At-risk behavior

Imperfect Behavior At-Risk Behavior High-Culpability Behavior... 

Thus, attributes of at-risk behavior are judged against a specific outcome, judged risky by an external observer, involve a choice between different behaviors, are not understood to be of significant or unjustifiable risk by the health care provider taking the risk, and are generally considered more blameworthy than system-induced or imperfect behavior errors. 

Results from the observation records are gathered and compiled in a single database. Reports from the database indicate which types of at-risk behavior are most prevalent and in which locations they are taking place. Based on the insights generated during the review and analysis phase, recommendations for improvement can be made. 

BBS should be a part of the company way of life. This means that if any employee notes that a colleague is demonstrating an at-risk behavior then he or she is encouraged to talk to the colleague and suggest ways of eliminating that behavior. Similarly, behaviors that are particularly good should receive commendation. 

All of the comments made in the left-hand column above represent our concerns over what practitioners in behavior-based safety have said or written or over what they have not recognized as fundamental and significant. For example, some of those practitioners state in their speeches and papers that 85%, 90%, or 95% of accidents are caused principally by unsafe acts. No matter what definitions they give for the term unsafe act, they immediately moved from those figures to addressing means for resolving the at-risk behavior of employees through behavior modification methods, with minimum or no consideration of systems causal factors. That s absurd. 

Worker-focused behavior-based safety directs efforts to correct worker at-risk behavior. Hardly ever in the relevant literature is there recognition that the antecedents for at-risk behavior should be analyzed to determine their sources. Seldom is there recognition that the antecedents may derive from the work environment created by management—for example, from the design of the work place or the work methods. 

In Safety Management, 2nd edition, Dan Petersen offers a premise from which one must conclude that the antecedents for some at-risk behaviors must be resolved by management. 

Krause presented an updated exhibit titled Proportion of Barriers for 13,264 At-Risk Behaviors. A study was made at BST of 13,264 observed behaviors and it was found that There were many system barriers in place that made the critical behaviors difficult to do or impossible. When we looked further, we found that the different barriers in the proportions shown (in his exhibit) caused the observed at-risk behavior (p. 72). This is the substance of the exhibit. 

High-risk acts are the actions of people that put them, and possibly others, at risk (at-risk behaviors). This means that people are behaving contrary to the accepted safe practice, and thus creating a hazardous situation that could result in a loss. High-risk acts include ... 

Think about an employee-owned safety program. We can talk about pride in ownership. We can talk employees knowing firsthand where hazards exist, where at-risk behaviors occur, and where attitudes affect safe work practices. But I want to talk about protection. 

Enforce work rules and correct unsafe or at-risk behaviors. 

An important cause of many injuries and incidents is taking unnecessary risks this is sometimes called practicing at-risk behavior. Unnecessary risks are actions that violate safety principles, safety rules, and safe practices. If you can avoid taking unnecessary risks, you will likely prevent or reduce chances of an incident. 

We encourage you to memorize the safety ethic I value safety, work safely, prevent at-risk behavior, promote safety, and accept responsibility for safety. This is a simple statement but it has broad implications and defines broad actions to implement. So let s look at each element and provide some interpretative guidelines to give us a common understanding about what is meant by each part. 

To prevent at-risk behavior means that you learn to recognize at-risk behavior, you do not practice at-risk behavior, you seek to prevent at-risk behavior by others, and you maintain awareness of at-risk behavior. 

As scientists, we can be somewhat less susceptible to making errors in assessing risk level based on the factors in Table 6.1.1.1, but we are not immune from them. Many lab incidents occur to experienced scientists who simply misjudged a risk level or knowingly took an unnecessary risk—they exhibited at-risk behavior. 

Minimize the hazards by using appropriate techniques and equipment and ensuring that at-risk behavior is controlled. 

One approach builds somewhat on concepts found in TQM and related management schemes. This approach seeks to identify key at-risk behaviors. It seeks to engage managers, supervisors, and employees as a team in the process of reducing them. 

At-risk Behavior Actions increasing the potential consequence of injury or illness. The term was coined by Deborah Pivaronas as a way of describing critical, safety-related behaviors without the associated negative connotation (Krause, 1997, p. 10). The term is more neutral and less evaluative than unsafe behavior. 

Critical behaviors are those actions that contribute to good safety performance or, conversely, that lead to injuries. Krause observes, In most accidents at-risk behavior is the final common pathway. Each facility, characterized by particular production processes, products, and workforce, has a characteristic cluster of these final common pathways that are responsible for a highly significant percentage of its safety incidents (1995, p. 113). 

Manuele stresses that analysis be performed to identify root-causal factors of at-risk behavior. It should also be made clear that, for systemic causal factors, engineering and work method revisions must be the first considerations (Manuele, 1998, p. 37). 

BBS is a process used to identify at-risk behaviors that are likely to cause injury to workers and is dependent upon the involvement of workers in this process so that they become a willing participant and buy in to the concepts and purpose of BBS. They will be asked to observe each other and their co-workers in order to determine if decreases in at-risk behavior have resulted in a reduction in these unsafe behaviors. 

The observer can provide the person performing the task with immediate feedback on at-risk behaviors and provide reinforcement on safe work performance. If the observer asks the worker why he used at-risk behaviors to perform a task, the observer can learn if there are roadblocks that prevent the worker from performing the task in a safe manner. The observer may find that protective equipment is not available or is no longer usable, which then becomes a follow-up item for the steering committee or management. 

This process is founded on the premise that for every accident there are hundreds or sometimes thousands of at-risk behaviors. When at-risk behaviors decrease, the likelihood of injuries also decreases. A successful approach does not look for blame, but provides two-way feedback that promotes the idea that the worker is indeed the solution. 

Using the comment data will allow site personnel to target areas of improvement and demonstrate to workers that their input is critical and an important component of the program. If at-risk behaviors are occurring in certain areas, then this is an accident waiting to happen. If there are barriers to safe performance, then continuous improvement is deterred. The most common barriers to safe performance are... 

Hazard recognition If workers did not realize that they were performing an at-risk behavior, then they could never perform the task in a safe manner. Business systems The at-risk behavior was the result of an organization system that was unreliable due to inefficiency. If this occurs, workers will avoid using the system and will find a way around it. 

Personal factors This is when the at-risk behavior results from personal characteristics of the worker that results in him or her deliberately taking risks or refusing to work safely as a result of factors such as fatigue, medication, stress, or illness. 

The ideas that consequences control behavior are the foundation (conceptnaUy) to BBS. Thus, the majority of behaviors rely on applying previous experience of consequences (both negative and positive) as the reinforcing factor. A picture of an amputated finger visually portrays the consequence of at-risk behavior, and this reminder of a negative consequence may be enough to cause a worker to alter his or her behavior prior to a similar incident. 

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