Creating A New Behavioral Safety Process

A large, sophisticated safety department and a strong concern for operational safety at one of Canada’s major utilities were not enough to avert several fatalities or avoid multiple major injuries—one resulting in a double amputation. “They were under serious regulatory pressure to bring their incident rate down, but they had really done everything they could do, except for the behavioral approach,” says Grainne Matthews, Quality Safety Edge (QSE) behavioral safety consultant.

“Think of looking at the U. S. map and in your mind go from Houston up through Louisiana, to the right through Mississippi, through the middle of Tennessee, part of Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and up to New York. That was the pipeline when we started out,” says Anthony “Corky” Carter, certified safety professional and principal safety representative.

By Terry McSween, QSE President

Having written on self-observations a few issues back [See “Self-Observation” in QSE newsletter, June 10, 2009], I’d like to discuss different types of peer observations, in particular individual observations versus area observations. The difference between the two is really who is being observed, because both cases involve a single observer. Typically, in individual observations, the observer finds another employee working, observes that employee, and gives the employee feedback.

E-SAFTE at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, Texas, facility stands for “Environment and Safety Actions for Team Excellence.” Lockheed Martin strives to instill the mindset in all employees that accidents and injuries are preventable and avoidable, which is a mainstay of the behavior-based safety (BBS) initiative started in 2004 as part of the organization’s overall safety initiative. “I volunteered to participate in an E-SAFTE team because I’ve been injured,” explains Lewis Love, the BBS site coordinator. “I wanted to be accountable to myself and my teammates to prevent further injuries.”