Global percent safe score

The global "percent safe score" does not provide direction regarding which particular behaviors need improvement, but it can provide motivation to a workforce that wants to improve (Williams and Geller, 2000). It is an achievement-oriented index that holds employees accountable for things they can control. This assumes, of course, that the workers know the safe operating procedures for every work task. 

If some employees are not sure of the safe way to perform a certain job, behavioral direction is needed. A global "percent safe score" is not sufficient. When the CBC is reviewed during a one-on-one coaching session, behavioral direction is provided. The worker sees what critical behaviors were observed as "safe" and "at-risk." A constructive conversation with the coach provides support for safe behavior and corrective feedback for behavior that could be safer. Often this includes suggestions for making the safe behavior more convenient, comfortable, and easier to remember. It might also include tire removal of barriers (physical and social) that inhibit safe behavior. 

Because global feedback was just as effective as specific feedback when social comparison feedback was included, we presumed most of the 97 employees of the soft-drink bottling facility did not need an instructional intervention. They knew how to perform their jobs safely but needed some extrinsic motivation to follow the nine safety policies implied by the nine target behaviors. This was provided by a global percent safe score from a similar work group. 

The formula at the bottom of the CBC in Figure 8.12 can be used to calculate an overall percent safe score. We have found it very effective to post this global score weekly for different work teams. Such social comparison information presumably motivated performance improvement through friendly intergroup competition (Williams and Geller, 2000). Chapter 12 also includes addition information on e design of CBCs for one-on-one behavior observation. 

The checks in the safe and at-risk columns of a CBC can be readily summarized in a "percent safe score." As I discussed in the previous chapter, an overall global score can be calculated by dividing the total number of behavioral observations (i.e., all checks on all CBCs) into the total number of safe observations (i.e., all checks in the safe columns of all CBCs). This provides an overall estimate of the safety of the workforce with regard to the critical behaviors targeted in the observation step of DO IT. 

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