Behavioural Based Safety Programs and Training
Do you have a robust safety system but want to get to the next step in reducing unsafe behaviours and the associated costs?
According to Safe Work Australia 88% of accidents and injuries occur due to unsafe behaviours within the workplace. Enable Safety Solutions is not surprised by this and it is one of the main reasons why our consultants are certified behavioural safety specialists!
Behavioural Based Safety does not in itself substitute for a robust safety management system. Rather it is the next step in organisational maturity and suitable for those companies who are further down the continual improvement track.
Many compliant organisations present well from a systems and procedural perspective and even can display outstanding audit results in terms of safety performance. However, when workplace safety behaviours are observed, there is a significant disparity between safety behaviours displayed within the workplace and actual systems and procedures. That is, the workers are not walking the talk!
Organisations who are wanting to transition from a compliant status must move from a compliant status to focus more on workplace behaviours in order to become more proactive towards safety improvement and safety maturity. This transition will significantly cut company costs and overheads associated with accidents and injuries.
Behavioural-based safety:
- Takes a systematic approach, examining the motivation underlying behaviours, in order to increase safe behaviour.
- Is an ongoing effort; not ‘once-off’ provisions, but a new way of working that the safety leader must continually promote for sustainable, positive results.
- Takes time to achieve; however, results can be observed immediately due to the nature of measurement involved.
- Emphasises increasing safe behaviours rather than focusing on length of time without injury. BBS programmes do not depend solely on ‘lagging indicators’ (after the fact), and instead shift the focus to ‘leading indicators’ (preventative).
- Is not a substitute for an already existing comprehensive health and safety programme; it is a supplementary tool that will enhance the effect of already existing practices, and will allow for an objective measurement system.
- Aims to understand causes of incidents and near misses and correct them through the behaviour of relevant people. For example, reducing hazards often requires behaviour change of managers and frontline workers, and equipment redesign involves behaviour change of engineers
Enable Safety Solutions can assist organisations with the cost-effective design and development of a behavioural based safety program along with Behaviour Based Safety training of management through to workers.