For readers who have not heard of Andrew Hopkins, this work will reveal the author’s profound understanding of the crucial role of leadership in managing occupational health and safety. Hopkins’ crystal-clear writing style paints the big picture by placing responsibility and accountability for safety at the doorstep of top management.
By Tarek Abousaleh
When deciding on a behavior-based safety (BBS) process, it is important to take into account more than simply whether there is a need for behavior change in order to reduce incidents and injuries. In addition to recognizing the need for members of the organization to join together in taking responsibility for reducing incidents, an analysis of the rules and contingencies of the workplace should be completed.
By Terry E. McSween, founder and CEO, Quality Safety Edge
Last year I had the opportunity to speak with a group of 35 construction and maintenance contractors that were involved in active behavior-based safety (BBS) peer observation processes. I was invited to speak on the topic of improving peer safety observations.
The participants were mostly safety managers from their respective companies with a small number of other managers who worked in the field and had shared responsibility for safety. Also, this was not a random group drawn from the universe of organizations using BBS. They elected to come to a session that was billed as discussing common problems with BBS, so I assumed it was a group representing companies whose BBS programs were struggling with at least some aspects of the BBS process. I was not connected to the participating organizations in any way. I had not met them before nor had QSE worked with any of them. As a result, I had very little background concerning their organizations with which to frame our discussion. Luckily, we have begun using an audience response system that allows us tocollect data and receive feedback from our audience, so I decided to solicit some information from the audience on their specific problems with BBS observations.
Step-by-Step Safety at Embraco Slovakia
A thriving factory with 2200 employees (approximately 1900 of those employees on the production floor) manufacturing high-quality products for customers around the world—this is the Embraco Slovakia plant. Embraco Slovakia is a subsidiary of Embraco—one of the largest worldwide producers of compressors and condensing units for refrigeration. In 2011 this facility in the small town of Spisska’ Nova’ Ves produced an estimated 4 million compressors, including a specialty line exclusively made at this location.