THE RELEVANCE OF BEHAVIOUR-BASED SAFETY



THE RELEVANCE OF BEHAVIOUR-BASED SAFETY.

Hello there, this is Goke Akingbade (your Safety guide). Today we will be discussing about the relevance of BBS. Behaviour is what a person does or says. What causes an individual to behave in a certain way is influenced by other factors. In other words, a person’s behaviour is shaped by attitudes and situations. Behaviour-Based Safety (BBS) is a Safety Management System that species precisely what behaviours are intended to develop and maintain a safe workplace and are known as safe behaviours.  It is about identifying management policies and practices that affect human behaviour in the work environment.  For an organization to maintain a safe workplace, an effective BBS program must be in place.
A good BBS program will assist organizations to:                                                                                      (1) Reduce near misses, accidents and property damage.                                                                          (2) Reduce injury and illness rates in the workplace.                                                                                      (3) Maintain a healthier workforce.                                                                                                            (4) Reduce workers’ compensation costs.                                                                                                (5) Reduce workers’ absenteeism.                                                                                                               (6) Improve workers feelings about their work.                                                                                          (7) Elevate safety to a higher level of awareness.
Most injuries and illnesses in the workplace can be prevented. When a company has a safety culture , encouraging a proactive and positive attitude to safety, the number of injuries  and illnesses declines.                                                                                                                                                                                       On the other hand, those with poor safety habits, regular at-risk behaviours, and negative attitudes towards safety experience higher incident rates.                
Incidents can usually be connected to one or more of the following causes :                                                (1) BEHAVIOUR ( for example, improper attitude or actions, lack of knowledge or skills.                             (2) UNSAFE CONDITIONS which could be environmental.                                                                   (3) UNSAFE PERSONAL FACTOR.
(1)    BEHAVIOUR  : examples of these include failure to warn, horseplay, defecting safety devices, operating without authority, working in an unsafe posture, working at an unsafe speed, unsafe loading, placing, mixing, failure of the worker to use PPE.
(2)     UNSAFE CONDITIONS : These includes improper PPE, defective equipment, improper ventilation or lighting, and unsafe apparel.
(3)    UNSAFE PERSONAL FACTORS : These includes weakness in the muscles, defective eye  sight, lack of the needful skills, the use of alcohol or hard drugs, physical or mental impairment.
In identifying the factors that contribute to accidents in the workplace, the following questions must be asked:
(a)    Did the worker receive proper safety training?                                                                                                                                 
(b)   Did the worker know how to use the equipment?
(c)    Are procedures in place to deal with faulty equipment?                                                               
(d)   Was the worker reminded not to use the faulty equipment?
(e)   Why did the supervisor allow the use of such equipment?
(f)     Was the job examined by the supervisor first of all?
(g)    Why was the fault or defect in the equipment not detected? 
It is thus very crucial for organizations to strive to develop a good safety culture.                                    
Till I come your way again, please think safety, act safely and work safely.
Regards
gokeakingbade2@gmail.com
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SAFETY AWARENESS

Safety Awareness Safety Awareness is like almost everything else we do . . . it is learned, not instinctive. We aren’t born with awareness for safety concerns . . . in fact anyone who has a young toddler or grandchild knows this first hand as they see them going around doing unsafe things constantly. We learn through various means. Some learn by doing, others by watching, some by reading. Others learn by their mistakes or the mistakes of others which is one reason we talk about near misses and direct incidents and also emphasize that both be reported by staff that were involved or were eye witneses to these kinds of incidents. So how do you know you have developed good safety awareness? Here are some good examples of behaviours that suggest you have good safety awareness: 1.       Before you begin a job, you consider how to do it more safely 2.       You ensure you know how and when to use personal protective equi...
Read more

Job hazard Analysis

Image
Job Hazard Analysis Hello there, welcome to December. This is Goke Akingbade ( your Safety Guide) here with another interesting topic to dwell on. We will discussing about a very important aspect on occupational health and safety. If the operational activities of your organization put your employees at risk or exposed them to hazardous Job tasks, then you need to conduct Risk assessment of the work. One Risk assessment tool is a Job Hazard Analysis. A job hazard analysis is a risk assessment tool that screens job tasks by breaking the work into key steps, identify potential hazards and prefer safe work procedures to control risk that is associated with the inherent hazards. Any non routine work that poses high risk, any task that can lead to worker injury or illness, any hot work task need a job hazard analysis to be conducted before embarking on it. You can get information about such job task from your accident reports and workers compensation claims. Any job task that has the...
Read more

HAZARD AND HOW IT AFFECTS YOU

HAZARD AND HOW IT AFFECTS YOU. Hello friend, I want to first of all congratulate you on your successful entry into February. We will be going through something that is very relevant to your work and even your surrounding. WHAT IS A HAZARD? This is anything that has the potential of causing human injury or illness. It could be an object say a knife or scissors,stapler for instance.It could also be the state of mind of a worker if he is being distracted while at work and not giving his or her best on the job or an unsafe condition that has been put in place by someone. Another example is say for instance, you spill oil while working in the kitchen and because you are in a hurry, you leave it and you don't clean it up. Anybody that enters into that environment could slip and fall down and sustain some injury.  It is very important for you to be able to identify potential hazards in your surroundings especially where you work because t...
Read more