Keeping Your Process Evergreen –
Using Your Data

Terry McSween

One of the long-term challenges that companies encounter is sustaining interest and participation in their behavior-based safety initiatives. Building interest and participation is almost always a matter of ensuring that all of the critical elements are in place, then sustaining the integrity of each of those elements. Generally, organizations that struggle with sustaining their initiatives have problems in one of three areas:

• Effective use of the safety data
• Appropriate leadership support and involvement
• Recognition and celebrations

A previous issue of this newsletter addressed the role of leadership in Values-Based Safety®. This article will discuss the use of data, while recognition and celebrations will be addressed in our next issue.

Graphs are the primary tool for analyzing observation data. Luckily, most observation software is capable of creating various types of graphs. Most companies that do not use commercially available programs track their data in Excel and have trained employees who can easily create graphs of safety concerns or at-risk behaviors for use in problem-solving.

Generally speaking, the two primary tools for analyzing observation data are Pareto diagrams and trend charts. Pareto diagrams are basically histograms or bar graphs that typically rank factors from highest to lowest. In this type of problem-solving, I recommend ranking the frequency (i.e., the number) of safety concerns or at-risk behaviors as well as the percentage of concerns or at-risk behaviors. (The percentage of concerns, as most of you know, is the total number of concerns, divided by total number of safe observations, plus the concerns about a specific behavior.) The diagrams show you where you have the greatest problems with exposure (frequency) and consistency (the percent of concerns). In selecting a target for improvement, Steering Committees need to consider both of these issues along with the potential severity of the practices that have the largest bars on the applicable graphs.

Often, when doing an analysis of a target behavior, Steering Committees conduct what we often refer to as repeated Pareto analyses. The idea is that you first look at all of the observation data, perhaps for your overall site. Then, after reviewing the frequency and percentage data and considering the potential severity of the top concerns, you identify the behavior (or behaviors) that you are going to target for improvement. Next you might examine a series of Pareto diagrams conducting a series of Pareto analyses using various demographic variables that you used at the top of your checklist. In other words, you might look at the Pareto diagrams of the frequency of your target concern (1) by shift, (2) by time of day, and (3) by department. These data help you target your improvement efforts. Then of course you examine the comments recorded by observers to learn more about what employees were doing when the observers had recorded the pertinent concerns. At this stage, you may also need to go talk with employees and observers in those areas in order to gain a clear enough understanding to complete an accurate ABC analysis of your target behavior, which will in turn help in developing an effective action plan (more on ABC analyses and action plans also in future newsletters). Steering Committees will often post these charts on safety bulletin boards and review them in safety meetings so that employees in the affected areas know the safety practices that are targeted for improvement and why those behaviors were selected.

Examples of Pareto diagrams and their use in repeated Pareto analyses are included in the slides of my BSN presentation on the topic.

The second type of graph that is important is the trend analysis, sometimes called a run chart. This is a simple graph that shows the data on the behavior you are tracking over time, typically over a period of weeks or months. This graph initially tells you if the behavior of interest is stable or getting better or worse. It is the tool your Steering Committee should use to both assess their efforts and communicate progress to employees, the latter normally by means of safety meetings and bulletin boards.

Effective use of observation data is a necessary element to sustaining interest in behavioral safety initiatives. Employees need to see us use the data for meaningful improvement. Such analysis and use of the data should be ongoing with a concurrent effort to communicate the information back to employees.

While the ongoing use of data is a necessary element to keeping your efforts evergreen, it is not sufficient without (1) the leadership support we have discussed previously, (2) action plans based on effective ABC analysis, and (3) the effective use of recognition and celebrations to reinforce improvement and participation. The latter two will be explored in more detail in coming issues.

Terry McSween, Ph.D. is CEO and founder of Quality Safety Edge. He is the author of The Values-Based Safety Process: Improving Your Safety Culture With Behavior-Based Safety, an influential book in Behavior Based Safety, and he is the founder and Conference Chairman of the Behavioral Safety Now conference.