Introduction

Behavioral safety has fast become an established weapon in

the war on workplace accidents, as its use has helped many
companies to dramatically slice through their accident plateau.
Scientific researchers testifies to the effectiveness of behavioral
safety initiatives across a wide range of industries in many countries.

What is Behavioral Based Safety?

Behavioral safety is the systematic application of psychological
research on human behavior to the problems of safety in the
workplace. Given that 96 percent of all workplace accidents
are triggered by unsafe behavior, most people will be aware
that reducing accidents and improving safety performance can
only be achieved by systematically focusing upon those unsafe
behaviors in the workplace. For example, ducking under or
climbing over assembly lines to reach the controls, not holding
the handrail when ascending/descending stairs, not putting
equipment away after completing a job, etc., are all unsafe behaviors. These are in the direct control
of the person engaging in them, and therefore can be targeted for improvement via a workforce
driven behavioral safety initiative.

Criteria For Behavioral Safety Program

It involves significant workforce participation: This means that those workers most
likely to engage in unsafe behavior or to be hurt have traditionally been divorced
from the safety improvement process.
It targets specific unsafe behaviors: Focuses on that small proportion of unsafe
behaviors that are responsible for the lions share of a companys accidents/ incidents.
It is based on observational data collection: Trained observers monitor their peers
safety behavior on a regular basis.
It involves data-driven decision-making processes: Enables those running the
project to provide finely detailed feedback to those concerned so that they can
either provide positive reinforcement to those working safely, or undertake corrective
actions for those unsafe behaviors that persist.
It involves a systematic, observational, improvement intervention: A unique feature
of behavioral safety systems is the introduction of a planned schedule of events that
combine to create an overall improvement intervention. This way behavioral safety
systems incorporate the principles of continuous improvement.
It involves regular focused feedback about on-going performance
It requires visible on-going support from managers and front-line supervision: They
usually demonstrate their commitment by allowing the observers the time to conduct
their observation tours; Give praise and recognition to those working safely; Provide
the necessary resources and assistance for remedial actions to take place; Help
to set up and run regular feedback sessions; and generally promote the initiative
whenever and wherever the opportunity arises.

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Psychology of
Behavior Safety

dramatic reductions in
accident rates. Often,
however, a plateau of
minor accidents remains
Introduction
that appears to be
Many companies have
stubbornly resistant to all
spent a lot of time and
efforts to remove them.
effort improving safety,
Although many of these
usually by addressing
are attributed to peoples
hardware issues
carelessness or poor
and installing safety
safety attitudes, most of
management systems
these are triggered by
that include regular (e.g.
deeply ingrained unsafe
monthly) line management
behaviors. Behavioral
safety audits. Over a
Safety addresses these
number of years these
by making use of proven
efforts tend to produce

management techniques
which almost always results
in a positive step change
in safety performance and
safety attitudes.

Outcomes From A Well Planned And Implemented Behavioral Safety

System
1. Lower numbers of accidents or incidents, near-misses and property damage
2. Improved levels of quantified safety behaviors
3. Reduced accidents costs
4. Maintenance
5. Acceptance of the system by all concerned
6. Generalisability
7. Regular and rapid follow-up
8. Increased reporting of defects, near misses, accidents, etc.
9. Increased skills in positive reinforcement

Why Focus on Unsafe Behavior?

Although difficult to control, approximately 80-95 percent of all accidents

are triggered by unsafe behaviors, which tend to interact with other
negative features (termed Pathogens) inherent in workflow processes
or present in the working environment. Often inadvertently introduced
by the implementation of strategic plans, every organization has its fair
share of accident causing pathogens. These pathogens lie dormant and
are relatively harmless, until such time as two or more combine and are
triggered by an unsafe behavior to produce an accident.

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Proactive Index of Safety Performance

A focus upon unsafe behaviors also provides a much better index of ongoing safety performance
than accident rates for two reasons: First, accidents are the end result of a causal sequence
that is usually triggered an unsafe behavior; and second, unsfe behavior can be be measured
in a meaningful way on a daily basis.
Consequently, rather than bein proactive, those who focus almost exclusively on accident
rates as a measureof safey performance tend to be reactive in their
approach to safety.
Conversely, a regular forucs on actual safety behavior is proactive
as it allows other safety-related issues in the accident causal chain
to be identified and dealt with before an incident occurs. Because
safety behavior is the unit of measurement, a collaborative,
problem-solving approach involving both management and
employees is adopted to identify critical sets of safe and unsafe
behaviors and used to develop Safety Behaviour Inventories (See Cooper, 1998). These
inventories provided the basis for personnel to systematically to monitor and observe their
colleagues ongoing safety behavior, on a daily basis, in an enabling atmosphere.

Why Do People Behave Unsafely?

People often behave unsafely because they have

never been hurt before while doing their job in an
unsafe way: Ive always done the job this way
being a familiar comment. This may well be true, but
the potential for an accident is never far away as
illustrated by various accident triangles. Heinrichs
triangle, for example, suggests that for every 330
unsafe acts, 29 will result in minor injuries and 1 in a
major or lost time incident. Over an extended period
of time, therefore, the lack of any injuries for those
who are consistently unsafe is actually reinforcing the
very behaviors that in all probability will eventually
lead them to be seriously injured. The principle being
illustrated here is that the consequences of behaving
unsafely will nearly always determine future unsafe
behavior, simply because reinforced behavior tends
to be repeated.

How Can We Stop Unsafe Behavior?

Why Not Engineer Out Hazards?

Eliminating hazards by engineering them out or

introducing physical controls can be an effective
way of limiting the potential for unsafe behavior.
While successful in many instances, it does not always
work, simply because people have the capacity
to behave unsafely and override any engineering
controls.

How Can We Stop Unsafe Behavior?

Why Not Change Peoples Attitude?

Remedies tend to rely on publicity campaigns

and safety training to bring about changes in
peoples attitudes, which in turn is expected to
change peoples behavior. Although positive safety
attitudes are important and very desirable, the link
from attitude change to behavior change is very
weak. This can be explained by the fact that a single
attitude comprises of at least three components:
thinking (cognitive), feeling (emotional), and the
intention to act on it (commitment). Additionally,
a single attitude is usually linked with a set of other
related attitudes. Logic dictates, therefore, that
attempts at attitude change must target each
individual component of each individual attitude, for
each single employee. In practical terms this is nigh
on impossible. Fortunately, the link from behavior
change to attitude change is much stronger. If
people consciously change their behavior, they also
tend to re-adjust their associated attitudes and belief
systems to fit the new behavior. This occurs because
people try to reduce any tension caused by a
mismatch between their behavior and attitudes.
Behaviour change, therefore, tends to lead to new
belief and attitude systems that buttress the new set
of behaviors.

PAGE | 03 |

How Can We Stop Unsafe Behavior?

Punish People Until They Behave Safely?

Can lead to positive or negative effects. Some

approaches to safety management are heavily
reliant on the use of authority, fear and punishment.
These approaches emphasize the use of discipline
and punishment to discourage unsafe behavior,
while safe behavior is largely ignored. This often
results in the opposite to that intended. Although
the judicious use of discipline and punishment can
have the intended effects, more often than not
it doesnt. The reason for this is quite simple: The
effectiveness of punishment is dependent upon its
consistency. It only works if is given immediately,
and every single time an unsafe behavior occurs.
It is self-evident that punishing someone every
time they behave unsafely is a very difficult thing
to do, simply because they will not always be seen

to do so by those in authority. This means that the

multitude of soon, certain and positive reinforcers
gained from behaving unsafely will tend to
outweigh any uncertain, late, negative reinforcers
received from inconsistent punishment.

How Can We Stop Unsafe Behavior?

Praise People For They Behave Safely?

It is a fact that most people tend to respond more

to praise and social approval than any other
factor.
Crucially, the effect of this is to explicitly link the
desired safe behavior to the praise received.
Once the required behavior pattern starts to
become established, the timing and frequency of
the praise and social approval can be reduced
over a period of time.

How Do We Use This Knowledge To Help Improve Safety Behavior?

Any safety improvement initiative which relies almost exclusively on line managements efforts, is
less likely to be as successful as one that empowers and enables the workforce itself. Accordingly,
behavioral safety approaches are very much driven and shaped by the workforce, in conjunction with
line management. In this way, the workforce is given responsibility and authority for identifying, defining
and monitoring their own safe and unsafe behaviors, as well as setting their own safety improvement
targets.

Does It Work?
Because the behavioral approach differs considerably from traditional ways
of improving safety, a question commonly asked is Do these ideas work in
practice? Overwhelmingly, the answer is yes! Psychologists from around the
globe have consistently reported positive changes in both safety behavior and
accident rates, regardless of the industrial sector or company size.

Typical results include:

40-75 percent reductions in accident rates and accidents costs year on year.
20-30 percent improvements in safety behavior year on year
Greater workforce involvement in safety
Better communications between management and the workforce
Ongoing improvementsto Safety Management Systems
Improved Safety Climates
Greater ownership of safety by the workforce
More positive attitudes towards safety
Greater Individual acceptance of responsibility for safety.

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What Behavioral Safety Is Not About

Behavioral Safety Is Not concerned with:
Aversive control: The use of threats has no place in a behavioral safety system, as its ethos is
primarily predicated on positive reinforcement or encouragement for engaging in safe behaviour.
Focusing on incident rates without a focus on behaviour: Behavioral safety systems do not
solely focus their attention on reduced accident rates. Their focus is on encouraging safe behaviour
across the board. Providing positive consequences for safe behaviour explicitly links the desired
behaviour with the reward.
Decisions made on the basis of dogma or prejudice: Behavioral Safety decision making tends
to be based on the analyses of accident records, observation, etc. In other words it is data driven.
It is not based on peoples personal prejudices or world-views.
Disciplinary actions for accidents / incidents: Behavioral safety is based on positive reinforcement
or encouragement. It is vital, therefore, that organizations do not adopt a policy of blame the
victim or shoot the messenger when people report a near-miss incident or accident, if the
company wishes these to be reported.
Top-down implementation: Behavioral safety systems are based on a consensus between
management and the workforce, which reflects research from safety culture and safety climate.

Known Implementation Problems With

Behavioral Safety

knows what the correct procedures are, and

often they do not.

The behaviors on the checklists are

not acceptable to the workforce, as
Implementing a behavioral safety system is not as
they have not been consulted about
easy as it often sounds and can be fraught with
difficulties. These mainly arise because of attempts
them. Again a lack of consultation about the

Introduction

to short cut the process due to perceived time

pressures, from attempts to minimise the resources
required, or from bad advice received from
an inexperienced behavioral safety consulting
company.

Common Problems That Often Arise

Include

Lack of workforce buy-in. This normally

behaviors on the observation checklists with

those who are to be observed is too common.

The observation checklists focus on

unsafe conditions not unsafe behaviors.

The observation checklists are not workplace

audits of unsafe conditions, they are behavior
sampling checklists.

The percentage safe scores do

not reflect reality on the shopfloor
because people are trying to convey
an optimistic picture of safety in their
The observation checklists are not
workarea. This self-defeating strategy tends
targeting
the
accident
causing
to come about from line-management
behaviors. This usually occurs because the
pressure, that emanates from a fear that their
comes about because the management
team, without consultation, has imposed the
system on the workforce.

accident records have not been analysed

correctly, and peoples perceptions about
their pet hates have been allowed to
dominate.

area of control will look bad to their superiors.

Peoples names, where they were

working, what was said to them, and
their responses are recorded when
The unsafe behaviors have not been
observed as being unsafe. For people to
defined with sufficient precision. This is a
very common problem with many behavioral
safety systems. Such items assume everybody

willingly engage in a behavioral safety system,

it must be psychologically safe for them to do
so.

PAGE | 05 |

 People are disciplined for not behaving safely in accordance with the behavioral
items on the observation checklists. If there is one quick way to kill off peoples enthusiasm
are engaging in behavioral safety it is this one. Although it may sound logical and the correct
thing to do if someone is putting other people at risk, it can backfire rapidly. As such punishment/
discipline has no place in a behavioral safety system as this will undo everything that the system is
trying to achieve.

Safety improvement target-setting meetings, or Kick-off meetings are not conducted

properly. Common problems include insufficient preparation; the sessions are held in noisy
locations; there was insufficient time set aside for people to express their views; it is held at an
inconvenient time meaning that people are unable to attend; and one or two vocal individuals
hijack the sessions to air their grievances about what management has traditionally done or not
done in relation to safety.

Observations take place at the same time everyday. The observation sampling should be
undertaken at random times throughout a week.

There is no standardized process / procedure for people to hand in their completed

observation checklists to those running the project on a daily basis. Surprisingly, some
behavioral safety system providers do not consider such practical issues.

There is no computerized means to calculate and analyse the observation scores.

This means analyses of the observational data recorded has to be done by hand.

A lack of regular feedback sessions. A lack of regular feedback due to the perception
that people do not have the time can create a lack of workforce buy-in, as they perceive line
management does not view the system as an appropriate weapon to reduce accidents.

A lack of ongoing management support. Management do not see themselves as a part of

the problem, and therefore do not see what they have anything to offer.

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The Safety Observation

Cycle
The Observation Process

Decide
Stop
Observe
Act
Report

When you see an unsafe act and fail

to take corrective action, you signal
the people around you that your
performance standards are low. The
result would be the same if you did
not see the unsafe act. In either case,
by failing to correct the act you have
condoned the act.
The Observation Checklist

Reactions of people
Personal protective equipment
Positions of people (injury causes)
Tools and equipment
Procedures and orderliness

Personal Protective Equipment

Making Safety Equal

Maybe, in the past, you have left safety to the professionals. Now you know
that you should make safety equal to other major supervisory priorities; quality,
morale, cost, and production. STOP training will teach you how.

As a supervisor, you continually make decisions. Decision making is part of your

job. To be a winner in safety, you must first DECIDE to focus your attention on safety
as you do your regular daily work.

Immediate Corrective Action

What should you do if you observe a person committing an unsafe act?

First, you should stop that unsafe act immediately. Second, you should
act to prevent the unsafe act from being committed again.
Before studying what you should do when you observe an unsafe act,
remind yourself of what you should not do.
Whenever a person a knows that his supervisor does not approve of his
behavior but does not know why the supervisor does not approve, the
person is likely to react to the supervisors presence.
if a person has been reprimanded for performing an unsafe act, and if no

PAGE | 07 |

reason has been given for the reprimand, that person is likely to perform the act safely only when he
knows that his supervisor is nearby.

Evaporative Unsafe Acts

It would be convinient if people would stand still and give you plenty of time to observe their unsafe
acts. They do not; their unsafe acts sometimes disappear or evaporate very quickly.

How can you stay alert enough to see unsafe acts before they disappear?
Reactions of People
People who understand and accept the importance of safe practices are more strongly motivated
to work safely. The more safely the people in your work area, the more likely you are to succeed in
eliminating injuries.
COMMITMENT. You must show people in your area that you are concerned about their safety. Safety
must be high on your list of priorities everyday - equal to quality, morale cost and production. STOP
techniques, like the techniques used in the Safety Observation Cycle, will help you put your commitment
to safety in action.

CONSISTENCY. Each time you observe an unsafe act yo should correct it and act to prevent its
recurrence. if you walk past one person who is working unsafely but correct the next persons unsafe
act, you will send the singal that safety is important only when you are in the mood to notice it. When
you are consistent, however, the people in your area will see a pattern in your actions: a consistent
pattern of commitment to safety.

PERSEVERANCE. It is important for you to persevere and continue using STOP techniques and talking

with people, making sure they understand and accept the safe practices needed for the jobs. Over
time the people in your area will learn, through your perseverance, that your purpose is to help them
work safely, rather than to get them in trouble. Until the people in your area are convinced that
workign safely is to their benefit, they may simply react to your presence.

A Questioning Attitude
Two questions are the keys to a questioning attitude?
Waht If - ? What injuries can occur if then unexpected happens?
How - ? How can this job be done more safetly?

Reactions of People

Some of the reaction for whic you shold be alert.

Reactios of People
Adjusting or adding PPE
Changing Position suddenly
Rearranging the Job
Stopping or leaving the jo
Attaching grounds or locks

PAGE | 08 |

Investigation
When you observe a reaction, there are two things you need
to find out.
First, was the person who reacted trying to hide or correct
an unsafe act, or was there another reason for the reaction?
Second, if an unsafe act was committeed, what was it?

Anytime a person reacts to your presence by attemptign to correct or

hide an an unsafe act, it iis important for your to discover what it was
so that you can take action to prevent recurrence.

Tools and Equipment

Have you ever looked directly at something and failed to see it? If so, you have lots of company.
People see what they look for. Habit often determines where people look and what they see.
When you observe people who are using tools or equipment, you should be alert for the following
unsafe acts:
using tools or equipment that is Wrong For The Job
using tools or equipment Incorrectly
using tools or equipment that is in Unsafe Condition

Procedures and Orderlienss

Procedures
In your area, you have procedures for both routine and non-routine jobs. By following these
procedures, employees can get the jobsdone, often in the most efficient way. But do these
procedures help them do the jobs in the safest way?
iIt is important to look at procedures from a safety standpoint. Injuries can result from any one of the
following three problems.
Procedures are Inadequate for the jbo (not reviewed and upgraded)
Procedures are not known and understood by all concerned
Procedures are known and understood but not followed.

Coaching and Discipline

A progressive discipline approach allows you to use the minimum amount of discipline necessary
to improve the behavior.
It is a useful pro-active managment technique that can be integrated into the disciplinary process.

PAGE | 09 |

Summary of STOP Training

Objective: Eliminate Injuries
You can eliminate injuries from your area of responsibility
by skillfully observing people while they work, focusing on
and correcting their hazardous acts, and reinforcing
their safe work practices.

Key Principles

Safety is a line management

responsibility
All injuries and occupational
illnesses can be prevented
Main Concepts

Unsafe Acts Cause Injuries. Unsafe acts

cause 96% of all lost workdays and restricted

workdays injuries.

Supervisors Are Accountable For Safety. As a member of line management, you are accountable
for the safey of every person in your area of responsibility.

Standards Determine Performance. The highest level of performance you can expect from
the people you supervise is determined by the minimum standards you have established and
maintained.

Techniques
Safety Has High Priority. Make safety equal to quality, morale, cost and production.
Safety is A Daily Responsibility. Use STOP techniques everyday as part of your
regular work and your continuing effort to upgrade your safety performance.

Follow The Safety Observation Cycle. Decide, STop, Observe, Act and Report
Use The Safety Observation Card. Organize, record and report your observations
and actions

Observation Measures Performance. Measure your job performance and your

areas safety performance by observing your employees while they work.

Silence Is Consent. Take action immediately to correct every unsafe act you
observe and prevent its recurrence.

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