Behavioral safety process: activities

A brief definition of behavioral safety was provided under the Definitions and Terminology section. More detailed definitions describe activities involved in the behavioral safety process ... 

Your Steering committee might plan a take-off on such discussions around specific aspects of the observation process. For example, observers might recognize groups of employees who achieved 100 percent safety or specific individuals for particular safety practices. In addition, observers may want to share specific unsafe activities or conditions that they believe other employees should be aware of. As with other aspects of the behavioral safety process, you should take care not to identify specific individuals who were observed engaging in an unsafe practice. These discussions should be kept positive and educational, always avoiding embarrassment or humiliation. 

People must be held accountable for results. If action items are not completed in a timely basis, there needs to be an analysis of why and a plan for improvement. If standard operating procedures (SOP) checklists are not used rigorously, there needs to be an analysis of why with appropriate consequences (punishment should be a last resort). There should be reasons why objectives are not met and those barriers need to be removed. Individual sites within an organization may establish specific process safety goals, activities, and behavior on individual performance contracts, which are reflected in the annual performance review process that links to merit pay raises, bonuses, advancement opportunities, and the like. Consequences for poor process safety performance must not be limited to supervisors or facility managers but must be a factor in performance appraisals throughout the organization. 

Understand loss events do not happen by chance — Your drivers and non-driving employees need to realize that accidents and injuries (loss events) happen as a result of either an unsafe behavior (behavioral cause) or a specific unsafe work process or condition situational cause). Therefore, accidents and injuries can be prevented by eliminating certain unsafe behaviors, and correcting safety defects in your work processes, activities, and conditions. 

Employee involvement —Your employees have the most to gain or lose from your safety program, so their involvement is critical to your program s success. Get your employees actively involved in — and even excited about — the safety process. Seek their input, encourage safe behaviors, and reward those who report safety problems. Their commitment to personal safety will beneflt the entire company. 

Behavioral safety is a process to improve behaviors at all levels, not just a sequence of activities, meetings, and observations (Pounds... 

There is often an absence of a central organization that has responsibility, authority, and accountability for highway safety. For example, in Israel a National Authority for Road Safety is supposed to coordinate all safety-related activities, but it has no authority over safety-related activities of the Ministry of Education, the National Traffic Police, the licensing administration, or the Ministry of Health. In the U.S. the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was created in 1966 to improve traffic safety but the implementation of its recommended driver behavior and improvement programs is determined by the 50 individual states. Such decentralized safety systems lead to multiple uncoordinated efforts without a structured quality control process. In particular, by dissociating responsibility, authority, and accountability from each other motivation to evaluate and improve performance quickly dissipates. 

Safety Awards—Rule of Thumb 1 Provide safety awards for safe behavior on the job and for activities related to maintaining the safety process (e.g., observations, conducting safety meetings, setting safety goals). 

Ask team members to identify practices or activities that would support each value statement and then practices or activities that would be contrary to each value statement. You should focus primarily on identifying behaviors that are critical to your safety process. Ask, for example, What might someone do within our proposed safety process if he or she were acting in support of this value Then ask, What would someone do that would undermine the integrity of our safety process You should describe interactions that may occur ... 

Using published regulations as basic information in chemical safety education is recommended, but active handling practice requires overall attention to behavior, a process that cannot be regulated. A variety of techniques can be used to enhance the safety experience (Table VIII). Most of these ideas are simple, and provide a recognizable atmosphere of safety commitment. Ultimately, problems v th daily enforcement and concern for compliance are eliminated. Overall peer-pressure and matter-of-fact behavior is enhanced, and the department itself spends less time and effort following safety rules. 

Understanding, belief, or awareness is not sufficient, however, to implement a particular behavior-based safety process. People need to learn the specific behaviors or activities required for successful implementation. This requires training and should include behavior-based observation and feedback. In other words, participants need to practice the behaviors called for by the intervention process and then receive constructive behavior-focused feedback from objective and vigilant observers. 

The Exxon procedure is markedly different from the "planned 60-second actively caring review" implemented at a Hoechst Celanese plant. For this one-on-one coaching process, all employees attempt to complete a one-minute observation of another employee s work practices in five general categories body position, personal apparel, housekeeping, tools/equipment, and operating procedures. The initial plant goal was for each of the 800 employees to complete one 60-second behavioral observation every day. Results were entered into a computer file for a behavioral safety analysis of the work culture. 

On the other hand, numbers that measure the quantity and quality of process activities related to safety performance provide the context needed to motivate individual and team responsibility. They direct continuous improvement of the process. Chapter 19 in Section 6 of this Handbook presents more details on developing a process-based evaluation system for continuously improving safety. The following chapters in Section 5 recommend a variety of additional strategies for cultivating a work culture that promotes actively caring behavior. 

One of the most frequent common-sense mistakes in safety management is the use of outcome-based incentive programs. Giving rewards for avoiding an injury seems reasonable and logical, but it readily leads to covering up minor injuries and a distorted picture of safety performance. The basic activator-behavior-consequence contingency (see Chapter 8 and Principle 18) demonstrates that safety incentives need to focus on process activities, or safety-related behaviors. 

Imidazolium based ILs are quite hygroscopic in nature and are miscible with water so it is important to understand the modified properties of ILs due to their interaction with water before using them for any specified purpose. In order to utilize ILs for specific processes, a complete understanding of their physical properties, phase behavior, safety/enviromnental hazards was required. Despite the extensive experimental and theoretical studies made on water-IL solutions, to date, our knowledge of interaction between these two liquids is poorly understood, and remains mostly empirical. A molecular level understanding of phase states of ILs and their hydrated stmctures have been reported in the past [86,87]. It is important to understand the thermodynamic, viscoelastic and surface active properties of ILs and their interactions with various liquids. Rate of chemical reactions and efficiency of various processes in ILs are reported to be dependent on the absorbed... 

HPI principles provide a new dimension for the JHA process. The traditional safety process focuses primarily on injury reduction, an effort that has had considerable success over time. It stresses a behavioral approach aimed at observable acts or active errors that can be immediately seen (US DOE, 2009a). HPI focuses on the reduction of both potential active errors as well as latent errors (Figure 2.2). 

Many organizations have begun to adopt leading indicators that show conditions, behaviors, or activities that show how the safety process is actually working. A prime indicator for this is behavior observations. Besides the obvious advantage of recording who was observed, what was observed and the location observed, safe behavior observations also provide you with more advantages as well. These include ... 

The successes of the traditional approach have largely been obtained in the area of occupational safety, where statistical evidence is readily available concerning the incidence of injuries to individuals in areas such as tripping and falling accidents. Such accidents are amenable to behavior modification approaches because the behaviors that give rise to the accident are under the direct control of the individual and are easily predictable. In addition, the nature of the hazard is also usually predictable and hence the behavior required to avoid accidents can be specified explicitly. For example, entry to enclosed spaces, breaking-open process lines, and lifting heavy objects are known to be potentially hazardous activities for which safe methods of work... 

Third, the center determines during the screening process whether the client is a threat to self or others. Suicidal behavior should be routinely assessed in a screening interview. Some care facilities do not have the resources to treat an actively suicidal client, so if the person expresses suicidal ideations and plans, then a referral may be made elsewhere. The treatment center also wants to protect clients and staff from someone who is extremely aggressive and hostile and may represent a threat to the safety of people in the unit. In some cases, treatment facilities may refer such people elsewhere if the threat cannot be adequately contained within that facility. 

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