What is a Behavior-based Safety Checklist?
Behaviour based occupational safety is a bottom-up approach that comes into play when implementing safety programmes in the workplace. Behaviour-based occupational safety is a process that informs management and employees about the overall safety of the workplace through safety observations.
Behavior-based occupational safety is designed to draw employees’ attention to their daily safety behaviour and that of their colleagues. The aim is to establish a comprehensive safety culture in the company by observing routine tasks, providing timely feedback and analyzing the causes of unsafe actions.
A behavior-based safety checklist is used by safety managers to systematically establish the positive effects of safe actions in the workplace. Companies that use digital behavior-based safety checklists can more easily eliminate the causes of dangerous behavior and encourage employees to take responsibility for their own actions.
Proven procedures to implement behavior-based safety
Behaviour-oriented occupational safety that is properly implemented effectively helps to find the important organizational causes of risks. The following is a list of best practices for behavior-based safety in the workplace that has been proven:
1. The ABC model
The ABC model (Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence-Model) is a widely used strategy to analyze how people act and possibly change this. Management and employees should have a clear understanding of what causes unsafe behavior and how it affects workplace safety. If the ABC model’s key concepts are followed, behavior-oriented occupational safety can be successfully established in the company.
2. Investigating past incidents and near-misses
The old position of some managers that the employees are the problem is a mistake that is doomed to failure. Safety managers should carefully review the inspection results recorded over time to identify the causes of incidents and near misses. Conclusions can be drawn from the analyses as to how injuries can be avoided in the future. In this case, a behavior observation form includes checking the PPE, body position, and equipment operation.
3. Giving positive feedback
One of the biggest mistakes of behavior-oriented occupational safety is to blame the workforce for unsafe working conditions. Management should first concentrate on identifying safe behavior rather than looking for errors. If employees receive timely, specific, and positive feedback on the way they work, they will pay more attention to their own and their colleagues’ safety behavior. This can also positively reinforce ongoing changes in behavior in other areas for more safety.
4. people-oriented intervention
Encouraging employees to play a proactive role in eliminating unsafe acts is the right way to improve occupational safety. Experts believe that mistakes in management and supervision and unwise methods and procedures are a common cause of incorrect behavior in the workplace. In contrast, safety observations, coaching, and mentoring for individuals and groups, combined with open communication, fair management, and continuous improvement, positively affect the company’s safety culture.
5. streamline reporting processes
Supervisors tend to produce reports inaccurately and quickly to meet quotas and deadlines. Taking photos in a report, creating the report itself, and submitting the report can take a lot of time and energy. Documenting the records and analyzing progress can also be a challenge. New digital technologies can help here. They enable companies to monitor performance, improve accountability and increase transparency easily.
Mobile solution for behavior-based safety checklists
Digitizing paper behavior-based safety checklists saves time and effort. Records and reports are available from anywhere at any time. With Lumiform, the digital tool for inspections and audits behavior-based security can be implemented more effectively. The mobile app and desktop software help organizations eliminate the root cause of unsafe acts, reduce job-related injuries, and improve workplace morale. With Lumiform organization can:
- Record data and information instantly in the field using the super intuitive mobile app.
- Schedule safety observations and assign corrective actions.
- Automatically generate and share behavior-based safety reports to stakeholders and key personnel.
- Easily add photos and comments to the reports.
- Thanks to a comprehensive analytics function, identify accident hotspots and perform root cause analysis to get action underway.
- Thanks to a lot of ready-to-use templates for behvior-based safety checklists, get started digitally right away.