problem solving) to thinking about accident causation
Whilst you might feel that I have been somewhat critical of Heinrich’s work I would beg
to differ What I have done, ever so briefly, is consider the basic premise from the
position of current safety science; a way of thinking that was unavailable to Heinrich
This giant amongst men was a product of his time and the world owes limitless gratitude
to this man for his attention to a field that had been often timed ignored
Another more contemporary investigator in the world of safety is James T Reason We often find him floating about within many business safety systems What often surprises
me is often we find Reason within BBS systems as well; again if we read his own work
he was not a great advocate of BBS Indeed the Reason Model was far more focused on identifying latent or underlying conditions that were primarily the purview of management etc In 2003 though he began to change his tune somewhat; suggesting that in “highly
protected environments” we might have reached a point of diminishing returns and
something else is called for30
For James Reason it all happened sometime in the 1970’s, whilst he was preparing a
cup of tea At the same time his cat was crawling up his leg indicating its own need for sustenance Reason states he then proceeded to open the tin of cat food and, without
thought or regard, loaded up the teapot Not only that, the “moggy” had its first taste of Chinese green tea
As a cognitive psychologist, Reason suddenly realised a new research topic was literally under his nose In tracing the causes of absent minded incidents, Reason began an
exploration of human error Three decades later, Reason has become a leading expert
on error and one of the recognised architects of the tools used to improve safety in the workplace
The key development around Reason’s work is “The Swiss Cheese” model Unlike
Heinrich’s Domino Model, which was considered to be very sequential (knocking over
one domino before you get to the next one), Reason suggests the accident is actually a product of a number of events that
are continually moving about, and it
is when these events (holes in the
cheese) line-up that an
accident/incident occurs In other
words, the need for sequencing in
causation has been removed, and
more open acknowledgement of
other factors influencing the system,
allows for a somewhat gentler
approach to the problem of
Gould, S.J (1996) “The Mismeasure of Man”, WW Norton and Company, New York: NY
29 Gossett, T.F., (1965) “Race: The history of an idea in America”, New Yorlk: Schocken Books
30
Reason, J.T., (2003) “Aviation psychology in the 20th century – did we really make a difference”, Australian
Aviation Psychology Symposium, December 12t -5 th 2003, Sydney, Australia
Trang 6This is a very simplistic view of Reason’s Swiss Cheese Model, although it can be as
simple or as complex as you wish to make it There are untold articles and monographs exploring Reason’s work and they are well worth reviewing31,32,33 Again we find that
many behavioural safety advocates are quick to identify the cheese slices concerned
with risk appreciation, personal attitudes, work practices etc Only more recently have
we begun to see some more serious consideration of the more global contextual
environment in which both the dominoes and the cheese co-exist34 Reason himself has made this point35 over and over again When we look at a number of industrial
environments that are known to invest heavily in safety programming we find they are
beginning to see a recognition of the need to approach the dominos and the cheese
from a different direction
Falconer, within a body of work exploring one of the most risk protected industries,
military service, has published extensively in the area of “soft skills” as a fundamental
requirement often overlooked36 Conclusions were that “culture” is a construct not given enough attention, and it is high time more attention was paid Similarly the question of
“culture” has been explored within the oil and gas industries for some time with strong
conclusions supporting the view that culture is a significant protagonist within the
causation argument37,38,39 For a moment let’s consider a low margin industry such as
“facilities management”; becoming increasingly popular as businesses try and rationalise
to their core business and seek to “out source” just about everything else, and generally look for low price alternatives In such a harsh environment, where safety performance becomes a point of difference between competitors (at least on the paperwork) we see increasing attention being paid to culture related constructs40
For the purpose of clarity lets not forget Heinrich basically stated these sorts of things as his first (1st) domino; “social environment” is certainly applicable to the cultural
environment within the
workplace As to the question of
“ancestry” I am going to
suggest that the myths and
histories associated with a
workplace provide an
organisational ancestry in and
of itself This view is an
extension of the seminal work
of Edgar Schein and his work
on the impact of myth within
organisational life41 I am sure
you can see where we are
going with this The construct of
31
Johnson, W., & Palanque, P (2004) “Human Error, Safety And System Development”, Kluwer Academic
Publishers, 3300 AH Dordercht, THE NETHERLANDS
32
Partington, A (2003) “Constructing Risk and Safety in Technological Practice”, Routledge:London
33
Reason, J T (1990) “Human Error”, Cambridge University Press,
34 Young, M., Shorock, S., Faulkner, J., & Braithwaite, G (2004) “Who moved my ‘swiss’ cheese? The (r)evolution of human factors in transport safety investigation” , International Society of air Safety Investigators Annual Conference, Gold Coast, Australia, 29th Aug – 2nd Sept, 2004
35
Reason, J.T., (1997) “Managing the risks of organisational accidents”, Ashgate Publishing Company: Hampshire, England
36 Falconer, B., (2005) “Cultural Changes in military aviation: Soft Issues at the Sharp End” Human Factors and
Aerospace Safety Journal, 5 (1), pp 61-79
37
Laing, R., (2003) “Safety in the Oil and Gas Industry - An Operator's Experience”, Construction Safety Awards, London December 9, 2003
38
Flin, R & Mearns, K (2002) “Factoring the human into safety: Translating research into practice” In B Wilpert &
B Fahlbruch (Eds) Systems safety - Challenges and Pitfalls of Intervention Amsterdam: Elsvier
39
McDonald, R., (1997) “Empowering and Motivating Grassroots Staff to Take Ownership of Safety Management”, Offshore Safety Management Conference, Marcliffe Hotel, Aberdeen, 29th September 1997
40
Birsztejn, T., (2006) “Establishing Best Practice Strategies To Optimise The Performance Of Your Contractors:
Tackling The Soft Issues Not Usually Contained Within A Contract”, The 5th Annual Pan European Assett
Management and Plant Maintenance Summit, October 2006
41
Schein, E (1992) “Organisational culture and leadership” 2nd Edition San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
Trang 7safety culture has a clear place even within Heinrich's domino theory of accident
causation Not only does it have a clear place it has the primary place; i.e safety culture has a clear relationship with domino 1
Moving back to the cheese for a moment If we accept that we have all these cheese
slices with holes in them (system failures) it stands to reason (no pun intended) that the speed
at which the slices move around the plane is going to have a direct relationship with the number of times the holes are going to line up; and when they do you have an
accident/incident (system event)
So what is it that determines the
lateral movement of the cheese?
Surprise, surprise, I am going to put
it to you that the culture that exists
within the organisation is that which
provides these controls (system
stability) In other words the
healthier and robust is your safety
culture the less movement of the
cheese
I am sure you have seen the journey coming around the mountains and where have we ended up In some respects we have arrived at the beginning Two of the primary
models which are commonly referenced within the world of BBS can be shown to require
a solid appreciation of the impacts of safety culture to make them more complete Such requires leaders within the business to take far closer looks at their own safety
behaviours Before we start dealing with that “sacred cow” let’s take a small deviation in the journey; to use more appropriate language we might call it a small detour
Those who are regularly exposed to my own work shall know that I have been known to become a little lateral in my approach to the subject at hand To this end let us take a brief journey into the world of Karl Popper and the philosophy of science Popper is arguably the most influential scientific thinker of the 20th Century
We all have our philosophies, whether or not we are aware of the fact, and our
philosophies are not worth very much But the impact of our philosophies upon our
actions and our lives is often devastating This makes it necessary to try to improve our
philosophies (Paraphrased from Karl Popper42)
The way in which we believe things occur determines how we will respond and attempt
to manage them An analysis of accident causation in many ways is an examination of our own philosophies and/or prejudices It is therefore culture, time and place specific
If one believes that people are dying from the plague because of selective retribution
from God for past sins, then the way this risk is managed will be different from the
society, which believes in germ theory
If you really want to try and stretch those little things called synapses and neurones let’s play with another “sacred cow”; the concept of Zero Injury
1 Do you believe it is attainable?
2 On what fundamental belief do you base this conclusion?
3 Is it based upon your historical experience?
4 Is it what you want to achieve for business outcomes?
5 Is it something you focus upon for a competitive advantage?
6 Is it just “right”?
You therefore have a number of competing philosophies which all have their own
prejudices attached to them Let me suggest to you that large numbers of your
workforces generally do not believe that Zero Injury is attainable; despite your best
efforts, at times, to convince them otherwise Why do we know this with some certainty?
42 Popper, K., (2002) “The Logic of Scientific Discovery,” Routledge Classics: Taylor & Francis Books
Trang 8Because of the many people who have been asked this question directly and
anonymously (n>20,000)43
To consider this from a quality perspective just reflect on the principles of the Six Sigma approach This is one of the most aggressive quality systems available and it statistically acknowledges that “perfection” is unattainable; although success can be “pretty close”44
If we apply Six Sigma to Zero Injury we are forced to acknowledge that we shall always have a system event within the sixth sigma; not zero (pretty close though) This does not mean your goal should not be Zero Injury; you might need to think about that for a while
So let’s spend a moment considering how we attain these philosophies Knowledge is
acquired and processed in the context of world views, of systems of knowledge and of cultures which people share and regularly confirm to each other (I hope you thought that bit was
important) It is built into existing frames of reference, evaluated and selected, and meaning
is attached to it, and tied into the historical experience of a given social environment It is neither autonomous nor objective but rather bound into those social conditions under
which people live, and influenced by the social position of an individual in his or her
society and their respective material living conditions The sociology of knowledge has provided ample evidence for this and many empirical studies have explored the images
of society held by different social strata and professional groups45 Such paradigms
which are relatively resistant against change do also exist in science, as Thomas Kuhn has argued46
In everyday life, we accept a statement as “true” if it is confirmed by the rules of
everyday experience, if it seems reasonable, if it is held true by people we love and
respect, or if it is confirmed by secondary information A statement is taken to be
“scientifically true” if it has been published in a highly reputable volume and is taken for granted by respected scientists, or if it has been tested according to the rules of scientific methodology Karl Popper insists that the truth of a statement can never be objectively confirmed in scientific rigour and that the scientific method exists to falsify well-
established hypotheses, and thus gradually narrows the field of potential truth47 It does not count very much in real practical research sadly, because new hypotheses are being continuously generated and tested in the hope of verification (not falsification), while sets
of well established hypotheses being falsified is the exception In other words those of us sitting in the Universities are more concerned about supporting what we believe, and
often designing our experimentation etc with our “philosophies and prejudices” in mind Not quite the way it is supposed to work Safety research is rarely any different
In extra-scientific everyday life, sensual experience, the opinion of a reference group,
although sadly it is mostly the mass media, prove to be the relevant proofs of truth In
most of the sciences the empirical proof of truth is made by statistical tests based on
probability theory, while quoting from the bible, or from a classical author has lost in
persuasiveness (although in some cultures this measure of truth still exists)
How about we end our detour into the philosophy of science at that point If there was a point it was to point out that there is a great deal of flexibility in regards to what
constitutes a “true” theory I would put it to you that such applies equally powerfully to
the “theories” of accident causation and their safety related outcomes
Nonetheless, for a variety of reasons, including issues around our discussion above;
there continues to be real debate as to what behavioural based safety is and its efficacy, from a number of sources48,49 Nevertheless even one of the critics, and a past President
of the American Society of Safety Engineers, Donald J Eckenfelder, has stated
43
Pitzer, C., (1999) “Safety Culture Survey Report – Minerals Council of Australia”, Publication of The Minerals
Council of Australia, PO Box 4497, KINGSTON, ACT, 2604, AUSTRALIA
44
Pande, P.S., Neuman, R.P Cavanagh, R.S (2000) “The Six Sigma Way: How GE, Motorola, and Other Top
Companies are Honing Their Performance”, McGraw Hill, New York:NY
Trang 9“This is the best idea that safety has seen in the last thirty years and perhaps since
we first decided that injuries were preventable.50”
I have to say that in my capacity as a Safety Psychologist this all intrigues me and, as
you can see; tends to take up a bit of “thinking time” On the other hand when I put on
my Safety Consultant hat, which is more concerned with the basic outcome of having
workers return home at least as well as when they arrived at the workplace, I am
nowhere near as “precious” about the “science” It is not the purpose of this presentation
to provide a detailed primer and critique of behavioural safety; there are numerous
locations where you can embark upon that journey if you so wish51,52
Firstly we have the very real issue of what is a BBS program? Now before we all get
caught up on definitions, and more definitions, I need to suggest that there actually is
some importance to this debate also No doubt you have heard the expression “we need
to make sure we are comparing apples with apples”; and the alternate position equally heard, at times, is “you can’t say that; you’re comparing apples with oranges” My own concern is that essentially what we have here is an industrial environment within which there are an infinite number of programs out there all purporting to be behavioural safety programs Some of these are actually quite good and others are actually quite good
“quackery”
While behavioural safety shares a concern with human behaviour and safe performance
in the workplace with other approaches, it is actually more than that Behavioural safety
is the application of behavioural research on human performance to the problems of
safety in the workplace This means that any safety program labelling itself as a
behavioural safety program should meet the standards of behaviour analytic research,
as these practices are applied to the workplace; such a position narrows the field
significantly Indeed one international organisation, the Cambridge Centre for
Behavioural Studies, provides independent accreditation of workplace behavioural safety programs against defined parameters53
Having been an applied safety professional for many years, supporting both small
businesses and multinational corporations with their safety related interventions, I have lost track of the number of times internal safety managers and CEO’s have expressed
frustration with their behavioural safety systems
We regularly hear comments similar to:-
i We gained significantly in the early days and it’s levelled off
One can understand the levels of frustration behind these observations as behavioural safety interventions are often quite expensive to implement In most cases they would
seem to be at least cost neutral in the medium term The anecdotal evidence though is that in the longer term their efficacy is being questioned by the very people who are
reaching into the corporate wallet to pay for them in the first pace; and thus the value of the original investment would seem to be being questioned
This is unfortunate as again the real meaning to safety statistics deteriorating is often
people being killed, maimed, or experiencing other life impacts that are not desired I
appreciate the strength of the imagery here, and it is deliberate Whilst some might
practice the psychological process of “dissociation” and think of safety performance as
49
Eckenfelder, D.J., (1996) “Values-Driven Safety: Re-engineering Loss Prevention using Value-inspired Resource Optimization” Government Institutes Inc, Maryland USA
50
Eckenfelder, D.J., (1996) “Values-Driven Safety: Re-engineering Loss Prevention using Value-inspired Resource Optimization” Government Institutes Inc, Maryland USA
51 Hidley, J.H and T.R Krause, (1994) “Behavior-Based Safety: Paradigm Shift Beyond the Failures of
Attitude-Based Programs” Professional Safety Oct.1994 pp 28-32
52 Geller, S.E., (1995) “Behavioral Safety: Key to Achieving a Total Safety Culture” Professional Safety July 1995,
pp 16-22
53 Cambrdge Centre for Behavioral Studies, 336 Baker Ave Concord, MA 01742
Trang 10LTIFR etc; this too is unfortunate Statistical processes are important and we find
businesses boasting to each other about the low levels of their LTIFR etc Nevertheless the real world impact of such numbers is people growing up without fathers, mothers etc Households being completely decimated due to the financial changes often associated with workplace injury Increases in chronic health conditions, alcoholism and a whole
range of other socio-cultural impacts
Let me say again; it is not worth getting too “precious” about whether you have the best
or worst BBS program on the planet The value here is how do we make it culturally
superior and therefore improve its performance and sustainability I have already
explored the history of safety culture, some of the foundational elements of many
behavioural safety interventions, and how the healthier the safety culture the more
robust the safety systems that essentially hang off it There is limited value in
implementing behavioural safety systems within cultures that do not have appropriate
commitment and stability They shall not work effectively, irrespective of how much
money is thrown at them
The very basis of this presentation is how The Transformational Safety® Culture
Improvement System can be the point of difference in making your behavioural safety
(BBS) programs give maximum “bang” for your “buck”
The Transformational Safety® Culture Improvement System is an integrated suite of
applications and interventions which has a foundation in the world of transformational
leadership Many of the worlds leading authors have commented about the applicability
of transformational leadership principles to the real world of applied safety54,55,56,57
Therefore to achieve our goal we are going to have to take a closer look at the world of transformational leadership, and particularly safety leadership Recall the excellent work
of Lisa Ronald58
“active safety leadership/ management commitment variables appear to play an
integral (if not the most crucial) role in ensuring safety success”
So let’s think about what are some of the factors that might act as influencing vehicles as far as enhanced safety performance is concerned What is it then that stops things
falling on your head? One group from Australia have developed a model of safety
performance which draws upon more traditional understandings around work
performance in general59 They then go on to describe two (2) key aspects of safety
performance as being:-
activities that need to be carried out by individuals to maintain workplace safety These behaviours include adhering to standard work procedures and wearing personal protective equipment
54
Zohar, D., & Luria, G., (2003) “The Use of Supervisory Practices as Leverage to Improve Safety Behaviour: A
Cross-level Intervention Model”, Available from: Prof Dov Zohar, Faculty of I.E & Management, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel E-mail: dzohar@tx.technion.ac.il
55
Barling, J., Loughlin, C & Kelloway, E.K (2002) “Development and test of a model linking safety-specific
transformational leadership and occupational safety” Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 3, pp 488-496
56
Barling, J., Weber, T & Kelloway, E.K (1996) “Effects of transformational leadership training on attitudinal and
fiscal outcomes: A field experiment” Journal of Applied Psychology, 81, pp 827-832.
Trang 11Safety Participation - The term “safety participation” is used to describe behaviours
that do not directly contribute to an individual’s personal safety, but which do help to develop an environment that supports safety These behaviours include activities such as participating
in voluntary safety activities, helping co-workers with related issues, and attending safety meetings
safety-The largest of questions is; what do we need to do more of to maximise safety compliance and safety participation within our workplaces Once we get these aspects right, outcomes such as reduction in injury rates etc shall naturally follow
Thus the safety systems that fly, couple aspects of Transformational Leadership within their behavioural paradigms, remember the majority of BBS programs are pretty “lite on”
on this area
Now we are getting closer to the purpose of this article You don’t believe me do you?
What are the real world consequences of ignoring Transformational Leadership within
safety system design; and then what is the “payoff” when we actually do ensure
Transformational Leadership is an integral foundation of the safety system
When some researchers exploring safety climate/culture crunched their numbers they
found some common relationships between a range of variables eg supervision &
management, existence of a safety system, risk taking behaviour, work pressure, and
work competence.60 A further group concluded when they looked at over a dozen safety climate outcome measures the common theme was “management safety activity”.61 The United States Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) have recognised the “power” of leadership and have defined “management leadership” as a key program element in safety system design.62 The U.K Health and Safety Regulator apparently is aware of this and associates the organisational factors influencing safety culture as
follows
Some well regarded Canadian researchers63 have argued that leadership is one of the most critical determinants of workplace safety performance They go on to express the belief, supported by much research64,65, that leadership plays an integral role in
developing and maintaining the safety climate within an organisation
By now I hope that it is understood how crucial safety leadership is to your safety results Your leadership creates and maintains the culture that determines what will, and will not, work in your BBS Programs (or in any other endeavour really) An effective safety leader clearly communicates what results are required; in addition to what is acceptable to achieve those results
It doesn’t take a lot of time to see the relationship which is clearly self evident The
impact of management, and more importantly, leadership is a key, if not the key
“influencer” on any effective safety management system We may have all sorts of
reasons for not wanting to look in this mirror; nevertheless the “hard data” doesn’t lie
Hoffman D.A & Morgeson, F.P (1999) “Safety-related behavior as a social exchange: The role of perceived
organizational support and leader-member exchange”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol 84, no 2, pp 286–296
65
Zohar, D (2000) “A group-level model of safety climate: Testing the effect of group climate on micro accidents in manufacturing jobs”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol 85, No 4, pp 587–96
Trang 12The most obvious strategy is that we develop a transformational leadership culture
throughout the organisation, and I mean at ALL levels, which shall then directly impact upon the way that all the “speed bumps” and “collisions” are resolved
will not likely achieve the “beyond expectation” safety outcomes that you wish to
experience So how do you determine where the organisation is as regards the goals of optimal safety culture and safety leadership? Firstly we need to gain an appreciation as
to where the organisation is placed against the parameters of Safety Culture and Safety Leadership The Transformational Safety® Survey, an integral component of The
Transformational Safety® Improvement System, has two primary components that have been strategically integrated to allow an organisation to gather this information quite
painless66, a third component is developed to explore site specific workplace behaviours (items of which can be drawn from an organisations current behavioural data) If you
have a closer look at the model presented you can see aspects of the more traditional
BBS; particularly when we look at Site Specific Workplace Behaviours One of the key
differences is that we loudly acknowledge that the leadership behaviours demonstrated within the organisation, particularly the safety leadership behaviours, have a critical
impact within the behavioural triggers of operational workforces
Part A of the Transformational Safety® Survey is targeted at the construct of Safety
Culture It uses a Likert scale survey methodology, in conjunction with formal 1:1 survey structure to interrogate a number of well validated cultural dimensions Using the unique safety-plex© to display the
results, organisations are
able to compare their
safety culture against
work units, departments,
researched and factor
analysed safety culture
instrument Part A of The