Behavioral Balance: Where course corrections succeed or fail - Safety

Safety First, Third, or Always?

In my early years, OSHA was new and seat belts were not mandatory in vehicles. We didn't wear helmets when riding our bikes and lawn darts were a popular toy. Safety was up to us, we looked out for each other and accidents usually only occurred due to ignorance about the risks of our actions.

Accidents on construction projects happened mostly due to poor equipment or unsafe conditions driven by ignorance or pressure to meet production goals. In all their wisdom and under pressure from the insurance industry, the government saw fit to mandate safety standards on the industry.

As with most governmental regulation, the benefits are accompanied by collateral hampering of productivity and often creates a domino hazard that requires even more regulation. The construction industry has responded to the regulations in varying degrees, but cultural safety is still the foundation for a solid safety record, not the regulations.

Regulations did motivate equipment manufacturers to make equipment much safer than it was in the early days. This is a positive result of the government and industry pressure.

Behavioral Safety:

Safety rules are similar to placing speed bumps in the street. Most look at them as a nuisance that is unnecessary because they always obey the speed limit due to the potential for children or pedestrians entering their path. Others see the speed bump as a tool to test the suspension on their car, or just a nuisance that demands aggressive braking and acceleration.

I learned early in my career that safety based on the behavior of the crew was far superior to having a "safety cop" try to enforce rules. Companies tried monetary safety incentives and quickly found that reporting of minor injuries were quashed by the crew in the interest of financial reward. My posture has always been, "your incentive to be safe is the ability to go home every night and the privilege of keeping your job!" In other words, the crew expects you to act safely out of respect for them and yourself.

Perspective Based Safety:

I've had the privilege of working directly with Brian Owens, who authored the book "Inversion and the Perspective-Based Safety Culture" (available on Amazon)

Brian joined my last employer as the Risk Manager and has shown me the benefit of taking the behavioral safety philosophy to the next level by creating a culture where the perspective about safety is brought to the front. Convince the speeding driver that it could be their own child who might be hit by a speeding car and the driver would slow down based on their perspective about their own children rather than fear of damaging their car or a citation. Pedestrian safety becomes more important than arriving at their destination on time. I encourage everyone reading this post to check out Brian's book.

Television host, Mike Rowe talks about "Safety Third" which also discusses the basic paradigms about safety culture.

Safety Always?