Behaviour Based Safety vs System Focus in creating Safety Culture

• Behaviour Based Safety

Presentation outline

• Cultivating safety culture shared values

• System focus

• BBS vs Safety focus

Presentation Outline

• The way forward

• Behaviour a function of consequences

Behaviour Based Safety

Behaviour Based Safety

• It is an approach to safety based on a combination of behavioural science research, organizational behaviour, and behavioural psychology.

• Based on the idea that accident and incidents are caused by unsafe acts and the safety of the workplace can be significantly improved by activities aimed at reinforcing safe behaviours and raising the awareness of unsafe acts.

• The system seek to impart accountability for safety to frontline workers while encouraging safe behaviour through feedback and incentives.

Behaviour Based Safety

• I • Many of the basic concepts are rooted in the work of early behaviour and industrial psychologists, most notably Fredrick Taylor and Herbert Heinrich.

• In 1911 Fredrick Taylor published his seminal work, The Principles of Scientific Management, which advocated the use of the scientific method in managing workers to improve productivity.

• Scientific management techniques promoted standardizing work around the optimization of jobs to the point where workers could be taught and managed against a single standard way of doing the job.

Behaviour Based Safety

• In 1926 Hebert Heinrich, published Incidental Cost of Accidents to the Employer.

• In this and subsequent works he concluded that the vast majority of accidents were caused by controllable unsafe actions.

• The focus as a result is on the frontline operators……..Is this enough?

• Unintended consequences: Fear, anxiety and blame

Behaviour a function of consequences

Behaviour consequences

Every culture is a culture of consequences

• Consequences that increase behaviour Positive Reinforcement Negative Reinforcement

• Consequences that decrease behaviour

Punishment Extinction

Behaviour consequences

Positive reinforcement - To be effective, it must increase desired behaviour. You work to get something and may perform far beyond minimum standards. This is the only strategy that work to increase discretionary effort. The focus is on success. • Worker performs to receive the consequence • Worker may perform far beyond minimum standards - discretionary effort • The only strategy that works to increase discretionary effort • Focus is on excellence - success based • If you report a hazard, you are recognized. • If you prevent an injury or save money, you are rewarded.

Behaviour consequences

Negative reinforcement - Intent is to increase desired behaviour. You work to avoid something you don’t want and usually perform only to minimum standards. This strategy may work well if the focus is only on compliance. • Worker performs to avoid the consequence - fear based • Worker performs to minimum standard - just enough to get by • Can work well if the focus is on compliance • “If you wear that eye protection, you won’t get injured.” • “If you comply with safety rules, you won’t be disciplined.”

Behaviour consequences

Punishment - Intent is to stop undesired behaviour. You get something you don’t want when you misbehave. Punishment does not predict what the replacement behaviour will be. It is usually unintentional. • You get something you don’t want when you misbehave. • Does not predict what the replacement behaviour will be. • Is usually unintentional in organizations • “If you engage in horseplay, you will be suspended from work.”

Behaviour consequences

Extinction - Withdrawal of positive reinforcement. You work in a culture that ignores performance. There is no relationship between performance and consequences. It is epidemic in organizations. It doesn’t matter how hard you work. • Worker eventually performs without expectation of consequences (other than wages) • Person is ignored - no relationship with management • Is epidemic in organizations • “It doesn’t matter how hard I work around here.” • “Apathy is rampant, but who cares.”

Cultivating safety culture: Shared values

Shared values

Organisations with a strong safety culture tend to share seven values that distinguish their organisations from those with weaker safety culture:

1. All injuries/accidents are preventable

2. Compliance is not enough

3. Prevention is more effective than correction

4. Safety is everyone’s job

5. Safety is owned by operations

Shared values

6. Safety is a strategic business element

7. The absence of injuries/accidents does not denote the presence of safety

System Focus

System Focus

Most problems and most possibilities for improvement and creating a safety culture belong to the system. Seek to understand the system holistically, and consider interactions between elements of the system

System Focus: Ten Principles

System Focus: Ten Principles

Principle 1. Field Expert Involvement The people who do the work are the specialists in their work and are critical for system improvement. To understand work-as-done and improve how things really work, involve those who do the work. Q. When trying to make sense of situations and systems, who do we need to involve as co-investigators, co-designers, co-decision makers and co-learners? How can we enable better access and interaction between system actors, system experts/designers, system decision makers and system influencers?

System Focus: Ten Principles

Principle 2. Local Rationality People do things that make sense to them given their goals, understanding of the situation and focus of attention at that time. Work needs to be understood from the local perspectives of those doing the work. Q. How can we appreciate a person’s situation and world from their point of view, both in terms of the context and their moment-to-moment experience? How can we understand how things made sense to those involved in the context of the flow of work, and the system implications? How can we get different perspectives on events, situations, problems and opportunities, from different field experts?

System Focus: Ten Principles

Principle 3. Just Culture People usually set out to do their best and achieve a good outcome. Adopt a mindset of openness, trust and fairness. Understand actions in context, and adopt systems language that is non-judgmental and non-blaming. Q. How can we move toward a mindset of openness, trust and fairness, understanding actions in context using non-judgmental and non-blaming language?

System Focus: Ten Principles

Principle 4. Demand and Pressure Demands and pressures relating to efficiency and capacity have a fundamental effect on performance. Performance needs to be understood in terms of demand on the system and the resulting pressures. Q. How can we understand demand and pressure over time from the perspectives of the relevant field experts, and how this affects their expectations and the system’s ability to respond?

System Focus: Ten Principles

Principle 5. Resources and Constraints Success depends on adequate resources and appropriate constraints. Consider the adequacy of staffing, information, competency, equipment, procedures and other resources, and the appropriateness of rules and other constraints. Q. How can we make sense of the effects of resources and constraints, on people and the system, including the ability to meet demand, the flow of work and system performance as a whole?

System Focus: Ten Principles

Principle 6. Interactions and Flows Work progresses in flows of inter-related and interacting activities. Understand system performance in the context of the flows of activities and functions, as well as the interactions that comprise these flows. Q. How can we map the flows of work from end to end through the system, and the interactions between the human, technical, information, social, political, economic and organisational elements?

System Focus: Ten Principles

Principle 7. Trade-offs People have to apply trade-offs in order to resolve goal conflicts and to cope with the complexity of the system and the uncertainty of the environment. Consider how people make trade-offs from their point of view and try to understand how they balance efficiency and thoroughness in light of system conditions. Q. How can we best understand the trade-offs that all system stakeholders make with changes in demands, pressure, resources and constraints?

System Focus: Ten Principles

Principle 8. Performance Variability Continual adjustments are necessary to cope with variability in demands and conditions. Performance of the same task or activity will vary. Understand the variability of system conditions and behaviour. Identify wanted and unwanted variability in light of the system’s need and tolerance for variability. Q. How can we get and understanding of performance adjustments and variability in normal operations as well as in unusual situations? How can we detect when the system is drifting into an unwanted state over the longer term.

System Focus: Ten Principles

Principle 9. Emergence System behaviour in complex systems is often emergent; it cannot be reduced to the behaviour of components and is often not as expected. Consider how systems operate and interact in ways that were not expected or planned for during design and implementation. Q. How can we ensure that we look at the system more widely to consider the system conditions and interactions, instead of always looking to identify the ‘cause’? How can we get a picture of how our systems operate and interact in ways not expected or planned for during design and implementation, including surprises related to automation in use and how disturbances cascade through the system? How can we make visible the patterns of system behaviour over time, which emerge from the various flows of work?

System Focus: Ten Principles

Principle 10. Equivalence Success and failure come from the same source – ordinary work. Focus not only on failure, but also how everyday performance varies, and how the system anticipates, recognises and responds to developments and events. Q. How can best observe and discuss how ordinary work is actually done? Can we use a safety occurrence as an opportunity to understand how things work and how the system behaves? How can we best observe, discuss and model ‘normal work’?

BBS vs System Focus

BBS vs System Focus

BBS = Safety 1 VS System focus = Safety 2

BBS vs System Focus Safety-I Safety-II

Definition of safety That as few things as possible go wrong.

That as many things as possible go right.

Safety management principle

Reactive, respond when something happens or is categorized as unacceptable risk.

Proactive, continuously trying to anticipate developments and events.

View of the human factor in safety

Humans are predominantly seen as liability or hazard.

Humans are seen as resource necessary for system flexibility and resilience.

management

Incident/accident investigation

Accidents are caused by failures and malfunctions. The purpose of investigation is to identify the causes.

Things basically happen in the same way regardless of the outcome. The purpose of the investigation is to understand how things usually go right as a basis for explaining how things occasionally go wrong.

Risk assessment Accidents are caused by failures and malfunctions. The purpose of investigation is to identify causes and contributory factors.

To understand the conditions where performance variability can become difficult or impossible to monitor and control.

The way forward

• In reality what people do in their normal day to day situations is a combination of the two safety views, and the balance in many occasions depend on a variety of matters, for example, work environment, experience of the operator, business and management pressures, etc

• Both systems represent two complementary views of safety and as such many of

the existing practices can continue to be used, although with a different emphasis.

• The way forward is to incorporate the System focus (Safety-II) in the management of safety to create safety culture

The way forward

Thank you