Culture and safety values: assessing and building them with scientific methods

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The community of safety professionals must begin to speak a common language, which allows jurists, technicians, managers, engineers, medical doctors, psychologists… to understand each other when one of these invokes the mantra “We need to improve our safety culture”: this year the European Conference of Behavior-Based Safety and Organizational Behavior Management has the ambitious goal of making the Culture and values of safety concrete, measurable, achievable through an ordered series of activities, with a very specific purpose that is reduce the number of injuries, medications, occupational diseases. The conference will focus on the evidence-based practice that are able to achieve a cultural change, through the guide of international guests and sharing of the experiences and achievements of those who have already started the B-BS protocol.

In the field of behavior analysis, we defines the culture within an organization or group of individuals, as a coherent set of behaviors and contingencies – including the rules – that shape them. We agree that an organization has a safety culture if the majority of people behave in the same way, if they focus on prevention and protection, if they report at risk situations, if they speak about safety also outside of institutional moments and if most of the people
appreciate, approve, reward those who make all these activities and, on the other hand, extinguish, punish, penalize those who exhibit at risk behaviors.
The task for science is now saying how to measure and how to get this.
In this definitional work, unfortunately the law does not help because, for example, the Italian Occupational Safety Law)prescribes the activities to be performed by public and private entities to promote and disseminate the culture of health and safety, but then it doesn’t tell us how to measure the effectiveness of those activities.
We realize that this approach is typical for scientific disciplines, rather than legal ones, but it would be helpful if these two ways to read the reality and act on it begin to cooperate and teach effective rules, i.e. rules that have a fair chance of success, and on the basis of this success, they would be classified valid or invalid. For this reason, another important part of this year’s convention will be devoted to the integration of science, law and jurisprudence at work and will be attended by leading judges, lawyers, jurists, experts of law.

The workshops (8th May, from 2.30pm to 6pm)

Performance Management: How to apply B-BS principles to other goals, as Production & Quality

The same strategy for other behaviors

The results, in terms of fewer injuries and first aid interventions, obtained by the application of a behavioral strategy as the B-BS are well known in the literature and to the public. With similar strategies applied in production and quality, organizations may achieve productivity growth and reduction of non-conformity of the product: it is called Performance Management and allows an evidence-based intervention on skills, abilities and motivation of workers, leaders and management to improve their operational behavior, the primary cause of business results. The workshop will present some of the tools of Performance Management, stressing the points of contact with the B-BS.

I. Viganò (AARBA) – In Italian

2. How to design the training in order to develop knowledge and skills aimed at the achievement of business results

Give a perspective to training

Why to train people? What is the goal pursued by the organization? People should start behaving as expected, if they want to get that goal: are you sure that the reason for the lack of these behaviors is the lack of knowledge and skills? Behavior analysis has the tools to assess and measure the performance of people and understand what the possible shortage is a function of: motivation, structure, training. The seminar will present some tools for the assessment and will guide the participants to restructure their training plans intended as objectives, contents and methods.

E. Algarotti and M. Gatti (AARBA) – In Italian

3. Safety Leadership: skills to be developed for obtaining collaborators’ safe behaviors**

Passare dall’essere al fare

What should a leader do, say, think, feel to support safety and to show his/her safety commitment, in other words his/her leadership? What should a leader do, say, think, feel to obtain collaborators’ safe behaviors, even when he/she is not supervising them? The speaker will involve attendees in defining the leadership behaviors: this behavioral rules are valid if is the of other manage. A B-BS qualified expert has the duty of refreshing his knowledge and updating his/her usual procedures according to the best evidence-based.

G. Matthews (Quality Safety Edge) – In English

Sponsors

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BASE – Behavior Analysis for the Safety Enhancement

BASE® is the network of consultants composed by trained and experienced B-BS professionals. BASE® professionals implemented the protocol several times by using the well proven tools and the data management software provided by FT&A. This ensures high quality standards and the continuous presence of consultancy in the companies’ territory.

Mega Italia Media

Since 1988, Mega Italia Media has been producing multimedia training courses on safety at work. In more than twenty years it has created hundreds of multimedia learning materials and has developed training platforms online, now in use by professionals and companies of all sizes. The Mega Italia Media e-learning platforms are adopted by Italian leading companies in order to deliver courses to a high numbers of users (in accordance with agreements between the State-Regions Agreement of 21/12/2011) with high educational rigor and high level of satisfaction of the end user.

Lisa Servizi

Engineering company, accredited for training in Veneto, provides consulting services and training to private and public companies.
Winner of 4 National and International awards for Best Practices on safety, Lisa Servizi is based in Marghera, operates throughout Italy within these fields

• Safety and Environment compliance consultancy for fire prevention, measures of physical agents (noise, vibrations, EMF, etc.)
• Management systems for Quality, Environment, Safety and integrated.
• Organizational Models according to Law 231/01.
• B-BS and Performance Management
• Acoustics
• Training both in classroom and outdoor field test, e-learning.

BBS3 and Solutions

BBS3 and Solutions is a pool of highly skilled technicians who combine their forces to achieve meaningful goals for reducing accidents by improving working conditions, creating a safety culture company able to set those “values”, i.e. behaviors shared by a group of people. All technicians are experts in BBS3 and Solutions and safety at work, RSPP, qualified experts in B-BS (Behavior – Based Safety) and members of the network BASE.

Rina

With a turnover of 280 million Euros, an operational network of 150 offices in 53 countries worldwide, over 2,100 employees, RINA Group delivers advanced technical competency, offering consulting engineering, certification services, testing and inspections in different sectors: Marine, Energy, Business Assurance, Transport&Infrastructures, Environment&Sustainability and Innovation. RINA is a multinational group that meets the needs of its Clients and is recognized as an authoritative member of key international organizations and an important contributor to the development of new legislative standards.

Behavior-Based Safety (B-BS): What is, when it is born, how effective it is, what scenarios

N.B. This page refers to a past event. Find out more about the B-BS and its history, visit our B-BS page B-BS.

Do not miss our next congress: 12th European B-BS Conference.

History and principles of the application of the protocol

1) What is the BBS, where it was born, who has conceived it and how it articulates its protocol step by step;

It is estimated that over 80% of accidents at work are due to unsafe behavior, rather than to inefficient devices or unsafe conditions. The B-BS, or behavior-based security, is the application of the principles of behavioral analysis to occupational safety issues. This means that any security program labeled as “behavioral" must be consistent with the scientific findings on the subject. In 1978, a group of US researchers coordinated by Judith Komaki demonstrated the effectiveness of feedback and reinforcement on safety behaviors in a group of workers in an industrial bakery. This can be considered one of the first applications of behavioral analysis to occupational safety. Starting from this date, first in the United States, then in the Anglo-Saxon countries and in Japan, more and more intervention protocols have been developed for the improvement of safety behaviors in organizations.
A B-BS process active in an organization – to be considered as such – must have started these activities.

• Analysis of previous injuries and identification of safe behavior critical for that organization, department by department, activity by activity;
  Involvement of workers at all levels of the organization, in the process of designing and implementing the process.
• Daily measurement of target behaviors through checklist;
  Detection on a daily basis of risks related to machines and plants and consequent improvement plan to remove barriers to safe behavior;
  Feedback program and rewarding system for workers – or teams of workers – that improve those behaviors or keep them constant.
• The protocol prescribes a very limited use of formal sanctions against workers, only for those at-risk behaviors that endanger one’s life and that of one’s colleagues. This is because it has been demonstrated experimentally that any inspection system – sanctions of safety is able, if implemented with extreme rigor, to inhibit risky behavior, however, without guarantee of effectiveness over time and, above all, without replacing those dangerous behaviors with correct behavior. The sanctioning system, however, is completely ineffective in order to increase safe behavior and to generalize their performance in the face of various risks: the result of which positive reinforcement procedures (feedback and awards) are instead capable.

2) Brief analysis of studies that have validated it;

The Behavior-Based Safety can boast more than hundreds of published case studies and 62 randomized and controlled 3rd level experiments. Beth Sulzer-Azaroff, one of the first behavior analysts to apply a behavior-based safety protocol, and John Austin, a researcher at Western Michigan University, in 2000 examined 32 published experimental studies describing behavioral programs initiated in 9-sector companies and 7 different countries: 31 of these applications have allowed an average reduction in accident rates of 54%. Also in 2000, Grindle, Dickinson, and Boettcher analyzed 18 published studies and found that in all experiments the frequency of safety behaviors increased – compared to pre-intervention measurement – from 9 to 157%. The B-BS processes under analysis focused on different behaviors, on different industries, on programs adapted to the needs of individual companies, but they kept some common elements, such as observation, data approach and feedback to workers .

3) How many and which subjects have applied it nationally and internationally with which results are validated causally;

Today there are at least fifty establishments of the companies that started the B-BS process in Italy: among these – in addition to the companies present at this congress (Heineken, Whirlpool, Embraco, Techint and DIAB), there are also Bayer Material Science, Network Italian Railway, Veralia, Weir Gabbioneta, BG Group, Nestlé, Enel Distribution, DSM Composite Resins, Dipharma, etc. In the last 2 years, even some SMEs are starting a B-BS process. The first controlled experiment in Italy was carried out by the Polytechnic of Milan in 2009 at the Saint-Gobain Vetri factories: after 3 months observation, feedback, meetings, celebrations and prizes, there was a reduction in behavior at risk of almost 5 times with respect to the initial measure: insecure behavior has risen from 24% of the total recorded to 5% (2009, Gatti et al.) It is difficult to estimate worldwide how many companies have started it, given that the protocol is being tested by more than 35 years. In this congress, 5 companies presented results obtained following the introduction of the B-BS (see other press releases).

4) What are the prospects and the operational proposal of the BBS in the current security regulatory framework;

The B-BS is a protocol recognized by professionals at national and international level. In recent years, Associations of professionals, Universities, Companies have launched different paths to make the B-BS better known to institutions and civil society

Acceptance of the B-BS as a good practice by the Ministry of Labor: This will allow INAIL to recognize a discount on the insurance premium to those companies that have initiated a behavioral safety process.
Certification of the B-BS according to international standards and bound to the effective reduction of injuries following the implementation of the protocol.
Certification of the skills of qualified experts in B-BS.

Download the article in PDF (in itaian) 

Hotel with special deals for the 10th AARBA International Conference – Trieste, 27th-28th June 2014

Starhotels Savoia Excelsior Palace

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Double room € 185, Breakfast included

Urban Hotel Design

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James Joyce Hotel

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Hotel Coppe Trieste

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Double room Classic € 160 (for single use) € 190 (for double use)
Double room Superior € 170 (for single use) € 200 (for double use)
Double room Deluxe € 180 € (for single use) 210 (for double use)
Suite room from 1 up to 4 people € 270 (for single use) 310 (for double use)

Before booking please ask to AARBA the booking form
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Pranzo in piedi a buffet presso Stazione Marittima

Menu: Tranci di pizza, Tagliere di formaggi locali abbinati a miele, Prosciutto cotto di Trieste in crosta di Pane, servito su vassoi con cren e senape, Piccola pasticceria secca Italiana, Acqua minerale, Selezione di vini fermi e mossi, Caffè

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