Fifteen years of experience helping businesses transform their work cultures have shown me that Evidence-Based Practices around key business needs are essential. Evidence-Based Practices are simply those that allow for objective measurement of performance that should lead to a desired outcome. For example, in the Behavior-Based Safety process that we teach, safety behaviors are measured through direct observation. Then, performance feedback is provided immediately to the individual(s) observed as a means of reinforcing desired behavior and stopping undesired behavior. We stress giving positive feedback for safe performance. And, if correction is needed, we teach a constructive feedback process that allows the performer to share with the observer all factors that may have contributed to the ...

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A Brief Case Study in Behavior-Based Safety

Most traditional safety systems focus on tracking injury-related incidents (e.g., OSHA/MSHA recordables, lost-time accidents) as a means of evaluating safety success. Although it is important to track these events, the incidents themselves are most likely the result of actions taken by one or more people. Thus, they are outcomes of behavior or lagging indicators of safety.

To be most successful in preventing injuries, we recommend that you focus upstream when evaluating safety success. That is, although it is important to track incidents, you should also measure the potential for incidents to occur. This will allow your department or worksite to make adjustments prior to someone getting hurt or property

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