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Implementing the behavior based approach to safety: A practical guide

Article · November 1994

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 Implementing The Behaviour-Based Approach: A Practical Guide.
Published in: The Health And Safety Practitioner, November 1994.
1995 Winner of the UK Institution of Occupational Safety & Health's (IOSH)

Peter Wickens Award for best published paper

Dr Dominic Cooper C.Psychol CFIOSH

B-Safe Management Solutions Inc, 6648 East State Road 44, Franklin, IN 46131, USA.

Introduction
Within the field of occupational safety and health many efforts have been made to improve safety in the
workplace. These efforts have focused upon legislation, engineering failure, safety awareness
campaigns, safety training, and unsafe acts. Taken as a whole, these efforts have not always been
successful in impacting upon accident rates. Traditionally, the legislative approach has not made much
of an impact simply because the resources necessary to police the situation have not always been
forthcoming. An example of this is provided by the current level of approximately 90 factory inspectors
to police somewhere in the region of 100,000 construction sites, not all of which have been notified to
the appropriate authorities. The legislative approach has also included attempts at 'blitz' inspections by
the HSE. During 1987-88 inspections of over 2,000 construction sites were conducted. These
inspections revealed a worrying picture with one third of site agents and supervisors having poor
knowledge of basic health and safety requirements. Most importantly during the period of the campaign
there was no measurable decrease in the number of deaths or serious injuries (HSE, 1988). The recent
change of emphasis to an 'auditing of systems' approach, rather than an 'inspection of sites' approach by
the HSE (1992) is very welcome, as it implicitly addresses these and other issues.

Engineering approaches have typically focused on the designing out of the possibility of accident
occurrences, by for example providing guards on machinery etc (DoE, 1974). Although a useful route to
pursue, this approach has often been based on a reactive process founded on somewhat misleading
perceptions of accident causation, and typically does not take account of the effects of rapidly changing
technologies (HSC, 1993).

Other kinds of interventions designed to improve the poor accident record by raising operatives' safety
consciousness through the use of safety poster campaigns, and other informational safety campaigns,
have not been consistently successful. Such campaigns are generally ineffective, as illustrated by Saarela
et al. (1989) who found that in a Finnish shipbuilding yard, a two year campaign did not impact on the
accident/injury rate, although it did lay foundations for more profound safety interventions. Further
evidence of the ineffectiveness of safety awareness campaigns is indicated by the UK construction
industry 1983 accident statistics. During this year the national 'site safe, 83' safety awareness programme
was put into operation. Ironically, compared with the previous 5 years an increase in the accident rate
was found, despite all the time, money and effort (Langford & Webster, 1986).
Similarly, safety training has been one of the fundamental methods for improving safety, based in part
on the implicit assumption that safety training in itself is a good thing, in that those who know what to
do, will automatically conduct themselves in a safe manner for extended periods of time. Clearly this has
not been the case. Despite the notion that safety training will cure most ills in regard to accidents,
evidence exists showing that it is not always effective (Hale, 1984), which may be related to the
variability of the quality of training given.

It is pertinent at this stage to ask 'why have all the above approaches not been as successful as they
might have been? Part of the answer resides in the fact that both safety training and safety campaigns
concentrate upon changing people’s attitudes, in the hope of influencing their subsequent behaviour. The
underlying assumption is that attitudes cause behaviour. However, to a large extent this assumption is
inaccurate. Similarly, both the engineering and legislative approaches are based on the assumption that
influencing the situation will influence peoples behaviour. To some extent this is correct, but it is not the
whole picture. In my view, these approaches have only gone part of the way down the road. This view is
based on a school of thought, based on empirical evidence, which postulates a theory of 'reciprocal
determinism' (Bandura, 1977), which put simply states 'that the situation people find themselves will
influence both their behaviour and their attitudes. Peoples behaviour will influence both their attitudes
and the situation, and that people’s attitudes will influence their perceptions of a situation and, in turn
influence their behaviour'. In other words, the above approaches to improving safety have broadly
addressed either people’s attitudes or the situations they find themselves in, in an indirect fashion,
without specifically focusing on people’s behaviour. McAfee & Winn (1989) conducted a review of
empirical studies that attempted to change people’s safety behaviour using psychologically based
management techniques. Every study was successful in improving safety behaviour. However, it also
revealed that not one single study had been conducted in the UK. More recently, two UK based studies
have been completed. One in the construction industry by Duff et al. (1993) and one in the
manufacturing sector by Cooper et al. (1993), both of which achieved their aims of improving safety
behaviour. In addition, using an empirically derived measure, positive changes in safety culture were
also demonstrated, as a direct result of the behaviour based approach (Cooper & Phillips, 1994).

Attitudes and behaviour

Many approaches to improving safety concentrate upon changing people's attitudes, in the hope of
influencing their subsequent behaviour. The underlying assumption of this approach is that attitudes
cause behaviour. This assumption is, however, inaccurate. A considerable body of scientific evidence
shows that the relationship between attitudes and behaviour is a tenuous one. Indeed, an attitude is often
an expression of how we would like to see ourselves behaving, rather than the behaviours that we
actually engage in. For example, evidence has shown that workers with the most favourable attitudes
towards personal protective equipment are those least likely to actually use it in practice. Similarly,
senior management in many companies express the view that the safety of its employee's is of the
utmost importance. However, very often these same managers design the overall workflow system,
and/or the reward system in such a fashion that unsafe practices are inevitably encouraged.

Safety programmes that only focus upon and attempt to change people’s attitudes, will meet with little
success. This leads to the question 'what will change people’s attitudes'? A partial answer lies in
changing the behaviour associated with the attitude. For example, a study was conducted with the aim of
increasing employee usage of ear protectors in a metal fabrication plant. Prior to the study the usage of
ear protection was extremely low, as the majority of employee's held unfavourable attitudes towards the
wearing of ear protectors, owing to their reputed discomfort, etc. Two approaches were undertaken. One
approach by behavioural scientists, focused attention on the extent of temporary hearing loss
experienced by employee's who did not wear ear protection during the course of a working day.
Feedback about the extent of hearing loss was provided on a daily basis to each individual worker, in an
attempt to change their behaviour. The second approach was undertaken by management in two phases,
in a different department. The first phase took the form of group lectures, poster campaigns and talks
with individual employees in an attempt to change their attitudes and subsequent behaviour. The second
phase consisted of sanctions such as temporarily suspending employees from their jobs with associated
losses of pay and other penalties. The results were very illuminating. The first approach that focused
upon the employee's behaviour through the provision of feedback on temporary hearing loss, resulted in
an increase in ear protector usage from an average of 30%-50% during the baseline period, to an average
of 80%-90% after 5 months, although turnover of employees was approximately 65% during this period.
The second approach which attempted a change in attitudes resulted in a maximum of 10% ear
protection usage during the same time period.

A number of possible reasons exist as to why behaviour influences attitudes. One of these may be
consistency. People like to be consistent in both their behaviour and attitudes. If there is a mismatch
between the way we behave and our attitudes, internal tensions will result. This means that if we
consciously change our behaviour to achieve some end, we typically tend to justify our reasons for
change by rearranging our attitudes and belief systems to fit with the new behaviour/s. Thus, to some
extent our behaviour reflects and represents our attitudes. An example of this is provided by the
introduction of legislation, making it mandatory to wear hard hats on site. Prior to this legislation many
construction operatives would not wear hard hats on site unless forced to. Nowadays it is not uncommon
to see these same operatives wearing their hard hats, while walking through high streets etc.

Another way in which behaviour may influence attitudes is through its affect on social norms. Members
of a particular work or social group generally conform to the norms of that group through peer pressure,
because group membership demands conformity to the norms and values which form the memberships
basis for reality. In the context of safety, a group member will adopt the collective definition of what
behaviours, practices or tasks are considered to be risky. An individual who deviates from these group
norms will, in all probability, encounter sanctions from the group membership that can ultimately result
in the rejection of that individual by other group members. In fact the strength of social norms in
impacting upon the way people behave is succinctly demonstrated in the ear protection example already
discussed. At the end of the study period, only one third of the workers who had taken part in the
behavioural approach remained in the department, because of the high turnover of employee's. The other
two-thirds were new employees who had not taken part in the treatment phase. Nonetheless, the
percentage of ear protection usage had continued to dramatically improve. Thus new norms for accepted
work behaviours were firmly established which the new employee's adhered too. In the UK construction
research of Duff et al. (1993), this phenomenon of social forces in play was also observed. On one site,
the scaffolding safety indicator showed a consistent decrease in safety performance, resulting in much
teasing of scaffolders by other trades people. The cause of the poor performance was the site
management refusing to pay for the necessary scaffolding to ensure compliance with legislation. Despite
this, the scaffolding company 'blitzed' the site to improve the safety standards without remuneration, to
ensure that the scaffolding company's reputation was not damaged. In summary, the above evidence
demonstrates a weak link in traditional approaches to improving safety. Focusing upon attitudes to
improve safety not only has to cope with the problem of the tenuous links between attitudes and
behaviour, but also that attitudes are difficult to change. A focus on actual safety behaviour, however,
avoids the weak link by not trying to change attitudes.

The behavioural approach towards improving safety, therefore, differs from traditional approaches in
two simple ways. The first is its concentration on observable safety behaviour, rather than unobservable
attitudes towards safety. The second is its emphasis on the encouragement of safe behaviour, rather than
the punishment of unsafe behaviour. Many organizations would argue that they do encourage desirable
behavior. However, it is often the case that reward systems and/or company policies tend to encourage
undesirable behaviour. The following illustrations focus on the construction industry, although they are
also relevant to all other industries. It has been found that site agents, who use the meeting of cost
estimates as a motivator, or as a means of applying pressure to reduce costs, are likely to increase the
probability of injuries occurring on the job (Hinze & Parker, 1978). Similarly, a general lack of formal
safety training for new site managers does not place new site management in an ideal situation for
improving safety on sites, simply because they do not know what is safe and what not (Wilson, 1989) is.
Further, reward systems that stress payment by output only (i.e. target work) result in violations of safe
working practices; implicit understandings between operatives and management to turn a blind eye to
unsafe practices; and, beliefs among workers and managers that adhering to safety rules will
considerably reduce production leading to obedience only to those rules that do not cost time (Hale &
Glendon, 1990). Thus, these types of policies and practices adopted by an organization are often
counter-productive to safe behaviour, which further demonstrates the impact that the situation can have
on people’s behaviour.

When non-compliance to legislation or safety rules occurs, management often places an emphasis upon
the use of discipline and punishment to rectify the situation. This is in contrast to the rewarding of
compliance, which will have the effect of increasing the likelihood of compliance. Managers rarely
praise employees for working safely, but do tend to punish those who do not. Unfortunately, however,
the ways in which rewards and punishment influence behaviour differ considerably. For rewards to be
effective in encouraging and maintaining behaviour, they need to be given only every so often.
Punishment, on the other hand, must fulfil two criteria to be effective. It must occur every time the
behaviour occurs, and as soon as possible after the behaviour. However, this is not always feasible. You
cannot, for example, punish someone immediately and every time they commit an unsafe act, simply
because you are not always going to be there to observe it. Thus, relying on the punishment of
individuals for engaging in unsafe acts is not likely to improve the situation. Encouraging desirable
behaviour, however, by positively acknowledging safe behaviour is more likely to be successful, as it
does not have to be given immediately and every time. Evidence indicates that one of the most powerful
methods of encouraging desirable behaviour is to provide social rewards in the form of praise or
recognition. Ideally, these forms of social reward should only be used for specific desired behaviours,
not for general 'good works'. Initially, rewards should be given as soon as possible after the desired
behaviour, but only when the desired behaviour has occurred. This has the effect of making it clear to
employees the linkage between the desired behaviour and the subsequent reward. Whenever possible,
although very difficult in practice; the rewards should be related to the desired behaviour, not the
outcome of the behaviour. After a period of time, as the behaviour becomes an established part of the
individual’s repertoire, rewards can be given on a less frequent basis.

The giving of rewards can also be seen to be feedback as to how well people are doing. In all walks of
life we are provided with feedback from many sources, that subsequently affects our behaviour. For
example when driving our cars, we get feedback from the speedometer. If we are breaking the speed
limit we tend to adjust our speed and slow down. Thus, information feedback fulfils an error correcting
function. It also acts as a motivational spur, in that feedback provides us with knowledge of the results
of our behaviour, motivating us to take corrective actions. Indeed available evidence indicates the
effectiveness of feedback in enhancing performance in many fields of endeavour. In terms of improving
the safety behaviour of employees as a whole, a very powerful behavioural change agent is the public
posting of group feedback as to how well employees are doing; in relation to those areas of safety they
are specifically trying to improve. The advantages of group feedback are that all personnel, including
sub-contractors, can tell whether or not their collective efforts have been successful. This type of
feedback is usually in the form of a large graphical chart posted in a public location (eg site canteens,
department walls, etc). The feedback chart lets all personnel know how they are performing in relation
to specific, difficult targets they have set themselves. If there has been an improvement in safety
performance, the behaviours that led to the increase are rewarded by this knowledge, resulting in either
continued maintenance of current levels or further improvement, depending upon whether the target has
been reached or not. Conversely, provided the workforce as a whole is committed to improving safety, if
the feedback indicates a decrease in performance, previous safety performance is punished,resulting in
dissatisfaction which in turn stimulates greater effort to improve safety behaviour. Very often, the actual
posting of the weekly performance results are watched in anticipation by employees. This has often
resulted in a focusing of attention, and reinforcement of particular aspects of safety, by stimulating
conversations among employees as to how well they are progressing. Other effects include raising
general levels of safety awareness and positively changing attitudes, simply because the feedback
provides a direct measure of the groups own safety performance.

Implementing the behaviour based approach

The guide that follows, is based on both the authors’ theoretical and practical experience, and as such is
concerned with outlining the principles and practices involved. Obviously, each organization is different
but the approach is very flexible, and can be adapted to suit all types of organizations and situations.

Planning
As with most types of interventions, some planning is required. This usually entails deciding on the
scope of the intervention, in terms of which departments etc will be involved, and the necessary
resources, as well as identifying the person, usually a senior manager or safety advisor, who will
coordinate the overall effort.

Measuring current perceptions of the safety culture.

Ideally, at the very beginning of this type of approach it is useful to measure employee’s current
thinking, in terms of safety, along various dimensions. This not only provides information as to currently
held beliefs, but it aids in the development of the safety performance measures, so that they can be
devised with maximum effect. It also provides senior management with information concerning the
effects their current policies and practices are having on safety per se. Moreover, the results of the safety
culture measure can be used as a baseline, by which the effects of the behaviour based approach on the
plants safety culture can subsequently be assessed.

Management Briefings
During the planning stages, briefings must be held with line management as early as possible, to outline
and explain the philosophy of utilizing goal-setting and feedback to improve safety performance. If line
management does not 'buy in' to the process, problems may ensue. At the end of these briefings
management will be asked to demonstrate their commitment to the successful implementation of the
approach by fulfilling certain requests. These are [a] that they inform their subordinates that this type of
intervention will be put into effect in the very near future and that their cooperation will be necessary.
This aids in subsequent efforts, because the workforce are not in the dark as to what will be happening;
[b] that they suggest appropriate personnel to be recruited as observers, or ask for volunteers; [c] that
they allow all their subordinates to attend the subsequent goal-setting meetings; [d] that they allow
observers to conduct one observation session during each working day. This does not usually take any
more than 30 minutes at most; [e] that the managers themselves attend the goal-setting sessions to
provide support to the observers; [f] that managers should praise subordinates who work safely; [g] that
managers should regularly remind workers to try and reach the safety goals; [h] senior management
should make a point of visiting each department (or workplace) on a weekly basis to discuss and make
comments on the progress to date.

Recruiting Observers
Similarly, during the planning stages provision needs to be made to recruit employees to become safety
observers. This is done normally on the basis of three criteria. First, the observers should be people who
are known to be committed to safety. Second, each observer must be willing to undergo training, and
continue to observe their colleagues safety performance for at least six months. Third, one observer
should be obtained from each individual shift crew or department in order to ensure that the same
observer will be in situ. If these criteria are not followed, and people are simply told that they will be
observers, some initial problems can be expected, although these will not be insurmountable.

Interviews
Another aspect of planning is to ensure that a stratified sample of approximately 15 percent of the
workforce will be made available for 30 minute interviews, to provide a check on the utility and
practicality of the safety performance measures that will be developed, and gleaning further information
that may be useful.

Training
Similarly, the planning stage will entail setting aside a days training for the observers, once the safety
performance measures have been devised. If the plant or facility is large, it may be necessary to set aside
sets of training days for groups of observers. As a rule of thumb, a ceiling of 25 observers should be set
for each training group, simply because it becomes difficult to train more than this effectively at any one
time.

Safety Performance Measures

After the planning stage, developing a reliable safety performance measure, for each department or type
of trade, will be one of the first and main objectives. This will consist of identifying possible
contributory factors to accident causation and sub-dividing these into observable behaviours or
situations that are indicative of safe or unsafe events. Due to the many and varied production processes,
many types of accidents can occur for many different reasons. Therefore, it is a good idea to analyze all
the companies accident records for the previous two years. It is usually better to go back to the original
accident reports, rather than computer summaries, unless the computer records are very comprehensive.
Following a fixed sequence, the accident records should be sorted into three main categories. The first
step is to sort the accident data by department, etc. The second step consists of identifying the different
types of accident within each department, and then sorting these by the place of injury on the body. This
step allows identification of both the main types of accident, and the types of task contributing to the
causes of accidents. Third, the records should be classified on the basis of whether or not the individuals
behaviour, or the situation contributed to the accident. A last final step, is to peruse the records to
ascertain whether or not particular individuals are involved in more accidents than the norm, in relation
to their peers, within the previous two year period. If such individuals are identified, it is a good idea to
try and recruit them as observers.

Once the classification procedure is complete, the main focus of attention should be placed on the
specific behavioural causes. In the west-country study, for example, forklift drivers often damaged their
thumbs, due to the way they place their hands on a raised knob on the steering wheel; operatives often
cut the back of their hands on circular knives when threading the film through slitting machines, simply
because spare knives were left in the way; operatives in one department often cut themselves with razor
blades when clearing up wet waste, simply because they would not dispose of razor blades in the
appropriate receptacles provided for them; similarly, maintenance engineers often found themselves
squirted in the eye with fluids, when undoing valves, because they were not wearing eye protection.

The safe and unsafe behaviours gleaned from analyses of the accident records, are then subjected to
verification, in terms of their utility and practicality, through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a
sample of approximately 15 percent of the workforce. This results in additional items being included
that have not shown up in the accident records. On the basis of both the accident records and interviews
(and the safety culture measure if applicable), departmental checklists of critical behaviours are
constructed. This is achieved by stating the items in behaviourially specific terms, and where ambiguity
may be a problem, giving a set of clear and explicit instructions. An example item is 'No spare knives
may be left on the right hand side of bar, on slitting machines. A maximum of 3 spare male knives only,
may remain on left hand side of the bar when not in use'. Thus, the items on the checklists are written as
specifically as possible to allow consistency in scoring between observers, thereby increasing the
reliability of the measure. In terms of similarity in accident causes, it may be possible to use the same
critical behaviour checklists for all the different offices. Each departmental checklist should be further
refined by the departmental managers and safety committees by providing feedback as to the
appropriateness of each of the items, along with other suggestions. By following this process there is a
build up of employee ownership, which is vital for success.

Scoring the safety performance measure.

The scale used to rate the individual items that determine safety performance on the departmental
checklists consists of three columns, the headings of which are Safe, Unsafe and Not Seen. Each item on
the checklist is scored in the Safe column as either One, which represents all people behaving
completely safe, or Zero which reflects the fact that some or all people are behaving unsafely.
Conversely, the Unsafe column reflects the frequency of incidents of unsafe behaviours. This allows the
proportion of safe to unsafe behaviours to be recorded. For each particular item, the unsafe column is
scored by adding together all the instances of unsafe behaviour. The Not Seen column simply reflects
the fact that during a particular observation session, people were not undertaking that particular activity.
This allows these items to be discarded from the final percentage calculation. In summary, there are only
two possible scores that can be recorded in the Safe column. These are either One or Zero. The Unsafe
column can range from one to infinity. Thus, if a score of One is recorded in the Safe column, a zero
must be scored in the corresponding Unsafe column. Conversely, if a score of Zero is recorded in the
Safe column, then a score ranging from one to infinity will be recorded in the corresponding Unsafe
column. The result of scoring safety performance in this way is that the scoring system is weighted
heavily towards unsafe behaviour, which detects the slightest improvement in the frequency of safe
behaviours. Therefore, any improvements in safety behaviour that are detected will be real
improvements that correspond with reality on the shopfloor.

The formula for calculating the percentage of safe behaviour is based upon individual totals of both the
Safe and Unsafe columns, and dividing the sum of these totals into the amount of safe behaviours
recorded and multiplying by 100, ie.
total safe
%safe behaviour = ___________________________ X 100
total safe + total unsafe

Training
Each safety observer should undertook a days training in the basic theory and practice of the behavioural
approach. The training content should include elements of goal-setting, behaviour modification, team
decision-making, how to manage resistance from others, the provision of individual feedback,
observational techniques and scoring of the departmental checklists. Similarly, part of the training must
be devoted to practice observations within their respective departments, as they may lead to further
refinements of the checklists. The observers should continue supervised practice observations for a
further two weeks, within their respective departments, to ensure the observers are comfortable and
conversant with their task. Any misunderstandings in scoring are usually identified during this period.

Establishing departmental baselines

Following the two week practice period, a copy of each department checklist should be enlarged to A3
size and publicly displayed on health and safety notice boards in the appropriate department. This is
done to make it explicit to the workforce which behaviours are being monitored by the observers. The
observations in each department take on average, approximately 10-20 minutes to complete, and are
undertaken every day, or on every shift, by the observer touring the department. In order to ensure that
the pattern of observations is not predictable, they should be undertaken at different times, on different
days. Completed departmental checklists are then posted in a departmental collection box for the
computation of results. If VDU's are networked and available for use across all departments, it is
possible for the raw results to be entered and computed, on a daily basis. A minimum of four weeks of
data are subsequently collected from each department to provide a 'baseline' figure from which any
improvements can be compared. Each week’s figures are calculated and averaged to provide an overall
index of each department’s safety performance level. These averages are then posted on to specially
prepared 3' X 4' departmental feedback charts, whereby the vertical axis would indicate the percentage
of safety performance, and the horizontal axis would indicate time (eg the week numbers).

Establishing departmental goals

All personnel, including senior management, should attend their respective departments 'goal-setting'
meetings. The meetings are usually conducted by the observers, but this may fall to the coordinator, or
line management. In practice, it may be necessary to conduct these sessions with a series of smaller
groups. Alternatively, it may be possible for the observers to go around their respective departments and
talk to people individually, accompanied by the coordinator, or line manager, in order to minimise
interruptions to the production process.
The meetings should begin with an explanation of the purpose and the philosophy of the behavioural
approach. Particular emphasis must be placed on the fact that no individual employee can be identified
as a result of the observations, and therefore no disciplinary action will be taken against individuals who
do not follow the procedures advocated on the checklists. A copy of the checklist must be given to all
those present, to clarify the particular behaviours being monitored. The results of the baseline
observations are then presented to the groups, in graphical form on the 3' X 4' feedback charts.

Each individual group are asked to agree upon a goal that is 'difficult, but achievable' for improvements
in safety, in relation to the appropriate baseline average (see Cooper, 1993). When consensus cannot be
reached within a group, as is often the case, each individual suggested goal-level would be recorded.
Subsequently, all the suggested figures are summed and averaged to provide a goal that the group can
agree on. Once all the groups within each department have agreed a goal, the group goals are summed
and averaged to provide the departmental goal. Although this may seem a long-winded way of going
about establishing goal-levels, participation induces commitment to, and 'ownership' of, an improvement
process. Previous research in the UK has demonstrated that assigned (delegated) goals de-motivate the
workforce, with subsequent detrimental effects upon performance (Cooper et al., 1992). The respective
departmental goal-levels are then entered as a solid line on each of the feedback charts. The employee's
must also be informed that the results of subsequent observations will continue to be posted on the
charts on a weekly basis. Following the goal-setting meetings the feedback charts are posted in the
appropriate departments. Observations should continue at the same rate as that during the baseline
period. The results of weekly observations are posted on the departmental feedback charts every week.
Additionally, it is a good idea to provide information referring to the worst three-scoring items of the
previous week, and post it next to that department’s feedback chart, in order to make explicit to the
workforce where to focus their attention the following week. During the remainder of the intervention
period progress is monitored and assistance given to observers when necessary.

Continuous improvement
Because this approach adopts the philosophy of continuous improvement, it is usually a good idea, to
begin planning the following interventions, about 8 weeks after the goal-setting sessions. The benefit of
this is that within a relatively short period of time, the amount of employees who have been observers
will reach a critical mass. This will help to drive down accident rates even more rapidly. Some would
argue that previous observers should continue to observe ad infinitum. In practice, however, experience
has shown that this is not really feasible at a formal level, because of the large amount of additional data
that is generated which cannot be accommodated in a meaningful way on the feedback charts. Typically,
however, experienced observers do continue to observe informally, and point out non-compliance to
their peers. Moreover, they tend to provide a support resource for subsequent observers.

It is impossible in an article of this size to fully explain all of the subtleties of this approach. However,
the intention is to provide safety professionals with a base level of knowledge from which to work,
should they wish to implement this type of approach. This and the previous article on goal-setting can
and should be used in conjunction with each other. Feedback and correspondence from readers
concerning these articles is welcomed, particularly if the points raised lead to further refinements that
aid in the improvement of this approach when applied to safety.

References

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