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Four Flaws of Behavior-Based Safety
By Phil LaDuke
More and more companies are finding Behavior-Based Safety Programs just don’t deliver what they promise and are moving to a more balanced and practical approach to managing worker Health and Safety. Executives are drawn to Behavior-Based Safety Programs because they promise quick and painless results. Safety professionals are attracted to the idea that worker behavior is the cause of most workplace injuries. Unfortunately, experts are beginning to question whether or not Behavior-Based Safety is based on a foundation of flawed premises.
Flaw 1: Behavior is a contributor in 93 percent of injuries. On the surface, this kind of statistic would certainly seem to argue strongly in favor of a Behavior-Based Safety Program, but it is a specious argument. 100 percent of injuries have a behavioral element. The formula for an injury is Hazard + Interaction + Catalyst = Injury. By definition, an interaction is behavioral in nature, so essentially the argument that unsafe behavior accounts for 93 percent of all injuries is akin to saying, “If workers didn’t DO anything, they wouldn’t get hurt.” Fair statement, but then who wants a workplace where no work is done?
Flaw 2: Behavior modification is an effective tool in reducing workplace injuries. Most Behavior-Based Safety Programs rely on recognition and rewards to positively reinforce safe behaviors and discourage unsafe behaviors. So, basically, a worker is forced to choose between seeking treatment and receiving a safety incentive. “If you had told me when I was building seats for the General Motors Fleetwood Plant that I would get a $50 quarterly bonus if I didn’t get injured, you would not hear about any of my injuries unless I left the plant in an ambulance.” What tends to happen in these programs is that inflammation of the elbow turns into tendonitis which then turns into carpal tunnel syndrome and the resulting cost of treatment is astronomical. Research has shown that such systems are certainly effective at discouraging the reporting of injuries, but there is little evidence that behavior modification has any sustainable effect on the corporate culture.
Flaw 3: Unsafe behavior is deliberate. Behavior-Based Safety starts with the premise that if workers were more careful, less of them would get hurt. This philosophy appeals to many executives who, frustrated by a lack of progress in reducing injuries, would like to put the burden for workplace safety back onto the worker. Two better premises are “nobody wants to get hurt” and “no system is designed to hurt workers.” If these premises are true, no amount of behavior modification will lower worker injuries.
Flaw 4: People take unnecessary risks because they are careless. In the many incident investigations that I have conducted where behavior played a key causative role, the clear majority of the injured workers took the risk because a) they were trying to show initiative and save time, and b) they were unaware of the magnitude of the risk they were taking, and/or c) they didn’t believe the risk was credible. Very few of these injured workers believed they were putting themselves in serious jeopardy.
So is Behavior-Based Safety so deeply flawed that there is no room for recognition programs in a world-class safety process? Absolutely not; here are some tips for integrating recognition programs into your safety process:
- Reward the Right Things. Instead of rewarding workers for not getting injured, reward them for identifying system flaws that cause injuries. A reward for a suggestion that makes the workplace safer is far more meaningful than one for “collective safety” where an entire department is rewarded for going without an injury.
- Understand and Correct the Root Causes of Unsafe Behaviors. It’s not enough to identify unsafe behaviors; to truly improve workplace safety, one has to take proactive steps to remove hazards (both process flaws AND unsafe behaviors) before people get hurt. Rewarding workers who identify and correct the root causes of injuries is a good use of recognition and reward programs.
- Don’t Jump to Conclusions About Behaviors. Use “repetitive whys” to understand the thought processes that lead to unsafe behaviors before reacting to them. More often than not, the process dictates the behavior.
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