SHP explores the Safety Differently strategy that John Green developed during his time in industry with Laing O’Rourke in Australia, alongside Sidney Dekker and other thought-leaders in the health and safety management arena.
This article provides a summary of the key points and the core principles that form the basis of this ‘next-gear’ approach that John is driving across Laing O’Rourke’s global project portfolio and corporate executive leadership, as well as some of the ‘counters’ from contemporaries here in the UK that arose from the forum. We remain confident in the consensus that the topics raised will fuel further debate, and we look forward to a continued dialogue on the immediacy of these issues in the contemporary health and safety space.
“Safety is broken.”
This was certainly a startling opening statement from John who has spent 38 years on the ‘frontline’ of health and safety management in high-hazard industries. What has led to such an emphatic declaration from someone that should be one of safety’s staunchest allies?
You certainly can’t argue with some of the facts and data that is being used to point an accusatory finger in safety’s direction by the prosecution: John Green, HSEQ Director at the third largest construction contractor in the world (CN Top 100 2014), industry veteran and Laing O’Rourke stalwart of 8 years and counting.
John states that there has been “no decrease in the fatality and serious injury rate over the last 15 years” in the construction industry, and furthermore that there is “no correlation between low-level AFR’s indicating Major Accident Hazards”.
These realisations have led John away from the ‘Holy Grail’ and the oft-echoed battle-cry of contemporary health and safety practitioners ‘Zero-Harm’ (or ‘Mission-Zero’ ‘Target-Zero’ or any of its other myriad lexical incarnations). This represents a brave and bold move for a major construction contractor in the current climate of increasingly ‘safety conscious’ clients.
However, why do we persist with the same outdated principles and approaches to H&S management? As a wise man once said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.”
This obsession with the ‘Zero-Harm’ mantra has led to the dangerous assumption within safety circles that: “the absence of one element means the presence of its opposite.” In the context of what’s up for discussion here, this leads you to the logical conclusion that: “good safety is the absence of accidents.” However as we have seen, low-level accident frequency rates provide no indication of your next major accident hazard that could be lurking just around the corner.
In fact, a study of fatality and accident rates in the Finnish construction industry over 15 years has shown that the fatality rate in the construction industry increases when the accident frequency rate declines.
So what does this mean for our established attitudes to health and safety management in these high-hazard sectors? Clearly a: “paradigm shift in safety management” is required to address the deficiencies and discrepancies in our perception of the effective and efficient management of risk.
Consequently, John has developed ‘three paradigms of change’ to champion this cause and transform the ‘old-world’ conceptions that:
and towards the ‘new-world’ order that:
After all, if people get things right 99% of the time, then surely they can only form part of the solution and not part of the problem? Offer them a choice and involve them in the decision-making process and you will move your organisation forward with an empowered and engaged workforce.
Let’s move away from the bureaucracy surrounding safety and move the psychology of safety perception away from an obsession with numbers. As we explored earlier: safety performance gets confused with accident rates. If we feel compelled to have to measure something to alleviate our concern that safety is continually improving, why don’t we make it something else? What would that target be, or perhaps more pertinently, would there be one?
If you’re an experienced health and safety practitioner reading this, then I’m sure you have no doubt this represents at the very least a ‘paradigm shift in safety management’, if not total anathema and departure from all rational reality in structuring your response to managing safety related risk in your respective industries.
But let us be clear, John has nothing but the utmost respect for the pioneers and principles that have led so far to the juncture at which he now finds to be safety managements current crisis point. In his own words: “We couldn’t be doing what we’re doing now in terms of ‘next-gear’ without the previous ‘zero-harm’ initiatives.”
He is also indicative that he isn’t expectant of this ’Safety Differently’ strategy proving immortal in its application, and would dearly love someone to be standing in his shoes ranting and raving about the abolition of the ‘Safety Differently’ agenda and its outdated and antiquated principles in 20-30 years time.
However, one thing is clear for John in ‘The Stormy Present’ though: it is time for change. Evolve or become extinct. We need “an increased sense of safety from those who stand in the way of risk”. Empower your employees, engage your organisation and engross your stakeholders, within and without. It’s time to reinvigorate the dialectic.
What John is suggesting is neither simple nor straightforward in its approach and application: it will engender division and it will encourage debate. In fact three of the most immediate concerns and counter-arguments have come in the following forms:
But John has been very clear in his convictions…he is not dictating how or what to do to drive
this agenda in your organisation, or remaining obstinately adamant that this is the only methodology to move things forward. He is merely presenting and requesting that we consider managing safety differently.
If we don’t stop perceiving safety in the negative terms of its current terminology and drive its inclusion in the ethical agenda of activities and actions we will never come any closer to making the gains that we all desire in safety performance.
[…] at a ‘Safety Differently’ forum, attended by Sidney Dekker and other “thought-leaders’ (see full article here). John Green, HSEQ Director of Laing O’Rourke, is quoted as saying “safety is broken” […]
[…] future. John Green HSEQ Director at Laing O’Rourke commented in his recent Webinar Safety is Broken, “A paradigm shift in safety management” is […]
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Such a pleasure to hear about John’s work. He made such a tangible difference in Australia.
Well Said
John
I like the three paradigms of change
Get people to own safety and get their own levels of risk to match the basic level of cover
Would love to assist especially with the online trials of sub contractor control and discovery of safety online
with initiafy.com
The ‘New View’ articulated here is one we very much subscribe to. The tide is turning, so the question to practitioners now needs to be “which part of the wave do you want to be riding?”
Yes I done my 40yrs in the profession and the outcome. Build on success with the people that matter on the frontline. And for those at the top get them out there talking with their people about positive h/s. And measuring leadership engagement is a much more simple, less resource intensive metric too.
Every time someone tells me that all accidents are preventable, I ask “and how many £m are you going to spend to prevent the next paper cut?” Usually goes rather quiet.
I agree wholeheartedly with this approach, but have to take issue with the comment that contemporary health & safety practitioners
champion “Target Zero” or “Zero Harm” initiatives. In my experience these are thrust upon us as corporate ambitions set by a board
of a PLC that are looking to impress their shareholders. I think most contemporary practitioners are aware this is a shallow approach
and that a proactive management with risk profiling, employee engagement and leading indicators etc is a much healthier approach.
But it needs senior safety leaders to influence this, as John Green is looking to do here.
I agree with your comment. It is difficult to explain that we are “accepting” a result other than “zero accidents”… but that in itself is unrealistic… an accident by definition is an unplanned event.. how can you ensure that something unplanned does not occur? Well, start by having informed, aware and alert personnel that care for each others safety… invest in on-the-job training programmes in hazard identification, at first, and then going into industry specific detail as the programme progresses… I only have 15 years experience but I have found that when the workforce TRUELY understands the reason for the control measures, they actively ensure that they stay in place and inform when they have been tampered with or removed or even damaged.
It is preferable to remove the overburden of stressing that “we cannot have an accident” to move on to “if anything happens, no serious injury or fatality will occur and loss will be minimal…”
This creates a much better working environment!
I’ve even seen Clients demand the Zero Harm approach, as part of a pre-qualification tender. Well intentioned, but outdated.
i would like to sit down over a pint and discuss this, so refreshing to hear, I could throttle some so called safety professional’s who just blindly follow dogma. My membership card for IOSH states “challenge and change” not zero bloody harm.
Why oh why do we yet again hear the blindingly obvious and the repeat of the same messages delivered by others decades ago.
To many Directors and So called professionals standing on a box spouting the same old.
To much time,effort and resources wasted. The solution is to improve quality in all that is done in pursuant of performance excellence, it’s not the Health & Safety that needs fixing….. It’s the Quality of people, training, Risk Assessments etc. that need fixing
How many more over egotistical safety people do we need to still tell us what is so obvious….,,,,,,,,,
Safety not so different after all?
I saw the “Safety Differently” article link and went to it eagerly – “what can I learn?”, I thought. Sadly, I was left somewhat underwhelmed. First things first, John Green is no doubt massively experienced and knowledgeable, and many of us could certainly learn a thing or two from him. However, in my view, the article simply rehashes a lot of things that have been known for a long time by many in the profession. It also presents some issues as being black or white, whereas in reality most things actually require a balanced approach.
A couple of examples:
• Zero Harm – effectively the article says it’s unattainable so you should dump it. It can actually be a useful tag line, provided you don’t encourage people to take it literally. Presented as an aspiration – we’re going to try and prevent people being hurt – it can demonstrate intent and concern for people that promotes a positive culture.
• Measuring number of accidents – if that’s all you do you’re missing the point, and you should be including some leading indicators measuring positive and proactive activity. But monitoring what has gone wrong provides valuable information to help prioritise what you’re going to do about it, so don’t throw the baby out with the bath-water. Is it irony that the justification for doing something different was all based on number of accidents…
Doing something different seems to be engaging and educating people at the sharp end to understand risk and be involved in solutions. I’m not sure this is so different – positive culture has been recognised as important for years – decades even. A paradigm shift? I don’t think so.
Is it right to focus on major accident hazards that can lead to infrequent but catastrophic incidents? Absolutely! But not to the exclusion of other risks. We need a balanced approach – AND not OR. The failure of the construction industry to reduce fatalities demonstrates that more effort needs putting into the right areas – including worker (and leadership!) engagement. But don’t start to overcomplicate things, as we often do in areas such as process safety. And don’t mention paradigms, it only puts people off.
And a final thought. Next time you have to deal with an accident (as you will, as we can’t deliver zero harm), be careful how much bureaucracy you’ve got rid of when the HSE come calling…
I agree and support your comments in this debate. What John is proposing really is nothing new but the problem as I see it, based on my own experience thus far, is that there is all to often very little, if any, visible, energetic and committed leadership (by company LEADERS) actively driving John’s (and others over the years) approach to risk management and thereby “living” the values and ethos of such an approach. I don’t believe for one second that company leaders are not aware of what John is “tabling” across the industry so the real question that needs to be examined is WHY are company leaders (clients and contractors alike) CHOOSING not to adopt this approach? I’m sure all of our suggestions will be along the same lines and some of them are genuine “barriers”. However, if John’s (and others) approach is to be truly realised, then these “barriers” need to be challenged if meaningful change is to happen. The prosecution barrier and the fact that the courts make no allowance for organisational culture when deciding on sentencing necessitates the need to maintain many of our traditional safety management systems as tangible evidence as, no doubt, without it…well…However, there is also compelling evidence based research that proves that if you have genuinely strong and effective leaders actively and visibly driving positive organisational change in an engaging and meaningful way, then the chances are you will see a reduction in the number of serious incidents that will put you in court in the first place.
When drawn into these debates, I often find myself reminding people what was achieved on the London 2012 Olympic build. I spent 4yrs working on that iconic project and can honestly say that I witnessed John’s (and others) approach in practice on a daily basis (for the company I work for anyway). We put huge effort into effective worker engagement initiatives, education, training, the power of a simple thank-you and promoting the “WHY” behind this approach. As mentioned by others, we also put a lot of time and energy into measuring leading indicators and cultural maturity. The results were incredible and I am proud to have played a small part in that culture. However, with that said, I also firmly believe that NONE of that success would have been achievable had it not been for an incredibly inspiring and committed leadership team.
My point being that I fully support John’s energy and drive for this approach but let’s also remind ourselves that most of this is not new and, in come cases, has already been witnessed on projects such as London 2012 with the results/evidence to support this assertion (and not just by me!).
I like the paradigm, though I would tweak “…ethical responsibility” to read as “…moral responsibility”; as we don’t need to refer to rules and standards to do the right thing.