Safety improvement behavioral approaches

Mcsween, T.E. The Values-Based Safety Process Improving Your Safety Culture with a Behavioral Approach. New York Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1995. 

The only empirical approach to improving safety that has proven to be effective is a behavioral safety process. Behavioral safety is the only approach that has routinely produced significant reductions in incidents in well-designed research studies. The approach involves employees using a systematically developed checklist as the basis for feedback on critical safety practices observed in work areas (1998, p. 49). 

In each of the cases described below, the companies had previously used the elements of traditional safety programs. In one example of improvement, on changing in 1980 to a behavioral approach, a major U.S. drilling company reduced its Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recordable injury rate by 48 percent and moved from the industry average to being one of the industry s top five safety performers. This improvement was achieved through a management-driven behavioral approach even without the levels of employee involvement typical of current implementation efforts (Fig. 1.1). 

We call our approach to behavioral safety the values-based safety process. As you will design a process that meets the needs of your organization, your team may want to find a name that fits your organization s new process. Companies have called their safety improvement efforts the employee safety process (ESP), the safe acts process, the positive safety process, the continuous incident prevention process, and a variety of others. (See the discussion on the contest to name the behavioral safety process in Chapter 23 for suggestions on involving employees in selecting a name.)... 

McSween, T. E. (1993b). Improve Your Safety Program with a Behavioral Approach. Hydrocarbon Processing, 72(8), 119-128. 

Every safety approach listed in Figure 1.2 requires that you consider the human element or the psychology of safety. Indeed, the most successful approaches, behavior-based safety and comprehensive ergonomics, directly address the human aspects of safety. The bottom line is illustrated in Figure 1.3. The three employees here are looking at a contributing factor in almost every injury—the human factor. TTius, any safety intervention that improves the safety-related behaviors of workers will prevent workplace injuries. 

Why did it take me so long to get here—to the implementation stage Indeed, if you are looking for "quick-fix" tools to make a difference in safety you may have skipped or skimmed the first two parts of this text and started your careful reading here. I certainly appreciate that the pressures to get to the bottom line quickly are tremendous, but, remember, there is no quick fix for safety. The behavior-based approach that is the heart of this book is the most efficient and effective route to achieving a Total Safety Culture. It is a never ending continuous improvement process, one that requires ongoing and comprehensive involvement from the people protected by the process. In industry, these are the operators or line workers. 

The strict behavioral approach to safety does not recognize much, if any, value in rewards (Daniels, 2000 Malott et al., 1997). If a behavior analyst observes no change in a target behavior when a particular consequence follows it, that consequence is considered useless in that situation and no longer applied. Here is my point. Even if a reward does not improve behavior directly, it has other special benefits. 

Modem behavior-modification programs rely on the identification and reinforcement of safe behaviors. Considerable improvements in measures of safety performance have been attributed to the introduction of these approaches (see McSween, 1993, for a petrochemical example). However, other studies have indicated that performance may return to its original level if the programs are withdrawn. It is therefore important to maintain a continuing program to ensure that the initial levels of improvements are maintained. Also, the benefits of behavior modification programs have mainly been demonstrated in the context of work activities where there is a high level of... 

Beyond the above framework (focusing on training, follow-up, attention to detail, and vigilance in the pursuit of safety), companies endeavor to continuously improve their safety performance. One popular approach has developed from a critical evaluation of behavior and an in-depth examination of the why s and wherefore s of the... 

A concomitant effort of all experimental work on cryogenic pool spreading behavior has always been its simulation by calculation models. The development of mathematical models has passed several qualitative steps over the years. First approaches were of pure empirical nature correlating pool surface and maximum diameter with time or mass released [e.g., 24]. These model equations are only applicable to the material released. In an improved class of models, a mechanistic approach is used where the pool is represented in a cylindrical shape and the conservation equations for mass and energy were applied [e.g., 23, 47]. This kind of model is mostly used at present for safety analyses purposes. 

The current status of behavioral safety is reviewed. Comments are made on the changes in approaches that have taken place how the message has changed somewhat from emphasis on worker behavior to management systems the interface of the worker with the workplace environment and performance improvement. Also, the behavioral aspect of accident causation and where behavioral safety fits in an overall, effective safety management system are put in prospective. 

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