Sticking to the 'six pillars' of behavioural safety may produce the best result

Dr Tim Marsh of Ryder-Marsh Safety reflects on some issues in behavioural safety based on his company’s experience in behaviour-based safety and on the views of delegates to the European Behavioural Safety Users Conference which Ryder Marsh facilitates and hosts every 18 months. The company, which has a number of oil company clients, has also been involved in devising behavioural safety standards for the offshore oil and gas (North Sea) industry. As we have moved from a culture of guarding and legislative compliance to one of best practice and continuous improvement, it has become apparent that even large investments in managing and designing safety often deliver diminishing returns because the vast majority of accidents are now ‘behavioural’. The UK Health and Safety Executive and industry figures suggest between 70 to 95%. Initially, much effort was spent on trying to change behaviour by changing attitudes. Unfortunately, attitude change is notoriously difficult to achieve. Even very high impact events such as the Hillsborough football ground disaster and September 11 have had limited long term impact on people's day-to-day attitudes. Further, even if attitude change is achieved, behaviour may stay the same if the environment remains unchanged. One of the most important ‘laws’ of psychology is that the influence of the environment is greatly underestimated when understanding behaviour, particularly when there has been a negative consequence. As a result, the majority of UK companies have adopted an approach that focuses directly on ‘behaviour/conditions that are the direct consequence of behaviour’. There are any number of variations on the theme - some rather better than others - but collectively they are considered ‘behavioural safety’.