Safety observations management based

Success of any behavior-based safety process relies on trust among the employee (observers), management, and the employees being observed. Observers are trained to ask the employee for permission to make an observation where feedback is immediate. When this occurs, this is a win-win situation for everyone. One key to remember is when providing employees feedback you need to consider how you would like to be approached. The way you say the words and how you act toward the employee are keys to successful two-way communication. Observers need specific training in how to observe and provide feedback in a positive, constructive manner. 

A basic, yet powerful, tool for risk management was the Safety Observation Program. This was an employee-created and driven behavior-based program in which safety observations were performed at frequent intervals during the day by all employees. The average number of observations reports was 50 a day. 

During the course of my career in safety management, I have seen companies try to improve their safety culture in a variety of ways. Some of these approaches included the Deming Philosophy, the Safety Observer Program, Total Quality Management, and Behavior-Based Safety. 

Many companies have implemented a system to have peers observe and try to correct the behavior of peers by coaching or other means. This is part of a behavior based safety management system. This system should operate in the nonincident portion of the error pyramid. Include examples in a listing, such as Table 5-1, to illustrate the differences. 

For nongenotoxic chemicals, risk assessment is based on the concept of threshold doses, below which no adverse effect results from exposure. From human or experimental animal data, one tries to establish the no observable adverse effect level (NOAEL) and the lowest observed adverse effect level (LOAEL). In order to establish safe levels of exposure to potentially toxic agents, the NOAEL is divided by a safety factor (often named uncertainty factor). When the risk assessment is based on data from experimental animals, a default safety factor of 100 is usually applied. The safety factor constitutes a factor of 10 for potential differences in susceptibility between animals and man, and another factor of 10 for interindividual differences among humans. The factors are combinations of differences in toxicokinetics and toxicodynamics, both in animals and man. If true factors are known, the size of the safety factor may be changed accordingly. When risk assessment is based on human data, a safety factor of 10 is applied in most cases, for instance, for food additives. However, for natural toxins in food, smaller factors are usually applied. This is a risk management decision, often based on information on the absence of adverse health effects at intake levels close to the estimated LOAELs. 

Consider this situation for an opposite and real picture. A safety professional is making an audit of the quality of hazards management. The maintenance superintendent displays an elaborate computer-based maintenance program, of which he is very proud. During the plant tour, many hazardous conditions are observed. A supervisor is asked why work orders aren t being sent to the maintenance department to have those conditions corrected. And the response is, We don t do that anymore. Safety work orders are the last priority for the maintenance department. Later it is determined that a great number of safety-related work orders are over six... 

If we will enhance safety culture and standardize employee safety behavior, it cannot leave the application of behavior-based safety management tools. The behavior-based safety management tools are an important means that is to effectively promote the safety culture of enterprise. At present, in SINOPEC comprehensive apvplication of HSE observation tools, its core is to conduct field observation and analysis and communication, to interfere with the way or intervention, make people know the dangers of unsafe behavior, prevent and eliminate imsafe behavior. 

A sample of 475 staff from 10 hospitals in Costa Rica, Gimeno et al. (2005) found that safety culture was related to self-reported work-related injuries. Another study of 789 hospital-based healthcare workers in the USA, found that experienced blood and body fluid exposure incidents for workers were lower when senior management support, safety feedback and training were perceived favourably (Gershon et al. 2000). In Japan, reduced needle-stick and sharp injuries to hospital workers were associated with safety culture factors, such as being involved in health and safety matters (Smith et al. 2010). In our Scottish hospital sample, we collected information on self-reports of worker injuries, as well as observed errors affecting patients. 

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