Behavior Based Safety:

Behavior Based Safety tracking is key to understanding and improving the safety culture of an organization. The underlying principle is to change human behavior through regular observations and sharing on-going feedback. This necessitates implementing a world-class enterprise BBS system. Swiesh has developed a novel BBS module with adaptability at its core. The solution enables our clients to implement programs that can be quickly configured to mirror their culture and organizational requirements, which institutionalizes desired behaviors into habits.

Behavior-based safety (commonly referred to as BBS) relies heavily on the psychology of learning and motivation through stimulus and response as a result of workplace observation and/or near miss reporting and corresponding feedback. BBS principles were founded on Herbert William Heinrich’s research, which suggested that 88 percent of accidents result from unsafe acts committed by employees rather than unsafe conditions.

Swiesh’s Behavior Based Safety software standardizes the reporting of observations and discussions, allowing you to easily analyze the results and prioritize corrective actions to ensure job safety.

Key Features :

  • Observations Data Management
  • Management Activity Scorecard
  • Company-Wide and Site-Level Safety Behavior
  • Trending Charts
  • Metrics & Statistics per Each Behavior
  • Corrective Action Item Tracking/Alerts

Behavior Indicators

Centralize behavior observations and follow-up discussions

Manage all your conducted observations in one central web-based system, allowing you to view related observations across business units for a complete picture of your behavior based safety program.

Record observations on any number of job types and behaviors

Create multiple question list configurations for as many observable contexts or job types as necessary and simplify checklist administration by controlling these lists to ensure the observer always uses the most up-to-date set of questions for the given context.

Input and access data from anywhere on any device

Eliminate unnecessary paperwork and time spent transferring handwritten notes. Onsite observers can access the Swiesh system and record a behavior based safety observation instantly from any mobile device, tablet or computer with an internet connection.

Ensure consistent methodology and trustworthy results

Standardize evaluations by incorporating detailed instructions into the process, ensuring reliable results across your business regardless of the observer or the location of the onsite observation.

Identify trends in at-risk behaviors and prioritize concerns

Analyze the results of all behavior based safety observations and discussions to identify trends. Organize the data by equipment, location, job task, job title and more to gain insight on the observed at-risk behaviors.

Reduce safety incident rates

Empower management to make smart decisions that will have the greatest impact on improving job safety by using the data to highlight the most significant at-risk behaviors.

The belief that employees can be motivated to behave safely through positive reinforcement (e.g. incentive programs, motivational posters and bulletin boards, posting the number of accumulated incident/injury free days), which is believed to be more effective and lasting than negative reinforcement, is a cornerstone of BBS. These programs do away with the notion that safety is solely the safety manager’s concern and rather assigns safety responsibility to everyone at every level in the organization. BBS not only relies heavily on both employee and management involvement in the safety program, but also holds that a robust safety culture featuring a focus on the process rather than the outcome and positive activators to produce behavior modification is the most efficient approach to workplace safety.

The emergence and acceptance of BBS programs has caused great debate between proponents of traditional safety programs, which focus on regulatory compliance and hazardous condition abatement, and those who are proponents of the BBS approach.

Management Support

“Everything rises and falls on leadership.” This is a very appropriate statement when considering BBS programs. BBS programs are doomed to fail unless they are comprehensively supported by company management.

BBS programs are highly dependent on trust. Company management must trust their employees to adhere to the BBS program principals of observation and reporting and employees must trust management enough to report hazardous exposures and observations without fear of reprisal.

In considering the importance of management support, I am reminded of a construction program I worked on a few years back where the prime contractor’s entire program was based on BBS. While the program was an excellent one in theory, it lacked complete management buy in. As a result, the program struggled to maintain industry average loss rates and ended as mediocre at best.