Behavior-Based Safety (BBS) has become a well known and common method for companies, universities, and government agencies to use to reduce accidents or injuries. The first known usage of BBS was as early as the 1940s, when unpublished U.S. army studies were conducted based on BBS methodologies. In the 1970s and 1980s, early trails of the process where conducted by Professor Judith Komaki and others. And in the 1990s, the centerpiece of the earlier studies evolved into the behavior observation and feedback programs that are now the heart of many safety programs worldwide.
The evolution of Behavior-Based Safety has resulted in a very structured and practical method for keeping people safe. Behavior-Based Safety (BBS) programs are, in essence, proactive approaches to injury prevention that either focuses on at-risk behaviors that can lead to an injury, or on safe behaviors that can contribute to injury prevention. The goal to any Behavior-Based Safety program is to have a process that helps employees identify and choose a safe behavior over an unsafe one.
A Program with a Thousand Names
Today’s Behavior-Based Safety programs are referred to by many names, including Behavioral Safety, Loss Prevention Safety, Hazard Observation Programs, and many others, however, they all follow a basic BBS program methology. An effective BBS program consists of several elements but most importantly they should all include these four steps.
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Observation
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Feedback
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Tracking
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Learning
The observation and feedback process are closely tied together creating an observation/feedback approach to safety where employees and/or safety officers observe a job activity and commend the workers for their safe behavior and discuss incorrect behavior. The observation process is formalized by the use of an Observation Card or Form, which is used to create a uniform list of defined at-risk behaviors and to create a consistence observation process. Tracking is the process where an observation is entered into a BSS tracking database to be able to look at statistically significant observational data. Tracking is important to the process of identifying problem areas and areas where safety training is needed. In addition, tracking makes the entire BBS process of observations more meaningful to the employees and company as a whole as it can help to clarify the bigger safety picture. And the final step is learning, which has two elements. The first element of learning is the immediate corrective action; the feedback directly resulting from the observation should result in a corrective action if an at-risk behavior is identified to help the employee understand what the safety concerns are and the safer approach to the task. The second element of learning is from the company’s point of view. Many companies use their BBS database to identify root cause elements to their safety concerns, plan training sessions on safety related topics, and even identify resource related issues.
Bad vs. Good
A design concern of many BBS programs that can be difficult to decide on is whether to record the name of the person or people being observed. In my experience, most companies do not record the person and persons being observed. However, there is one exception. Some companies will use a BBS program to reward their employees for good safety-behavior, so to solve this problem, many observation cards and/or forms have an area to write the person’s name if they want to acknowledge an “all safe” behavioral environment but leave no space for a person’s name when the observation includes at-risk behavior. But only companies with reward programs tend to allow for “recommendations” or “at-a-boy” areas. Those programs without rewards or plans for rewards generally don’t ask the name of the people or person being observed. Either way, we must remember that the purpose of a BBS program is to have a safe work place, and if people are resistant to the BBS program because they think that their name will be written down and that raises or promotions can be affected, many will choose not to participate, and participation is key to any safety program.