Importance of Behavior Based Safety Program and Training

Nowadays, we are becoming more aware of the importance of taking human factors into account in our management of occupational health and safety management in the workplace of an organization. Usually, when an accident has occurred, human error is conveniently cited as a cause of the accident. When accidents are investigated, many of the systemic causal factors are human in their origins, for example, inadequate training for the workers, bad design of workplaces, fatigue due to shifting structures, inadequate tools, and equipment, or an overall poor safety culture in place.

Behavior-based safety programs let workers know the proper acceptable steps to follow if an accident or injury occurs. Proper safety training also results in higher profits by teaching workers to perform their duties safely and efficiently. Furthermore, companies with a proper safety culture prevent and reduce more accidents and injuries.

A behavior based safety program can provide positive outcomes to change unsafe behavior, prevents injuries, essential ingredients for creating a strong safety culture, minimize lost production hours, and improve the workstations when implemented and executed properly. Behavior Based Safety matters because upwards of 80% of all accidents occur due to the alternatives we make and the way we act that is our behavior. Organizations wish to target zero harm and zero accidents. Many times, they fail to achieve so. Even if a corporation is having a strong safety management system in place and has experienced really a very less number of accidents, the probabilities still exist. The reliability of a safety system actually greatly depends on unsafe acts and behaviors, which causes subsequent unsafe conditions, incidents, and injuries.

The key benefits of BBS are:

·        Focuses on the human side of safety

·        Defines safe and unsafe behaviors

·        Encourages safe behavior and prevents destructive behaviors

·        Involves employees in safety

Behavior-based safety training often puts stress on empowering employees to carry themselves and every other liable for following safety protocols. However, without a transparent commitment from executives and managers, a training initiative won't be as successful as it might be. Managers must model equivalent behavior they expect from employees and share their knowledge through coaching. The main benefits of Behavior Based Safety are just one that possesses to be recognized is that the greater respect workers are likely to possess for his or her managers, making it clear that:

·        Their safety comes first

·        They won’t be punished for unsafe behavior if it wasn’t deliberate

·        Workers can safely report any dangerous behavior noticed.

Today, behavior-based safety has been widely accepted as a crucial element of an organization’s total health, safety, and environmental effort. Behavior-based safety is established in the number of industries like manufacturing, food processing, chemical plants, office environments, oil field operations, hospitals, healthcare, isolated field service operations, delivery fleets, and construction.

TheSafetyMaster provides BBS consultancy services like setting up the whole BBS Process, developing BBS Checklist, analyzing existing BBS process for improvement, drafting of BBS procedure and Behavior based safety & process safety management training.