Advancing Safe Behavior

Risk & Insurance, August, 2001 by William Atkinson

Employee behaviors and attitudes toward safety can have a tremendous impact on the frequency of accidents and injuries. Here are some strategies for managing this very human risk.

While many employees can go through their whole careers without ever having any accidents, there are some who have frequent accidents. Often, the cause relates to indifferent attitudes toward safety. Most employees have a sense of self-preservation and take precautions to protect themselves from injury. But some employees simply don't seem to have this attitude.

So what's an employer to do? First, don't hold your breath, but there may be some help coming from the federal government. A new bill, the Workplace Safety and Accountability Act (HR-5037), introduced into the House by Rep. Ralph Hall (D-Texas) and Rep. Billy Tauzin7 (R-La.), is a response to employer complaints over the years that OSHA citations and penalties largely ignore the role of employee conduct in accidents. The bill, if passed and signed into law, would shield employers from OSHA citations and penalties if employers can show that they had implemented required training and provided protective equipment to employees, but that the employees had failed to use the training and/or equipment.

"It would prevent OSHA from issuing citations and penalties to employers unless the employer knew, or with the exercise of reasonable diligence would have known, of the presence of the alleged violation," says a spokesperson from Rep. Hall's office.

In the meantime, there are two general steps you can take now. First, screen applicants carefully to weed out those who are most likely to have problems with safety. Second, train employees to be responsible for their own safety.

"I have heard employers comment for years about problems they have with employees' unsafe behaviors," reports Dan Hartshorn, a loss control consultant for the California State Compensation Insurance Fund in Stockton, Calif. "In most cases, I have found the problems stem from hiring too quickly. I encourage employers to spend more time and care in the selection process, especially in the area of safety."

To assist employers in this area, Hartshorn has come up with 10 open-ended questions employers can ask applicants to assess their attitudes (and, theoretically, their future behaviors) related to safety. "The questions are designed so that applicants are forced to come up with their own answers," he explains. "In addition, they challenge applicants to do some thinking-to analyze situations and respond in ways that will reveal their true thought processes." (See sidebar on page 33.)

While the answers themselves are important, Hartshorn emphasizes that the justifications applicants provide for the answers are even more important. "For example, when you ask an applicant what the most important part of a safety program is, the answer he or she selects isn't as important as the reasons the person gives for that answer."

Some red flags are applicants who:

* give little thought to their answers,

* seem to accept limited responsibility for their own safety, or

* tend to want to do things their own way instead of seeking assistance or advice from supervisors.

Creating a Safety Culture

One of the most common strategies for instilling safety attitudes and behaviors in employees is called behavior-based safety, in which employers attempt to create a safety culture by encouraging employees to provide feedback to each other to try to keep each other safe.

While behavior-based safety may be able to offer benefits in encouraging the majority of employees to reduce their unsafe behaviors, it cannot solve all the problems. The reason: Behavior-based safety focuses on employees receiving feedback from each other. But the ultimate in safety is an environment in which employees provide feedback to themselves. That is, behavior-based safety only focuses on occasionally observing coworkers and providing feedback. Employees who do not respond to this kind of peer pressure will continue to act unsafely when they are not being observed. What is needed is an environment where employees provide feedback to themselves every minute of the day.

This is an approach espoused by Strategic Safety Associates. "We believe people are the safety managers of their own lives," explains Robert Pater, managing director of the Portland, Ore., safety consultant. "As such, we create safety systems that rely on individuals to take personal control and responsibility for their own safety."

Pater and his colleagues never tell employees they need to take more responsibility. Instead, they focus on showing employees how to take more control of their lives, which ultimately achieves the same results. They use a four-step process with employees: gain their attention; gain their interest; gain their trust; and gain their commitment.

"We begin by focusing on safe behavior off the job," continues Pater. This achieves two results. First, it emphasizes to employees that you care for their personal safety, not just their safety record at work. "Second, it helps employees to develop habits that they can begin to use consistently, rather than one set of behaviors they use at home and another at work."