Safety doesn’t start with answers – it starts with questions.
Before you can do anything to safeguard workers, you need to identify the hazards that put them at risk. And to suss out those hazards you will have to ask questions like:
- Is anyone cutting corners to get the job done faster?
- Is all the equipment being used properly?
- Is everyone following every step of their work procedure?
Those questions will help you uncover some key facts. Specifically, whether employees:
- Understand the duties and responsibilities associated with their job
- Know how to perform job tasks properly and safely
- Have a clear idea of what is expected of them
Those are the major concerns behind behavior based safety (BBS). It’s a very old idea that some safety professionals consider entirely outdated. But does it still have value?
Is BBS Just Plain BS?
Like many of safety’s oldest and most enduring ideas, behavior based safety can be traced back to Herbert Heinrich.
Heinrich was an occupational safety pioneer before occupational safety was really even a thing. Decades before OSHA and the OSH Act, Heinrich published his highly influential 1931 book Industrial Accident Prevent: A Scientific Approach.
In it, he gave us classics like the Domino Theory of Accident Causation. And of course, his greatest hit: the Safety Pyramid.
He also laid the groundwork for BBS, stating that 88% of industrial accidents were caused by unsafe behavior on the part of workers.
At the time, this was a somewhat progressive idea. It took the prevailing theory that some workers are simply accident prone (making accidents impossible to prevent) and replaced it with a theory that laid the blame on worker conduct rather than their character (giving employers a reason to provide training and other safety measures).
But that blame is precisely why many people now take issue with this approach. Instead of tracing accidents back to failures in safety management systems or inadequate control measures, BBS chalks it up to workers being too careless and putting themselves at risk. This belief is widely considered to be discredited (research on accident causation doesn’t typically identify worker behavior as the main culprit) and counterproductive (playing the blame game won’t prevent future incidents from happening).
The notion that most incidents wouldn’t happen if workers knew how to do their job safely and be more careful doesn’t have much purchase these days. To many safety professionals, it was a pipedream at best – and a dangerous idea at worst.
But were we too quick to discard it? Have we thrown out the baby with the BBS bathwater?
Check out our free whitepaper: 9 Steps to a Successful Safety Culture!
Simple vs. Comprehensive Models of Behavior Based Safety
Without a doubt, we should take any theory of workplace safety that dates back to the 1930s with a grain of salt. That includes behavior based safety.
Still, it’s worth asking what goes wrong when organizations adopt behavior based approaches to safety. And usually, what goes wrong is that behavior is treated as a simple and straightforward explanation for workplace incidents.
The Simple Approach to BBS
If you assume that bad behavior is the root cause of most incidents, your BBS program is bound to fail.
Safety programs that place too much emphasis on changing worker conduct often end up making the same key mistakes, including:
- Finding fault and placing blame instead of seeking explanations and implementing solutions
- Pushing for behavior change through rewards, incentive programs, and “zero incident” goals
- Settling on surface-level explanations for incidents, rather than digging for the real root causes
- Micromanaging workers and overly surveilling them
The result is a less engaged workforce, a focus on lagging indicators of safety, and workers who might hesitate to report safety incidents.
None of this will make your workplace any safer – quite the opposite, actually. It’s no wonder so many safety professionals are suspicious of behavior-based approaches to safety.
But thankfully, there’s a better way to do it.
BBS as Part of a Comprehensive Approach to Safety
The problem with the simple approach to BBS is that it treats behavior as the be all and end all of workplace safety, when it really isn’t. BBS shouldn’t be seen as a Theory of Everything for workplace incidents. Rather, it should be one of many tools at a safety professional’s disposal.
Thinking of it that way allows you to take a more complex and nuanced approach to BBS. And instead of bumping up against its limitations, you can compensate for them with the other theories, concepts, and approaches that make up your safety toolkit.
Worker behavior isn’t the only factor in workplace incidents. It’s not even the main one. But it’s still a factor nonetheless, and one that should be addressed. Having a BBS program is a great way to make sure that it doesn’t get overlooked.
When you de-emphasize the role of worker behavior in safety incidents, your behavior-based program will look a lot different. There won’t be misguided incentive programs and safety inspections won’t be geared to finding someone to blame. Instead, it will involve:
- Identifying the cause of unsafe behavior, rather than assuming that behavior is itself the root cause
- Assessing and updating safe work procedures to encourage safe conduct and create a better workflow
- Ensuring that training is effective and comprehensive
- Creating safety awareness through toolbox talks, safety moments, and other regular reminders
- Fostering a strong safety culture
All of which are effective methods of behavioral change without any of the drawbacks that critics of BBS have highlighted. Instead of finding fault with the worker, it acknowledges that unsafe behavior is really a failure in the safety management system. Instead of simply correcting the symptom (worker actions) it aims to correct the causes (the systems that failed to discourage those actions).
The Role of BBS in Today’s Workplace
Every incident can’t be traced back to worker behavior. We can’t even say that behavior is the root cause of those incidents. In the majority of cases, it simply isn’t.
But worker behavior is often one of the factors at play. And modifying the behavior could turn an incident into a near miss, or a near miss into a completely safe event.
The problem isn’t acknowledging that behavior plays a role in safety, or even taking steps to influence it. The problem is believing that changing behavior is all that needs to be done, and that pinning the blame on workers’ actions absolves employers of the responsibility to ensure everyone’s safety.
When unsafe behavior is identified, it’s up to employers and safety professionals to modify it. Not by reprimanding or punishing workers. Not by dangling rewards for zero incident months. But by beefing up training, reviewing safe working procedures, implementing toolbox talks, and finding other ways to make it easier for workers to act safely.
It’s also important to lean on all the safety tools at your disposal. Unsafe behavior is a hazard that needs to be controlled, not an excuse for employers not to implement other safety measures.
That’s the problem with playing the blame game. If incidents are seen as the fault of the employee, then it’s up to the employee to do something about it. But ultimately, it’s not their fault. And even if it were, blaming them for it wouldn’t help anyway. Multiple layers of hazard control are still needed – PPE, workplace design, machine guards, floor markings, and so on. The goal shouldn’t simply be to prevent employees from slipping up. The goal should be to have control measures so strong that an employee could have a slip-up without it resulting in an incident.
Taking the simple approach to BBS is outdated, and for good reason. Behavior-based interventions shouldn’t do all the heavy lifting. However, that doesn’t mean we should shove them aside. Because including BBS as part of a more comprehensive safety program is the only way to truly create a safer workplace.
Ready to learn more? Check out our free webinar on Promoting a Positive Safety Culture Through BBS and Safety Observations!
Sign up to the Safeopedia Newsletter to get more great safety info delivered right to your inbox!