What can a safety coach achieve

The safety coaching process described here is founded on the basic premise of behavior-based safety. Injuries are a direct function of at-risk behaviors, and if these behaviors can be decreased and safe behaviors increased, injuries will be prevented. Indeed, the well-known Heinrich Law of Safety implicates unsafe acts as the root cause of most near hits and injuries (Heinrich et al., 1980). 

Over the past 20 years, a variety of behavior-based research studies have verified this aspect of Heinrich s Law by systematically evaluating the impact of interventions designed to increase workers safe behaviors and decrease their at-risk behaviors. Feedback from behavioral observations was a common ingredient in most of the successful interventions, whether it was delivered through tables, charts, interpersonal communication, congratulatory notes, or a reward following a particular behavior (see, for example, comprehensive reviews by Balcazar et al., 1986 and Petersen, 1989 or individual research articles by Austin et al., 1996 Cooper et al., 1994 Chhokar and Wallin, 1984 Geller et al., 1980 Komaki et al., 1980 Sulzer-Azaroff and De Santamaria, 1980). 

The behavior-based feedback and coaching process described here is analogous to the behavior-based safety process detailed by Krause et al. (1996) and McSween (1995) and 

There is no quick-fix substitute for this process, no effective step-by-step cookbook. Achievements from safety coaching are a direct function of the effort put into it. The guidelines presented in this chapter need to be customized. Who knows best what step-by-step coaching procedures will succeed in a given work area The people employed there know best and they need to be empowered to develop their own safety coaching process. 

Obviously, many factors contributed to this extraordinary performance, but there is little doubt their safety coaching process played a critical role. At the end of 1994, for example, 98 percent of the workforce had participated as observers to complete a total of 3350 documented safety coaching sessions. They identified 51,048 behaviors, of which 46,659 

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