DIMENSIONS OF THE ARCHITECTURE OF SAFETY
EXCELLENCE
Prof Petri Schutte
CEO
PROHUMAN Inc
[email protected]
In general
Safety practitioners must recognise that success is not an “or” issue (one
strategy or another), but rather an “and” issue – one strategy and another and
another … Safety excellence is not the result of a singular strategy. One
cannot cite generic solutions or universal answers because no one best way
exists.
Peak safety performance is the result of multiple strategies designed and
applied across a broad spectrum of issues and risk factors within an
organisation. Safety excellence is the outcome of a strategy continuum – one
that addresses a company’s regulatory, technical, engineering, organisational,
behavioural, managerial and cultural loss sources.
The first step in the pursuit of safety excellence is to address the most-critical
question of the safety profession: “Why do accidents occur in the
workplace?” The answer is that it is the result of at-risk behaviours –
what people do and don’t do. Behaviour is not the next level of safety
strategy, it is the ultimate level. Behaviour is that critical element of
performance that must be addressed in order to achieve safety excellence.
More than 70 years of research and observation confirm that unsafe
behaviours are involved in most accidents. Note the distinction – involved in,
not necessarily the cause of. Therefore, the core question remains, “Why do
people act unsafely and have accidents?”
Many managers fail to seek true answers to this question. Instead, they rely
on some all-too-common excuses: employee carelessness, inattentiveness,
disregard for procedure and laziness. In other words, employees are the
problem. Such thinking (or lack of it) is the greatest obstacle to success. An
organisation will never improve its process if it believes its people are the
problem.
In safety, the reality is that poor performance has “good reasons,” most of
which are inherent in the planning, design, implementation, maintenance,
administration and modification of the process – not in the individual. Only by
eliminating these process causes can an organisation attain safety
excellence.
Identifying and addressing these “good reasons” requires a comprehensive
change strategy – one that addresses both process and people. Smith, co-
author of the QS-9000 quality standards, identifies three levels of change,
each having a progressively greater impact on operational results:
Level 1: Corrective Change: Fix what is broken – the most-common type
of change.
Level 2: Continuous Change: Improve what is – the most-accepted type
of change.
Level 3: Creative (innovative) Change: Do something totally different –
the most profitable type of change.
When implementing the strategies outlined here to create an architecture of
excellence, one must keep these change levels in mind: Assess an
organisation’s current position, and then define the change level and target
strategies needed to achieve greater success.
Safety program (training) strategy (“Think safe … Because it’s good for
you”)
The first foundational strategy is the safety program. Its premise: Safety
results will improve by changing employee attitudes. This strategy attempts to
improve employee safety awareness through policies, procedures, meetings,
training and disciplinary policies.
Common tactics include development of manuals, orientation programs,
remedial training/retraining and progressive disciplinary programs. Research
on the effectiveness of training has reported limited impact on accident rates
and costs.
Compliance strategy (“You will be safe … or else”)
The second (and legally required) strategy is regulatory compliance. Its
premise: Safety results will improve by changing a company’s level of
statutory compliance. The focus is on improving conditions, facilities,
equipment and the work environment in accordance with minimum regulatory
mandates. Common tactics include facility inspections, compliance audits,
walkthroughs, and programs that address minimum requirements and action
levels subject to citations, fines and penalties.
Technical strategy (“It's cheaper to bend steel than backs”)
Engineering strategy is the third foundational element. Its premise: Safety
results will improve by raising the level of safety engineering and physical
safeguarding in the workplace. It emphasises automation, ergonomics, work
methods, workflow, worker/machine interfaces, mechanical advantage,
safeguarding and process design. Some common tactics include ergonomic
task assessments, workstation redesign, workflow analysis, ergonomic
devices, tool design, and engineering safety into new processes or retrofit
safeguarding.
Combined, these three strategies form what is called “traditional safety” – the
three “E’s” of safety: education, enforcement and engineering.
Unfortunately, continued reliance on traditional strategy has not had a
significant impact on national incident rates or workers’ compensation (WC)
costs. Safety programs (training) educate workers, yet may have minimal
impact on safe work behaviours. Compliance strategies keep an organisation
legal, yet may not lower loss-related costs. Technical strategies, although
based on sound engineering principles, are often limited due to retrofit
obstacles.
Peak-performance organisations have recognised the need to pursue Level 3
change in safety – they are pursuing totally different activities. They have
shifted from staff administered, antecedent-driven regulations and safety
programs to line-owned, consequence-driven management processes.
World-class organisations bridge the safety performance gap by creating a
second critical foundational strategy – one of values and safety culture.
Building from this foundation, progressive organisations construct the
additional building blocks critical to success: organisational strategy,
performance leadership, and behavioural strategies that link with and support
traditional strategies.
Safety culture (“You can’t do safety until you ‘be’ safety”)
The fourth foundational strategy is that of safety culture. Its premise: safety
results will improve if an organisation changes its values, vision and executive
leadership of safety. As Andrew Carnegie once said, “As I grow older, I pay
less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do” (Mr Quotes, 1992).
Safety culture deals with the “unwritten rules” that determine whether safety is
valued by an organisation. It is forged more by what executes do (actions)
than by what they say (proclamations). Tactics designed to strengthen safety
culture include vision and mission building, values clarification and
commitment to high-visibility executive involvement in the process.
One’s actions are a moving picture of one’s beliefs, and there is much proven
evidence that culture predicts results. A company’s basic beliefs and values
(its culture) impact its decisions, which, in turn, define its systems and
structures, which influence manager practices, which shape employee
behaviours and ultimately determine results achieved. If executive values are
weak, downstream organisational behaviours will compromise safety, and
accidents, injuries, claims and losses will be the predictable outcomes.
Organisational strategy (“Safe by design – organisational design”)
Organisational strategy – also known as safety management – is the fifth
safety strategy. Its premise: Safety results will improve if a firm changes the
management systems and structures that integrate (or isolate) safety within its
operations. This strategy addresses the “written rules.” Tactics include
creating policy and procedure; defining responsibilities and authorities;
implementing budgeting processes; setting goals; developing action plans;
and measuring and creating accountability for results.
In an effort to relate safety strategy to TQM principles, the critical relationship
between organisational structure and operational results is important. By
focusing only on individual behaviour, the system potentially ignores at least
85 percent of the factors controlling safety.
Based on this premise, a company that effectively builds safety into its
systems and structures through organisational design, job descriptions,
defined responsibilities, communications, performance measurements and
reward systems will positively impact manager practices, employee
behaviours and the safety results they produce.
Performance leadership (“Safety follows the leader”)
The sixth safety strategy is performance leadership, also known as
performance management. Its premise: Safety results will improve if an
organisation changes its management practices from punitive to reinforcing.
This strategy addresses the inherent deficiencies of hierarchical command-
and-control management. It recognises that how employees act (safe or
unsafe) is heavily influenced by how managers manage (positive or negative).
To maximise safe behaviour, managers must create a work environment that
encourages and rewards “safe” performance. This means moving from
autocratic to participative/involvement styles; from hierarchical to team
environments; from manager control to employee empowerment; from
punitive policies to reinforcing practices. In other words, “Managers must act
employees into thinking differently”.
Behavioural safety (“Safe is how we do business”)
The seventh and perhaps the most critical safety strategy is behavioural
safety. This is the “keystone” strategy, in that it locks all others into a high-
performance architecture which, when stressed, stiffens rather than weakens.
Its premise: A company will improve safety by changing organisational
behaviours – what people do and don’t do.
True behavioural strategy addresses the actions of all people within an
organisation – not merely those of front-line employees. This is the ultimate
safety excellence strategy in that it encompasses:
• Safety education and training – what human resource personnel
do.
• Statutory compliance – what legal and regulatory affairs
personnel do.
• Safeguarding and process design – what engineers do.
• Values and visible leadership – what executives do.
• Systems and structures – what managers do.
• Management practices and motivation – what supervisors do.
• Safe behaviour – what all workers do.
Safety excellence is a function of individual and organisational
behaviour, both of which are a function of organisational culture – that
force which determines what everyone does to drive safety through the
process.
