Is There Too Much Emphasis on Behavior Based Safety?

In the late 70’s we implemented a safety award system at a manufacturing facility for a major international food processing company.  The program awarded workers when they performed their duties in a safe manner as judged so by a team of co-workers.  Without knowing it, I guess we were implementing a behavior based safety award program.  Of course in those days the terminology BBS wasn’t as readily a part of everyday safety life as it is today,

According to Aubrey Daniels, a highly respected PhD in the behavioral sciences who has worked extensively in the safety industry…  

“BBS is a label applied to everything from safety incentive tokens to some very rigid and structured processes. Many of these processes have evolved over the years, and the consultants who designed them have changed their positions about some basic issues.”

In other words it has become a catchall for almost anything you want to put into it. And as such there are probably as many safety professionals that scorn it as praise it.  Say what you will, but BBS has been scientifically validated and ongoing research and applied studies continue to refine the process. Just a small sample of these studies can be found in this list from the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies.  

The fact is that management observation is an important activity that any organization can take to promote safety. It offers an excellent opportunity to enhance your entire safety process and especially as a way to coach employees on safe behaviors and even on their observation skills.  When you combine the observation with small awards as a consequence for a positive safety behavior you help to change that behavior into a habit. 

In addition, research shows that employees who do observations are twice as likely to change their own behavior as anyone else.

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