Behavioral Safety Now -- The Behavior Based Safety Conference

This article in the series on Behavioral Safety introduces the basic elements of the behavioral approach to safety improvement. We outlined the role of the Design Team in planning and implementing the Behavioral Safety process. The first task of the Design Team is the creation of the observation system. This system is the basis of the entire process. The observations provide the objective data that make behavioral coaching uniquely effective and form the basis for additional problem solving. Coaching is essential because we know that maintaining any behavior change requires frequent, objective, and positive feedback.

Identify Critical Safe Practices

Deciding which employee practices to include on the checklist is a balancing act between including all practices essential to maintaining a safe workplace and creating a checklist that is simple and easy to use. There are a variety of methods for selecting checklist items, including analyzing incident records for those behaviors that might prevent an injury, interviewing subject matter experts, and reviewing relevant regulations. One necessary decision is whether to create one checklist for the facility or to create individualized checklists for different areas or different types of work.

Develop a List of Behaviors and Pinpointed Definitions

The next step is to refine the list of pinpointed safety practices and definitions. Good pinpoints share some common characteristics: They are specific, directly observable, and action oriented.

Specific

Specific means that in order to improve the components of safe performance, those components must be described in detail. For example, "wearing PPE" is a class of performance that may need further clarification. In one area of a plant it could mean, "wearing hard hats and safety goggles", whereas in another area appropriate PPE could includes "flame retardant clothing with collars buttoned and sleeves rolled down". Often an operational, or working,? definition will provide additional specifics that further clarify, or pinpoint, checklist items.

Observable

Pinpointed definitions describe directly observable safety practices, or actions. They avoid references to internal states, intentions or other interpretations. Consider the term "careless". A careless employee may be one who leaves tools scattered about the work area, discards waste on the shop floor, and carries out dangerous procedures without `complying with safe practices. "Careless" is an interpretation derived from direct observation of actual performance. One problem with interpretations is that they encompass a collection of discrete different? behaviors (leaving tools scattered, discarding waste on the floor, and so on) and are unobservable on their own. Such interpretations are too broad and subjective to have value in an observation process.

Action Oriented

Action oriented means that pinpointed statements describe positive safety practices. "Not placing hands in moving machinery" is an inactive pinpoint; it describes what not to do, rather than what to do. An active pinpoint might specify "lock and tag out equipment". Pinpointing active behaviors for the checklist helps observers to focus on the positive and to encourage coach co-workers how to work more safely.

Draft the Observation Checklist

The list of pinpointed safety practices forms the basis for an observation checklist. Checklists can have a variety of formats, some that are more useful than others for particular situations. Different formats also facilitate the coach’s job of observation and recording under different circumstances. The goal is to develop a checklist format that is reliable and easy to use. Checklists may allow the observer to score each pinpointed practice as either safe or as a concern. Other formats may involve a frequency count of safe practices or concerns, a rating scale for each practice, marking a map of an area, or some combination of these. (See McSween, 1995, for examples of different checklist formats.)

Trial Run the Checklist

Designing a valid, reliable, and above all practical, checklist requires taking the drafts out of the conference room and into the work place. Design Team members can test the drafts in their areas; their experience and feedback will create s a viable and useful data collection procedure. Ideally, the observation and recording takes no more than fifteen minutes of the entire coaching session so this will be one of the features of the observation checklist that the Design Team members test.

The observation checklist is a foundation for coaching and data collection. It ensures that all of the critical safety practices are considered in the coaching session. Data recorded on the checklist provides the basis for additional problem solving and action plans.

References

McSween, T. E. The Values-Based Safety Process: Improving Your Safety Culture with a Behavioral Approach. Wiley & Sons, New York, 1995.

Developing an Observation Checklist