DOING SAFETY DIFFERENTLY – THE MOVIE…
Reducing compliance bureaucracy and putting trusting in people
The work of Professor Sidney Dekker has been gaining traction in Australia and in the last 12 months with major contractor in the construction sector. A ‘Movie’ has now been posted online which provides an overview of the approach.
Many core aspects of this approach e.g. reducing bureaucracy and empowering work teams to manage risk, will resonate with many readers. Wholesale implementation will prove more challenging.
Click on arrow below and the following from Safety Differently explains the movie.
Rediscover ways to trust and empower people?
“‘Safety differently’ is about relying on people’s expertise, insights and the dignity of work as actually done to improve safety and efficiency. It is about halting or pushing back on the ever-expanding bureaucratization and compliance of work. The cost of compliance and bureaucracy can be mind-boggling—up to 10% of GDP, with every person working some 8 weeks per year just to cover the cost of compliance, paperwork and bureaucratic accountability demands. This is non-productive time. It has also stopped progressing safety. Over the last two decades, safety improvements have flatlined (as measured in fatalities and serious injury rates, for instance) despite a vast expansion of compliance and bureaucracy.
Safety Differently: The Movie tells the stories of three organizations that had the courage to devolve, declutter, and decentralize their safety bureaucracy. Origin Energy reduced the size of their Safety Management System by 90%. They made safety an operational issue, a field-focused one, cutting centralized safety staff and reducing the bureaucratic accountability requirements imposed on engineers in the field. Queensland Health discovered a profoundly different way to deploy local expertise and simulation to improve care processes. Rather than assembling caregivers in a central location and telling them how to do a particular procedure, simulation experts fanned out into the huge state, using local process simulations as tools for discovery and sensemaking, and asking people what they needed and wanted. Woolworths Supermarkets ran a randomized controlled trial, taking everything related to safety out of a group of stores and telling the store manager: ‘don’t hurt anyone.’ Injuries went down, innovations went up and a deep sense of ownership blossomed. One store in that group won the annual safety prize.”
Interestingly, these organizations discovered that much of their compliance and bureaucracy was self-inflicted. Laws and regulations demanded some things for sure, but the majority of the permits, tool restrictions, checklists, rules, guidance and procedures that penetrated deeply into the capillaries of people’s daily work were all driven internally or by their contracting arrangements to other organizations. Too many cooks in the rule-making kitchens, few or no calls for evidence of the need or efficacy of the rules, liability fears, and sheer bureaucratic entrepreneurism meant that it was easy to make things difficult. It was easy to add stuff, and almost impossible to take stuff out. But these organizations did, and did so successfully.
These organizations rediscovered ways to trust and empower their people. Their stories offer hope; they reinvigorate the humanity and dignity of actual work. These organizations learned to resist the kneejerk to centralize, standardize and control everything their people do. They now try to harness autonomy, mastery and purpose as drivers for people’s motivation to do the right thing. Their safety outcomes are impressive, as is the reduction of business drag; the happiness and engagement of their people speaks for itself. Their stories are an immense inspiration for everybody suffering under the weight of bureaucracy and compliance—whatever the domain they work”
Latest Construction Health and Safety News
BULK BAG COLLAPSE CAUSED BY UNSAFE STACKING
Bulk bag collapsed onto workman when struck by fork lift
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 9th December 2019INTERLOCKED GUARD NOT WORKING TO ISOLATE POWER
Two workmen seriously injured when plant started unexpectedly
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 9th December 2019STREET FURNITURE RISK TO PUBLIC FINED £1.4M
Council prosecuted following injury to child playing on hinged bollard
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 9th December 2019WORKMEN SUFFER SERIOUS BURNS FROM CABLE STRIKE
Assessment and system of work failed to appreciate electrical risk
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 29th November 2019LADDERS WERE INAPPROPRIATE FOR WORK ON ROOF
Workman paralysed after falling whilst installing roof ladder
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 28th November 2019FIRM FAILED TO MANAGE EXHAUST VENTILATION
HSE enforcement notices on wood dust and welding fume ignored
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 27th November 2019RECALCITRANT DIRECTOR BARRED FROM OFFICE
Dangerous telehandler used despite earlier fatality and enforcement
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 25th November 2019DIRECTOR HID UNSAFE WORKING PRACTICES FROM HSE
Workers exposed to sprayed paints containing asthma causing isocyantes
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 25th November 2019JAIL TERM FOR CONTRACTOR CAUSING GAS RISK
Roofer sentenced after work caused carbon monoxide release
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 22nd November 2019UNSTABLE STAIRCASE COLLAPSE DURING REFURB WORK
Workman not informed of staircase hazard suffered serious injury
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 22nd November 2019UNUSED SEAT BELT WAS “COMMON PRACTICE” ON SITE
Overturning dumper truck caused death of operators at spoil heap
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 22nd November 2019SELECTED NEWS POSTED RECENTLY ON TWITTER
Links to other construction health and safety related news reports
HSE LOOK TO LOCAL AUTHORITIES FOR CDM SUPPORT
Council Inspectors focus on CDM client duties – asbestos, fragility and RCS
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 14th November 2019VERBAL WARNING OF DANGER IS NO DEFENCE
Hand of female worker entangled in modified metal drilling rig
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 14th November 2019UNDERGROUND CABLE STRIKE CAUSES 50% BURNS
Workman seriously injured using hand-held breaker to excavate post holes
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 14th November 2019HSE WELDING FUME REVISED GUIDANCE PUBLISHED
New research evidence on cancer link prompts revision on welding fume
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 14th November 2019VIBRATION MANAGEMENT FAILINGS FINED £600,000
Vital health surveillance, tool replacement and management found wanting
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 14th November 2019HSE ENFORCEMENT DATABASE LATEST UPDATE
View current online register of HSE prosecutions and enforcement notices
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 31st October 2019DEVELOPER AND DIRECTOR PUT PUBLIC AT RISK
Demolition undertaken without surveys and effective safety precautions
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 28th October 2019BY-PASSING MACHINE INTERLOCK FINED £1.275 MILLION
Trapped key safety system failed to prevent access to conveyor danger
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 24th October 2019HSE LOSES PATIENCE WITH ERRANT CONTRACTOR
Roofing firm fined £30,000 over failure to manage work at height risks
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 24th October 2019TRUSS ERECTION LACKED INTERNAL FALL PROTECTION
Carpenter fell and injured whilst falling with roof truss
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 24th October 2019WORKMAN FELL HEAD FIRST THROUGH ROOFLIGHT
Fragile roof dangers not assessed and properly controlled
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 24th October 2019STRUCTURAL SAFETY BODY LATEST NEWSLETTER
CROSS publishes reports and expert comment on a range of issues
Read the rest of this article »
Posted on 18th October 2019