The behavior based safety process helps to identify work groups that may be at risk of accident or injury due to an unsafe work environment, unsafe work practices, or psychological factors on the job that lead to poor performance and inadequate behavior. The 7 steps in behavior based safety process are as follows;
Steps in Behavior Based Safety Process
- Developing the problem statement,
- Selecting the problem behaviors,
- Identifying the critical behaviors,
- Identifying antecedents and consequences related to the problem behaviors,
- Designing and implementing interventions,
- Validating the effectiveness of interventions and
- Measuring outcomes of interventions.
For any organization, managing employees’ health and safety at work is crucial to their success and productivity – not to mention it’s the law! If you are in charge of creating an effective behavior-based safety process make sure you follow “The 7 steps in the behavior-based safety process”.
Step 1: Develop The Problem Statement
By definition, behavior-based safety (BBS) is a system designed to keep workers safe by focusing on their behavior. So that’s what you need to do in step one: clearly define how your BBS program will help keep workers safe. To accomplish that, it is helpful to develop a problem statement describing why unsafe behaviors are occurring and how they could be eliminated through BBS.
Your problem statement should contain several elements, including why you are using BBS; how you will measure success (i.e., through key performance indicators); what resources you need to make it work; and how long it will take for your BBS program to be fully implemented and functioning properly.
It is also a good idea to include a specific goal of what you want to accomplish with your BBS program within a certain timeframe. That way, if there is not enough progress being made toward that goal, or if other problems arise along the way, you can revisit your plan and determine whether any changes need to be made.
Once you have developed your problem statement, make sure it is easily accessible by all employees. This will help ensure that everyone has access to information about why BBS is important for their safety as well as what they can do to support its implementation.
Step 2: Select The Problem Behaviours
After you have developed the problem statement, it is time to get a list of problem behaviors. Problem behaviors are what individuals do that compromise or put at risk their safety or that of others, or those things they do not do to reduce these risks. These behaviors must be observable and measurable for them to be actionable. There are many tools available that can help with identifying problem behaviors such as an observation checklist, video analysis software, or other checklists and surveys.
Remember that even though you have listed several problem behaviors, it is important to choose only one or two key ones for your observation plan. This will make it easier to track and analyze observations and data related to behaviour-based safety observations. You can use an Excel spreadsheet to record all behaviors you observe, who observed them when they were observed, and any follow-up comments. This will make analysis a lot easier and more consistent.
After you have developed your problem statement and identified a list of problem behaviors, you are ready to develop an observation checklist. This checklist is a tool that can be used to observe if there are any safety risks at work. The observation checklist should consist of observable behavior(s) that need to be monitored regularly to mitigate these risks and manage them more effectively.
Step 3: Identify The Critical Behaviours
There are several reasons for performing a job analysis. When considering behavior-based safety, it is most important to identify those behaviors that will help prevent workplace accidents. Often, these behaviors can be identified from data collected in connection with worker injuries and incidents. For example, if workers are experiencing problems accessing necessary personal protective equipment (PPE), then one of their critical behaviors might be ensuring that they have PPE before beginning work on a project or entering an area where there is a danger of injury.
Once you have identified what skills and behaviors are most critical to preventing incidents, you can set about ensuring that your workers learn them. Because every worker will respond better to different types of training, it is important to identify how they best learn new skills and behaviors before beginning a formal training program. For example, some employees prefer hands-on training while others are more responsive to self-guided learning or reading a self-paced manual.
READ: 6 Psychological Hazard Examples You Should Be Aware Of
When you have decided how to best provide learning opportunities for your workers, you can set about developing a plan for integrating and reinforcing behavior-based safety into your organization. You may find that one-off training sessions are sufficient to address certain behaviors, but others may need ongoing reinforcement. As part of your plan, it is also wise to ensure that employees understand why they are learning these new skills or changing their work methods and that they know what improvements in efficiency or employee satisfaction you expect as a result of their implementation.
Step 4: Identifying Antecedents And Consequences Related To The Problem Behaviours
Identifying antecedents and consequences related to problem behaviors is essential in any behavioral intervention. Antecedents are factors that occur immediately before a problem behavior, while consequences refer to factors that follow a problematic behavior. For example, if your child’s teacher reports trouble with his attention span, you could consider looking for possible antecedents such as hunger, change of school schedule/schedule conflict, or hyperactivity.
By knowing these antecedents and consequences, you will have a much better idea about what is driving your child’s problem behavior. You will also be able to select intervention strategies that target these factors. For example, if your child only has trouble with attention span during a specific time of day (e.g., in the mornings), then you could choose to intervene at that time.
Also, be aware that antecedents and consequences can be subjective. It may not always be clear what is driving a particular behavior problem. If you cannot identify an antecedent or consequence, it does not mean that they do not exist.
Step 5: Design And Implementing Interventions
This step consists of identifying hazardous situations and recording data that may indicate some underlying problem. The root cause or causes for these hazards should be determined using a variety of methods (e.g., brainstorming, cause-and-effect diagrams, failure mode, and effects analysis, fishbone diagrams). Once these potential causes have been identified and evaluated, possible interventions to reduce or eliminate them can be developed.
Once you have completed all of these steps, it is important to communicate your recommendations with other members of your safety team and possibly other stakeholders. A communication plan should be developed that identifies how and when your recommendations will be communicated to various groups.
To ensure that your intervention is effective, you need to put some mechanism in place to measure its success. After some time has passed, repeat steps 1 through 4 and compare your results.
Step 6: Validate Effectiveness Of Interventions
A business owner may introduce several interventions during an observation, but it’s up to managers and supervisors to determine whether these have had any positive effects on eliminating potential hazards. If a worker has not changed his or her behavior, then managers must determine why not.
By investigating why a behavior change has not occurred, you can make sure that management is addressing issues on a case-by-case basis. This will also enable supervisors to predict which behaviors are more likely to affect safety in the future. For example, a particular type of behavior may not be effective if it involves only one worker but may be more effective with two or three workers involved. What’s most important is for managers and supervisors to stay open-minded about how they approach and evaluate different interventions.
READ: 9 Ideas to Improve Safety in the Workplace
By using an outcome-based approach to behavior-based safety, you can take a positive and proactive stance against safety hazards. Instead of only reacting to unsafe acts or behaviors, you can create policies that steer employees toward safe work habits, leading to a reduction in accidents and injuries. The results will speak for themselves when employees feel empowered by their employers, leading to better company morale and improved profitability.
Step 7. Measuring Outcomes Of Interventions
This is a crucial step in the behavior-based safety process. It’s important to know how well your interventions are working and that you are progressing toward your goal of improving behavior as well as safety outcomes. Interventions should be monitored closely to measure their effectiveness and make any necessary adjustments. When it comes to measuring, there are two main approaches: reactive and proactive monitoring.
The most important thing to remember when measuring outcomes is that you need to measure both behavior and safety outcomes. You can not just measure behavior, because if behavior improves but safety does not, you have not made any progress. Also, do not try to measure everything at once. Start by focusing on a single metric (like near misses) or a couple of metrics.
This step is important because it not only will show you how effective your interventions are, but it will help you determine what to do next. If your interventions are not working well, then you will know how to change them or take a different approach to get better results. If they are working well, then you can double down on those activities and continue improving behavior and safety outcomes.
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