Showing posts with label BBS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BBS. Show all posts

Something’s Missing from Behavior Based Safety - The Human Factor

by Ron Ragain, Ph.d.

Since the early 1970’s, there has been an interest in the application of Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) techniques to the improvement of safety performance in the workplace. The pioneering work of B.F. Skinner on Operant Conditioning in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s led to a focus on changing unsafe behavior using observation and feedback techniques. 


Thousands of organizations have attempted to use various aspects of ABA to improve safety with various levels of success. This approach (referred to as Behavior Based Safety, or BBS) typically attempts to increase the chances that desired “safe” behavior will occur in the future by first identifying the desired behavior, observing the performance of individuals in the workplace and then applying positive reinforcement (consequences) following the desired behavior. The idea is that as safe behavior is strengthened, unsafe behavior will disappear (“extinguish”).  

The Linear View
Traditionally, incidents/accidents have been viewed as a series of cause and effect events that can be understood and ultimately prevented by interrupting the chain of events in some way. With this “Linear” view of accident causation, there is an attempt to identify the root cause of the incident, which is often determined to be some form of “Human Error” due to an unsafe action. The Linear view can be depicted as follows:


Event “A” (Antecedent)  Behavior “B” Undesired Event   Consequence “C”


Driven by the views of Skinner and others, Behavioral Psychology and BBS have been concerned exclusively with what can be observed. The issue is that, while people do behave overtly, they also have “cognitive” capacity to observe their environment, think about it and make calculated decisions about how to behave in the first place. While Behavioral Psychologists acknowledge that this occurs, they argue that the “causes” of performance can be explained through an analysis of the Antecedents within the environment. However, since they also take a linear view, they tend to limit the “causal” antecedent to a single source known as the “root cause”.  

Human Factors
The field of Human Factors Psychology has provided a body of research that has demonstrated that many, if not most, accidents evolve out of complex systems that are not necessarily linear. Some researchers call this a “Systemic”  view of incidents. The argument is that incidents occur in complex environments, characterized as involving multiple interacting systems rather than just simple linear events. That is, multiple interacting events (Antecedents) combine to create the “right” context to elicit the behavior that follows. 

In such complex environments, individuals are constantly evaluating multiple contextual factors to allow them to make decisions about how to act, rather than simply responding to single Antecedents that happen to be present. In this view, the decision to act in a specific (safe or unsafe) manner is directed by sources of information, some of which are only available to the individual and not obvious to on-lookers or investigators who attempt to determine causation following an incident. 

Local Rationality
This is referred to as “Local Rationality” because the decision to act in a certain way makes perfect sense to the individual in the local context given the information that he has in the moment.  The local rationality principle says that people do what makes sense given the situation, operational pressures and organizational norms in which they find themselves.  

People don’t want to get hurt, so when they do something unsafe, it is usually because they are either not aware that what they are doing is unsafe, they don’t recognize the hazard, or they don’t fully realize the risk associated with what they are doing. In some cases they may be aware of the risk, but because of other contextual factors, they decide to act unsafely anyway. (Have you ever driven over the speed limit because you were late for an appointment?) The key here is developing an understanding of why the individual made or is making the decision to behave in a particular way.

A More Complete Understanding
We believe that the most fruitful way to understand this is to bring together the rich knowledge provided by behavioral research and human factors (including cognitive & social psychological) research to create a more complete understanding of what goes on when people make decisions to take risks and act in unsafe ways. We believe it is time to put the Human Factor into Behavior Based Safety.

The Safety Side Effect

Things Supervisors do that, Coincidentally, Improve Safety

by Phillip Ragain

Common sense tells us that leaders play a special role in the performance of their employees, and there is substantial research to help us understand why this is the case.  For example, Stanley Milgram’s famous studies of obedience in the 1960s demonstrated that, to their own dismay, people will administer what they think are painful electric shocks to strangers when asked to do so by an authority figure.  This study and many others reveal that leaders are far more influential over the behavior of others than is commonly recognized.  

In the workplace, good leadership usually translates to better productivity, efficiency and quality.  Coincidentally, as research demonstrates, leaders whose teams are the most efficient and consistently productive also usually have the best safety records.  These leaders do not necessarily “beat the safety drum” louder than others.  They aren’t the ones with the most “Safety First” stickers on their hardhats or the tallest stack of “near miss” reports on their desks; rather, their style of leadership produces what we call the “Safety Side Effect.”  The idea is this: Safe performance is a bi-product of the way that good leaders facilitate and focus the efforts of their subordinate employees.  But what, specifically, produces this effect?

Over a 30 year period, we have asked thousands of employees to describe the characteristics of their best boss - the boss who sustained the highest productivity, quality and morale.  This “Best Boss” survey identified 20 consistently recurring characteristics, which we described in detail during our 2012 Newsletter series.  On close inspection, one of these characteristic - “Holds Himself and Others Accountable for Results” - plays a significant role in bringing about the Safety Side Effect.  Best bosses hold a different paradigm of accountability.  Rather than viewing accountability as a synonym for “punishment,” these leaders view it as an honest and pragmatic effort to redirect and resolve failures.  When performance failure occurs, the best boss...

  1. consistently steps up to the failure and deals with it immediately or as soon as possible after it occurs;
  2. honestly explores the many possible reasons WHY the failure occurred, without jumping to the simplistic conclusion that it was one person’s fault; and
  3. works with the employee to determine a resolution for the failure.

When a leader approaches performance failure in this way, it creates a substantially different working environment for subordinate employees - one in which employees:

  1. do not so quickly become defensive when others stop their unsafe behavior
  2. focus more on resolving problems than protecting themselves from blame, and
  3. freely offer ideas for improving their own safety performance.

Because I Said So! The Importance of “WHY”

by Michael Allen

Sending a clear message, such as an assignment to an employee requires that we make sure that Six-Points are understood: WHO-WHAT-WHERE-WHEN-HOW & WHY.  Sometimes we send mixed or unclear messages because we leave out one or more of these points.  This can happen because we are pressed for time, we assume understanding or because we just don’t see the importance of that point.  Failure to communicate any of these points could lead to failure, but one point in particular can really impact motivation.  
In most organizations, there are those tasks that nobody enjoys doing.  They may be either repetitive or noxious, but they have to get done anyway.  For example, some of our client companies use Behavior Based Safety (BBS) as a component of their comprehensive safety program.  One aspect of many of these BBS programs is the requirement for employees to complete “observation cards” on a regular basis (a repetitive task).  We find that many employees don’t see the importance of this task, so they put it off until the last minute and then “pencil-whip” or “make up” the observations just to satisfy the requirement.  The reason this happens is because the employees don’t really understand the “WHY” behind the observation task.  Supervisors assume that they understand the purpose behind the task so they don’t take the time to communicate this clearly to their employees.  As you might guess, this “false” data can lead management to make safety decisions that may be misguided.  We have found that simply telling employees that their observations are actually used to direct safety decision-making by management can greatly increase the validity of those observations.  

People need to understand why they are being asked to do something that they don’t really like to do.   Simply saying “because I said so” doesn’t work with children and it certainly doesn’t work with employees.  Take the time to clearly communicate the reason behind what you are asking them to do and you will increase motivation.