It is evident
by years of working with safety professionals that BBS means many different
things to many different people…and that BBS programs always vary.
In doing a
Google search for “developing a behavior based safety program” we came up with
125 million results in less than a second!
Every conceivable type of safety training company, software company,
safety consultant and safety award company seem to have an answer. The most common form of program appears to be
those that encourage management and workers to evaluate their own behaviors
with some kind of measurement and communicate between themselves.
As BBS is
essentially a human behavior issue, we went to a reliable resource on the
subject, Dr. Aubrey Daniels, who has been researching human behavior of the
American working for decades. His emphasis and experience has been about performance improvement in both safety and other corporate objectives. We found, that Dr. Daniels had set forth a structure of the essentials necessary to make a BBS program effective. We thought you might find this list informative. His essential steps are:
American working for decades. His emphasis and experience has been about performance improvement in both safety and other corporate objectives. We found, that Dr. Daniels had set forth a structure of the essentials necessary to make a BBS program effective. We thought you might find this list informative. His essential steps are:
To implement a BBS you must use a process grounded in the science of
behavior, which include understanding antecedents, behaviors, consequences and feedback
Carefully choose those observable behaviors that have a significant impact
on safety in your company.
You
need targeted checklists of a few behaviors at a time to increase frequency of
observations and feedback reinforcement
You
must have trained and knowledgeable observers, those who are expert in doing do
similar work and can provide quality feedback
Record all hazards (large or small) on checklists to ensure they get reported, and to generate
conversations about hazard remediation.
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Be able to
analyze the system impact on safety. Organizations that understand behavior scientifically
can detect and correct system issues that influence behavior adversely, the more
you ask about what is observed, the more you learn how to set up others for
success.
Use positive reinforcement correctly,
and it strengthens safety behaviors and builds an engaged, reporting culture.
Of
this list, the item that we find is the most misunderstood is the use of
positive reinforcement. Everyone has
their own idea of what positive reinforcement should be, and it runs the gamut
from just saying thanks, well done, to a sweepstakes program for the use of a
new pickup truck for a year, or ($1 million to the winner…yes this really
happened!)
Regardless
of what you do, you need to do it. The more continuous and consistent the
reinforcement you do, the more likely you are to build habits of the right
behavior. And experience has shown us
that it doesn’t take large awards to get
this done.
How
much of your budget is devoted to safety training? Doesn’t it just make sense to spend part of
it on awards the reinforce this training?
For
more information on AwardSafety products or services or other white papers
please contact us at awardsafetyinfo@cox.net
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