SAF101-A06

SAFETY MANAGEMENT
LECTURE 10
Behavior-Based Safety

ENGR. REYNALDO S. SITJAR

CIVIL ENGINEER

July 26, 2023

 LEARNING OUTCOMES

➢To guide the construction engineers as a safety thought

leader by embedding a culture focused on health and safety.

➢To implement, adhere an effective and reliable to safety

program, health and environmental laws in conjunction with
OHSAS:18001
 INTRODUCTION
What is Behavior-Based Safety?

Behavior-Based Safety or BBS is a scientific approach to

positively reinforce a safe work environment by modulating
unsafe behavioral patterns a behavior change to real world
problems.

A BBS system focuses on analyses how people work,

analyzes why they work in a certain way, and applies a
research supported intervention strategy to improve what
people do and eliminate unsafe behavior.
History
Successful Programs
Safety every day…
How Behavior-Based Safety Works
How Behavior-Based Safety Works
 Why is behavior-based safety important?
The importance of a behavior-based safety program lies in its
pragmatic approach to remove the most common source of
workplace injuries or accidents - "human error".
While human error is non-deliberate, it emancipates us from our
casual behavioral tendency of being complacent while undertaking
high-risk jobs. Front line workers are often prone to human errors as
they tend to neglect the finer aspects of safety while following
routine operations. As experience manifest in faster results, these
workers tend to take risky shortcuts that go undetected. This change
in behavior influences a dangerous pattern that ultimately leads to
an accident - causing harm to themselves and those around them.
Why Implement Behavior-Based Safety BBS?
 Safety is an integral to everything we do inside
and outside the construction project…
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) Management

System is a comprehensive management system designed
to manage health and safety elements in the workplace. It
provides a systematic and explicit process for managing
risks. It provides for goal setting, planning and measuring
performance for continual improvement.
 BASIC PRINCIPLES - 1
Principle No. 1 —An unsafe act, an unsafe condition and
accident are all symptoms that something is wrong in the
OH&S management system.
If we were actually to utilize this theory, we should redesign our accident
investigation procedures in a way that they would enable us to identify as
many contributing factors as possible in any single incident. Most of the
changes would be directed at improving the organizational system-not at
finding fault.

Identifying the act, the condition and the accident is just a starting point.
Learning why the act and the accident were allowed to happen and why the
condition was permitted to exist will lead to effective loss control. We view the
accident, the act, and the condition as symptoms of something is wrong in the
system. Then we try to identify what is wrong in the organizational system that
allows an unsafe act to be performed and unsafe condition to exist.
 BASIC PRINCIPLES - 2
Principle No. 2 - We can predict that certain sets of
circumstances will produce severe injuries. These
circumstances can be identified and controlled.
This principle states that we can predict severity of accidents under
certain conditions and thus turn our attention to severity per se instead of
merely hoping to reduce it by attacking frequency.
Statistics show that we have only been partially successful in reducing
severity by trying to control frequency. A number of recent studies
suggest that severe injuries are fairly predictable in certain situations.
Some of these situations involve:
 BASIC PRINCIPLES - 2
2.1 Unusual non-routine work.
This includes the job that pops up only occasionally and the one-of-
a-kind solution. Non-routine work may arise in both production and non-
production departments. The normal controls that apply to routine work have little
effect in the non-routine situation.

2.2 Non-production activities.

Much of our safety efforts were directed to production work. However,
there are tremendous potential exposures to loss associated with non-production
activities such as maintenance and research and development. In these types of
activities, most works tend to be non-routine. Since it is non-production work, it
often does not get much attention regarding safety, and usually the work is not
carried out according to standardized procedures. Severity is predictable here.
 2.3 Sources of high energy.
High energy sources can usually be associated with severity. Electricity,
steam, compressed gases, and flammable liquids are examples.

2.4 Certain situations in the construction industry.

Included are working on heights, tunneling and excavation works, and
working over water.
2.5 Ergo-related situations such as lifting and repetitive motions.
Back strain, as well as tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome are ergo-
related injuries that most of the time results in surgery and considerable lost time.
2.6 Psychological stress situations.
This is a whole new safety problems: injuries and illnesses resulting from
employees exposed to stressful environments.

2.7 Exposure to toxic materials.

After the Bophal incident, toxic materials are recognized as a contributin
factor to serious long-term liabilities.
 BASIC PRINCIPLES - 3
Principle 3- Safety should be managed like any other company
function. Management should direct the safety effort by setting
achievable goals and by planning, organizing and controlling to
achieve them.
Inherent in this principle is the fact that safety is and must be a
line function. As management directs the effort by goal setting, planning,
organizing and controlling, it assigns responsibility to line managers and
grants them authority to accomplish results. The word "line" here refers
not only to the first-level supervisors but also to all management-level
supervisors above those on the first level up to the top.
 BASIC PRINCIPLES - 4
Principle 4 - The key to effective line safety performance is
management procedures that fix accountability.
A person who is held accountable will accept the given responsibility. In
most cases, someone who is held not accountable will not accept responsibility —
he or she will devote the most attention to what management is measuring:
production, quality, cost, or any other area management is currently exerting
pressure on.
This principle is extremely important for the implementation of Principle 3.
Principle 4, in effect, makes Principle 3 work.
 BASIC PRINCIPLES - 5
Principle 5 - The function of safety is to locate and define the
operational errors that will allow accidents to occur. This function
can be carried out in two ways: (1) by asking why these accidents
happen by searching for their root causes and (2) by asking
whether certain known effective controls are being utilized.
The safety professional will do well to search out not what is wrong with
people but what is wrong with the management system that allows accidents to
occur. The safety professional's task in this regard can be summarized as follows:
 BBS What Is It Not!
• Only about observation and feedback
• Concerned only about the behaviors of line
employees
• A substitution for traditional risk management
techniques
• About cheating & manipulating people &
aversive control
• A focus on incident rates without a focus on
behavior
• A process that does not need employee
involvement
 Three Essential Questions
1) What behaviors are being observed?
2) Why are those behaviors present?
3) What will be done to correct the system deficiencies?
 THE ABC MODEL
The A stands for antecedent, which
is the prevailing condition that works
trigger human
behavior performance either as a catalyst for the preceding action.
reinforce or punish Antecedents reveal what set off the
behavior behavior.
The B stands for Behavior, which is
defined as the visible action that a
person performs which is observable
and measurable.
The C stands for consequence; it is
the action that takes place after the
outcome of the behavior is triggered.
It could either be positive or
negative depending on the result of
the behavior.
Human Behavior is both:
 CONSEQUENCE: Positive Reinforcement VS. Punishment
1) Give praise 1) Allow no distractions
2) Explain why this behavior right and/or safe 2) Stop at-risk behavior immediately
3) Encourage continued behavior 3) Discipline
Positive Reinforcement, R+
BBS Improvement Process
 Reinforcement for
Improvement and Goal Attainment
Management must provide immediate, positive feedback
to reinforce safe behavior.
Rewards can be an effective means of reinforcing goal attainment.
6 PILLARS OF BEHAVIOR BASED SAFETY
 INCIDENT
INVESTIGATION
REPORT FORM
SUBSTANDARD ACTIONS
BASIC CAUSE
Risk Assessment
Photos on Incident Investigation Report

Multiple abrasion at the

lower back. Caused by
scattered stockpile of wire
mesh.
Corrective Action on Incident Investigation Report

Immediate action taken:

❖ Transfer materials to a
more secure and stable
area
❖ Dowels installed on every
stack of mesh to avoid
falling off
 Obstacles to Success
• Poorly Maintained Facilities
• Top-down Management Practices
• Poor Planning/Execution
• Inadequate Training
 BBS Improvement Process
• Define target behaviors
• Develop critical behavior checklists to document
instances of target behaviors
• Design interventions to improve/prevent unsafe
behavior
• Chart progress consistently
• Give effective behavioral feedback
 1. What is the management’s BBS policy?
2. How is the company organized?
3. What is the function of the safety
department?
4. How is safety integrated into the
organization?
It is suggested that 5. What are the relationships between the
you analyze your staff people?
6. How is line safety responsibility defined?
company by asking 7. How does management hold people
such questions as: accountable?
8. How are supervisors’ BBS performance
measured?
9. How are employees selected?
10. How are employees trained?
11. How are supervisors motivated?
12. How is management motivated?
 Keys to Success
• Meaningful Employee Empowerment
• Designing a Well Planned and
Supported BBS Process
• Managing BBS Process with Integrity
 Keys Results
• Increased efficiency
• Increased productivity
• Increased morale
• Increased profitability
 SUMMARY
• An excellent tool for collecting data on the quality of a
company's safety management system

• A scientific way to understand why people behave the way they

do when it comes to safety

• Properly applied, an effective next step towards creating a truly

pro-active safety culture where loss prevention is a core value

• Conceptually easy to understand but often hard to implement

and sustain
THANK YOU!
 Q&A
What are the kinds of injuries and accidents are common
at your workplace?

94% What percentage of these accidents are a result of:

6% a) Unsafe conditions, safety violations,
dangerous equipment?

b) Unsafe actions, at-risk behaviors,

poor decisions ?

What’s next?
Q&A
What are the kinds of injuries and accidents are common
at your workplace?

What percentage of these accidents are a result of:

a) Unsafe conditions, OSHA violations,
dangerous equipment? 6%

b) Unsafe actions, at-risk behaviors,

poor decisions ? 94%

What’s next? FINAL EXAM