|
It's good to talk
New
research shows that involving workers in health and safety can cut
accidents, but you have to know how, say Iain Cameron and Billy Hare.
Your safety management
system is bullet proof, your site audits consistently score above 90%,
but your workers are still suffering accidents. What can you do?
Conventional wisdom
dictates that your next move would be to implement a behavioural
safety programme. But although it is seen as the 'last piece of the
jigsaw' which will move the industry beyond its current accident
plateau, this approach concentrates on the unsafe act and misses any
up-stream management and design issues.
A better step could be to
look at the way you engage with your workers on safety issues.
Although this is already a statutory requirement, and part of most
behavioural safety programmes, the HSE believes it should be given
more prominence. It will feature in the new CDM regulations and is now
a priority for inspectors.
The HSE's construction
division funded a 12-month £96,000 research project from Glasgow
Caledonian University's School of the Built and Natural Environment to
test different forms of worker engagement. Our findings show what
works and what doesn't and highlights a need for more soft skills
training for site managers.
Behavioural safety may be
the latest thing for all the major contractors, but the trade unions
don't like it and you can see why.
This approach is all
about instilling in workers the idea that they are responsible for
their own actions. It involves board members regularly visiting sites
and telling workers: "Please think about what you are doing, I want
you to go home to your wife and children today."
All well and good, but
consider this scenario: a plumber is joining copper pipes. An observer
notes that he is complying with the hot-works permit to work: warning
signs are displayed, combustible materials are isolated. All is well.
But the observer is completely oblivious to the option of replacing
the hot-works process altogether by specifying push-fit connections,
something of which the plumber is probably well aware. But no one has
asked him.
The research team wanted
to ground their study in a traditionally difficult and challenging
sector, rather than report on mega projects where safety is generally
better. The guinea pigs were small contractors working on eight
refurbishment projects for the Royal Bank of Scotland, a programme
managed by Mace.
Different approaches
Four different approaches
were tried on nine sites: pre-task briefings with feedback cards for
any issues workers wish to raise; suggestion boxes with comments being
fed into safety circle discussions; informal methods where either the
site manager or a worker "safety champion" walked the site discussing
safety issues and kept a diary; the traditional route of safety reps
and health and safety committee.
The last of the four
methods was difficult to test, since no workers volunteered as a
safety representative. The researchers had to go to another contractor
who was already training a worker as a safety rep.
All of the different
routes were used to generate an action list to record issues raised
and track whether they had been closed out satisfactorily.
A big message to emerge
from this study was "person not paper". Responses were poor when
workers were asked to write things down - with the pre-task briefing
and worker feedback card route, only three cards came in, two of which
referred to the condition of the toilets. The suggestion boxes,
trialed on two sites, remained totally empty. One worker commented: "I
see the site foreman every day, I don't need to fill a form in to tell
him something."
The informal approach
where site managers incorporated safety discussions in their daily
routine worked well. Issues raised included suspicious-looking wiring
in a wall, feedback on vibrating hand tools and difficulties in using
new equipment. On other sites the site managers recorded comments in a
diary, although the workers who took on the safety champion role were
reluctant to write comments down.
Those sites where more
than half of the sampled workers had received formal health and safety
training recorded more meaningful discussions than the others. As an
example, where engagement has poor scope and depth, workers might
raise a problem with lack of toilet rolls, whereas on a site with
greater scope and depth they might put forward a suggestion to change
a shutter design in order to improve access.
Workers on all but two of
the sites, which were measured against control sites where no action
was taken, felt that they had better health and safety information and
that worker engagement had been improved after the new systems had
been trialed.
Negative attitude
Of the two sites which
showed a poor response to the interventions, one was due to
sub-contracted workers displaying a negative attitude, the other was
down to a negative site manager. This shows how things can go wrong if
only a few people don't buy into the idea.
To encourage workers out
of their shells, site managers need good presentation and
communication skills, and they need to win people's trust. The best
way to do that is to action requests or at least give them an answer.
A good approach would be to display an action list with named
individuals and target dates on a site notice board.
The HSE's chief inspector
of construction Stephen Williams says worker engagement is now a top
priority for inspectors. Danny Carrigan, an HSC commissioner and trade
unionist, has also given his full support to the Caledonian
researchers who are setting up a worker engagement knowledge club.
Gordon Crick, the HSE
construction division's champion for the worker engagement initiative,
has used the findings of the research to rewrite the section on worker
views in the revised CDM Regulations which are due to come into force
in April. The emphasis is on face-to-face informal communication
rather than reams of paperwork.
So what will the
inspector find when he comes calling to your site? You may have a
policy on worker engagement, but if it is merely lip service it's not
worth the paper it's written on. Forget feedback cards if the comments
are few and only about dirty toilets. And be prepared to prove that
you are acting on your workers' concerns.
The work on worker engagement is part of a wider
strategy by the Caledonian University researchers, who are now
investigating superior performance in relation to OSH professionals,
funded by the Institution of Occupational Safety & Health. They have
produced a template for a worker engagement action plan and are
creating a worker engagement knowledge club. Contact Billy Hare at
b.hare@gcal.ac.uk or 0141 3313908 for an action plan template. The
report An Investigation of Approaches to Worker Engagement by Dr Iain
Cameron, Dr Billy Hare, Dr Roy Duff and Professor Bill Maloney (phD)
will be published by the HSE (RR516), but Dr Hare can provide you with
an early copy on receipt of your action plan.
|
