The current vogue among employers for adopting behavioural programmes to address health and safety issues has been criticised by a leading trade union, which says they mainly seek to blame the worker rather than focusing on the failures of management.
Unite recently launched a campaign in the paper and packaging sector, where its officers have reported a particular prevalence of management initiatives focusing on worker behaviour.
The basic premise of behavioural safety programmes, says the union, is that the majority of workplace accidents are caused by unsafe acts by workers so, to prevent them, management should target specific behaviours and aim to change them by observing and monitoring staff.
But, it argues, too many companies introduce such programmes thinking they are the answer to all health and safety problems, when, in fact, they are mostly just expensive and ineffective. It also claims that many behavioural safety programmes are designed to undermine trade-union activity on health and safety, reduce the role of joint health and safety committees, and shift the blame for accidents from management to workers.
Unite’s national officer for the paper and corrugating industries, Peter Ellis, commented: “We know from our experience, dealing with safety in thousands of workplaces, that hazards and unsafe conditions cause injury and illness. When the hazards are properly identified and fixed, injury and illness decrease. In the meantime, it’s our members who face the workplace risks and, under behavioural safety, tend to get the blame as well.”
As “evidence” that management is implementing a behavioural-safety approach the union advises workers to look out for: reward schemes for no lost-time accidents, disciplinary action for involvement in an accident, worker observation schemes, non or under-reporting of incidents and accidents, and an increased focus on the use of PPE.
One of the main alternatives it proposes is better recognition and involvement of safety reps in the devising and implementation of safety management systems. Instead of focusing on worker behaviour, says the union, safety reps should be involved to help identify hazards and fix them. Added Peter Ellis: “Fix the hazards – don’t blame the victims. Workers and their reps are the solution to workplace health and safety concerns, not the problem.”
More information about the campaign, as well as posters and stickers, is available on the Unite website.
Unite is right to highlight the weakness of behavioural-safety initiatives. Owners/Directors/Management and not the individual employee set the safety culture of an organisation. Rather than being seen as part of a wider strategy the increasingly popular approach is to use “behaviour-safety” as justification for management to do nothing.
HSE should step in to stop these cowboy safety practitioners using these dangerous initiatives.
Let’s face it, health and safety is EVERYONES responsibility – not just the employers and not just the employees. I groan as some trade unions indulge in blanket berating of ALL employers who use Behavioural Safety. Good trade unions don’t do that & good employers – and there are few of them just want everone to go home safe and well. As an ex TU safety rep, i am only too aware of some members stance that the union is there to protect them when when they get caught ignoring safety rules!!
I don’t know where Unite get their facts from, but it’s obvious they have only looked at a few behaviour programmes. There are some good ones out there and of course any company can implement their own programme using their safety oficers / union reps. It is worth noting that 80% of all accidents are attributed to human factors, so there will always be a place for a human behavioural programme.
Rod, What you did in 1983/5 was part of a wider package and was aimed at a safety culture. In my view this should still be the aim.
The problem is a good idea has been abused. Behavioural Safety is now seen as justification by Companies to do nothing as anything that goes wrong they turn as the staff’s own fault!
It is shocking that some Companies are happy to spend the money on methods to seek to blame the staff rather than on real safety improvement.
Accidents have a three part relationship of Hard, Human and System error. Pointing the blame at staff alone via misplaced use of behavioural-safety initiatives ignores the Hard and System failure that are both in the sole control of management.
Behavioural-safety initiatives are not evil however the abuse of the idea is creating a misleading view of safety with the intention of blame avoidance.
Behavioural Safety is a tool in the arsenal of understanding why thing can — rather than do go wrong. The questions for a company are:
1 – how did they allow the unsafe condition to be there in the first place, and
2 – how did they allow the unsafe act to be undertaken?
Both are a management problem not the person or persons undertaking the task.
Behavioural safety is a science that looks at why do people do a certain thing or ignore an unsafe condition and carry on regardless.
Part 2 — Behavioural safety takes into account the management style that encourages risks to be taken to get the job done and at the other end analyses the onerous safe systems of work that are totally impractical to implement or undertake in the time allowed to perform the task.
One other factor is the perception that to keep the customer satisfied the job has to be completed quickly no matter how, and hence corners are cut? Is this the persons fault or the companies ethos and briefing style?
Are UNITE nuts!! Unions like UNITE exist to support workers in the implelentation of a safer working environment and frankly should be more responsibile about the way they report on these improvement techniques. What ever an employer does towards the improvement of the safety of the workforce can only be a good thing surely? Putting out this sort of mesage can only damage worker trust in their employers..I think UNITE should change their attitude never mind the workers! Speachless!
I have implemented a behavioural safety programme and to a certain extent they work well. The main aim is to ensure people are not ‘blamed’, but when you observe people working and see them take an unsafe short cut, or fail to wear PPE, they automatically think you are blaming them when you approach them.
Accidents usually have several causes, one being behaviour, but the tendancy is always to blame management particulalry where unions are involved.
Unsafe conditions are a factor, but the fact is that unsafe acts by individuals IS a major cause of incidents! As a commercial H&S Advisor and since as a consultant, almost all investigations had behaviour as the principle cause.
I have experienced many unionised companies and it is the default position of the union that their members are always faultless and deserve financial compensation. Safety is a shared responsibility, but employees being the victims need to change attitudes/actions.
The unions have a valid concern, too many behavioural initiatives fonder because they focus only on the behaviours of front-line workers and can descend into operative-bashing sessions. Behaviours of managers, and often supervisors, generally go unchallenged as most organisations still dont appreciate that the behaviors of the front-line staff are often consequences of the actions taken by managers. BBS is fine, as long as it is properly balanced.
I’d like to know what “TU activity on health & safety”, that Unite refers to, is being undermined – perhaps the introduction of the union’s own behavioural safety programme as part of a balanced array of initiatives to make the workplace safer for its members?
Does anyone else think it amusing (or perverse) that a TU that does so much to maintain an “us & them” relationship should call itself ‘Unite’?
These programmes are worthless unless the maangement seek to make compinat behaviour more attractive than non compliant behaviour. My advice that any Behavioural Safety Initiative without this component should be avoided at all costs.
Unfortunately this shows a complete lack of understanding about behaviour and its impact on injuries and incidents. Any effective behavioural programme focuses on director and management behaviour and omissions, just as much as it does on the frontline workforce. This just adds to the defensiveness and challenges we experience when supporting companies with these type of projects. Usually the ones I see with these problems and misunderstanding is where people devise initiatives themselves .
Behavioural programmes are another tool in the box and should be used together with ergonomics and structured management systems that look to review and continually improve on safe systems of work.
lets drop the paranoia and concentrate on how successful we could be if we worked together
All accidents are caused by people! So why not behavioural training and disciplinaries if staff do not follow the rules. We get fined if we drive our car too fast.
We are getting to the stage of where no matter what we do in H&S we still lose and get prosecuted by the HSE, no one lives in the real world anymore.
I find the unite comments Mind numbing. Behavioural based safety run along side condition base safety works extremely well. Why cant employers question the role that injured persons have had to play in the accident.
Blame cultures only exist in companies that can’t manage safety and if you can’t manage safety you can’t manage your business.
Part 2
I have read all of the comments there are positives & negatives, no matter what system are installed safety improvements and reduced accident / injuries must be the goal, I feel if support is 100%, good communication and implementation from Top down and bottom up then behavioural safety can make a massive difference I have the proof it works!
I had the misfortune to spend some time dealing with a unionised workforce in refuse and cleansing. TU members regularly carried out patently dangerous acts on the highway with no regard for their colleagues or the public, and hid behind the union convenor at the first sign of being held accountable. I too would like to know what organisations Unite have monitored!
The problem I find is, power-mad supervisors who become ‘experts’ on behavioural safety after a two/three day course.
They love it, by bamboozling shop-floor workers with their latest ‘deterrent’ for dealing with ‘non-compliance’
Some safety advisors are not too far behind them either.
The credibility of ‘safety’ goes further and further down the pan!
I totally agree with Mr. Wallace. I too have worked in a unionised business, and I can say that not once did a union trained safety rep come to me in regard to reporting one of the ‘members’working outside of a laid down procedure. It became a constant battle.
I now work in an environment were the champions are “ordinary” employees and are a joy to work with. ALL issues are reported and corrected as a team. Yes we have our problems but they never become a ‘them and us’ type scenario
A good behavioural system should not blame. It should look at behaviours then assess why the behaviour is there, that is when the focus can come back to management systems and equipment. People do things for a reason. If they are doing something unsafe, we should find the reason then change it to make the safe way the easy way – the easy way will be used more often than not. I must agree with the majority of evidence points given, although observation is effective if done properly.
I have to say that I find Unites comments ridiculous, I have implemented many behavioural and cultural change programmes in many companies and the focus has always been to build on a no blame culture to achieve a reduction in accidents and ill health were current occurrance rates have hit a stalemate.
Why would a company spend thousands implementing a behavioural safety programme in order to blame workers? it can do that anyway? typical regressive comments from these dinosaurs sadly
Professor Dominic Cooper a leading Behavioural Safety expert stated in his book: Behavioral Safety – A Framework for Success(2010) ‘The major underlying reason that 99% percent of all Behavioral Safety processes fail is a loss of credibility.’ A 1% success rate does not inspire confidence! On the other hand the HSE indentified in their new Strategy statement that trade union supported safety representatives offered the most effective consultation mechanism for improving safety standards.
Part 2 James Reason, the Human Factors expert stated in his book The Human Condition – ‘Nonetheless, the shortcomings of the person model greatly outweigh its advantages, particularly in the understanding and prevention of organisational accidents.’ The HSE have consistantly stated over a 30 year period that about 80% of accidents can be attributed to failures in managerial control. Hence Behavioural Safety initiatives tend to put huge resources into addressing less than 20% of the problem.
Part 3 If Behavioral Safety is so good, why isn’t it applied to Boardroom decision making on health and safety?
The HaSaWA 1974, the MHSW Regulations 1992 have both identified the responsibilities of management and individuals with the need to communicate and co-operate. A good safety behavioural programme will not only focus on the behaviours of the workforce but include management behaviours to support change and improve safety performance, which is a benefit to all. An important part of any safety behavioural programme is safety ownership at all levels, which Unite has seemed to have missed.
It is axiomatic that accidents are caused by human error – but this only tells part of the story. Focusing on one particular aspect of accident causation is not the way forward. Good supervision and training is part of the equation in eradicting unsafe practices, not defaulting to blame those who get injured.
Many organisations would much rather adopt the notion that workers cause accidents – it’s much cheaper than buying new modern plant and machinery as well as insulating management.
Forget behavioural safety, think Culture Change. In my 33 years in this sector it is my eperience that all SHE problems are a result of poor management. I ran my first so called Behavioural Safety (Culture Change) project during 1983/5, and very successfully it was too, and in a highly unionised shop of over 800 people. SOGAT for those who remember. We set up study groups led by the shop floor, everybody got involved, and we made positive changes. Its not what you do, its the way that you do it
Worked in both Union/Non-union firms, so hopefully balanced:
If a firm starts a behavioural program it suggests management do actually value increasing safety, at odds to Unite comments.
A good BBS program focuses on +ve behaviours to accelerate change, rather than “looking to punish”.
Most incidents are multi-causal, so very difficult to “Blame him!”.
Is 2nd last paragraph a joke? Unite say BEWARE of “Rewarding people; being accountable; caring for workmates & using PPE”. Speechless!
Following a panel debate with Nigel (as below) and Unite at the 2012 EXPO I prepared an article for the Ergonomist magazine.
It summarises the point that many person focused programmes (EG “if you can walk on hot coals you can do anything – so be safe out there!”) are often guilty as charged but processes based on a Just Culture inspired analysis of root causes AND workforce involvement can be hugely effective. Regardless of who sets them up!
Its sad it appearswe’re still in the position that some union officials fail to recognise human behaviour contributes to accidents as well as hazards and that unsafe conditions generally cause harm following an unsafe act. I would never advocate a blame culture as they are always counter productive in terms of communication and co-operation. Safety relies on all parties taking responsibility and accountability for their actions. This smacks of “you can blame me I’m part of the union”!