The role of Worker Perception in determining workplace safety outcomes

Period Covered: 30 May to 2 June 2016

©DAELIM QHSE

BY: AMRIK SINGH (HSE OFFICER)

Executive Summery

During the undergo subject behavior based safety survey “PULL THE TRIGGER – towards safety enhancement” should keen captured on selected site workers perceptions (Psychological and sociological ways) on & around their work culture meant how often to finish the task safely and how quick, accurately compliance with health and safety guidelines. Most productive and safe work culture can be achieved if most of workforce promptly guided through skilled supervision as well as provide accurate, efficient & an appropriate trainings sessions, adjustable task risk assessments, safe work procedure & plans, inspection and audits.

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In this report contents are acknowledged based on worker psychological

characteristics which were observed during involvement in different types of activities in workplace and should considered in their internal characteristics likes ‘Behavior ’‘Attitude’ ’Aptitude’ those playing an essential part in case of self-develop, hassle free production and also help to compliance with health and safety culture of an organization.

Correspondingly it has been observed that somehow another factors are also correlated to made their positive behavior against safe work culture likes: age, environment, work stress, fatigue, short period of time, lack of availability of sources (PPEs, equipment & tools), un supportable management and supervisor as well, poor knowledge on safety concerns while work with hazardous material, in absence of safe work trainings.

Daelim, QHSE Dept. Petro Rabigh-II Chemical project,

Table of contents

1 Introduction .......................................................................................................3 1.1 Overview .........................................................................................................3 1.2 Aim...................................................................................................................3 1.3 Background to leadership and safety ..............................................................3 2 Human behavior theories ...................................................................................4 2.2 Importance of behavior at workplace..............................................................4 2.3 Factors need to consider in safe work behavior...............................................5 2.4 Communication importance within organization………………………………………….6 3 Health and Safety, Quality manager & Executives .............................................7 4 Organizational policies and procedures..............................................................8 4.1 Disciplinary action plan and penalties…………………………………………………………..9 5 Responsibilities of employees & employer………………………………………………………9

5.2 Overcome on behavioral safety concerns ......................................................10 5.3 Trainings and Recognitions………………………………………………………………………….10 6 Conclusions ........................................................................................................11

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Introduction

1.1 Overview This Survey report based up on human nature in case of health and safety compliance and related factors, circumstances during work which are major causes in obligation. All safety review has been prepared as part of a DAELIM QHSE and behavior Change in Safety program of CP1 rabigh II project. In this worker behavioral fact data was commissioned by the daelim Health and Safety Executive to investigate the weakness in literature relating to the role of supervisory & worker level leadership in determining workplace safety positive outcomes. 1.2 Aim The aim of this paper is to review the theoretical and empirical literature that examines the role of supervisory leadership and worker behavior in determining organizational safety results. The safest attitude will be achieved by extracting the key relationships involving leadership factors in safety research. 1.3 Background to leadership and safety One of famous HR book writer said “I can control each & everything on this plant under the sun expect human “Until recently, there has been little theoretical development or empirical research directly assessing the relationship between leadership and safety. Most of the leadership research has focused on outcomes such as productivity, profit, and turnover and worker satisfaction as their criteria, whilst few studies have looked at safety as a criterion for measuring leadership effectiveness. This is surprising, given that creating a safe workplace and promoting effective leadership are key goals of most modern organizations. Yet it cannot be assumed that similar leader behaviors will be associated with effectiveness in safety as with other outcomes because safety, unlike other organizational outcomes is intangible. Good safety performance culminates in non-events which are not self-reinforcing. Thus, in order to develop and sustain employee motivation for safety it is likely that managers will require certain communication and motivational skills, which may differ from those required to fulfil task orientated goals.

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Human Behavior According to the Health and Safety Executive: "Human factors refer to environmental, organizational and job factors and human and individual characteristics which influence behavior at work in a way which can affect health and safety".

In any workplace and during any work activity, there is a complex interaction between factors relating to job, individual and organization. This complex interaction can have a profound health and safety implications.

Individuals vary with regard to their attitudes, skills, habits and personalities, these differences can have important influences upon task-related behavior. Sometimes these influences are straightforward and obvious. However, often they are complex and much more difficult to identify. Whereas some factors, such as skills and attitudes, can be influenced and modified, others such as personality are much more fixed and resistant.

Although organizational factors have a major influence over individual and group behavior, they are often ignored. This is true both at the design stage and at the investigation stage following an accident or incident. Cultural factors can exert enormous pressure upon individuals and lead to them adopting behavior patterns out of a wish to conform. Unfortunately, these cultural pressures can be both negative and positive with regard to health and safety matters. There is little point in a culture which urges conformity to the rules, if those rules are themselves suspect from a health and safety standpoint.

2.2 Importance of behavior at workplace Human failings can lead to active or reactive consequences in all kind of situations. Active nature employees can react immediately on some specific initial stage so they can get result in same time or task consequences and not leads to serious problem until much later, with high proactive thinking & study before a task handle. But reactive type behavior employees could fail to response during the action stages and not taking an appropriate measure complete the task. But always finds the facts & solutions when the major consequences could appear, such as failing to observe the no-smoking rule when working in a flammable atmosphere. But as the organization prospective view the work progress ration and growth mostly depends up on employee’s behavior meant how they are efficient, well-informed & deliver task on time promptly, safely, quality without any time loss.

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2.3 Factors need to consider in safe work behavior During the human behavioral study (based on physiological pattern) on some bunch of employee during workplace working hours, this finds different types of variations has been found in their behavior & purpose to compliance with health and safety norms regularly basis, when applied few sociological based strategies likes “WOTD Options formula” ”introduce disciplinary actions with penalties fine ticket” “motivational grid with recognitions” and non either the less training sessions. In following graph shows about implementation statistics from day 1 where 12 employees were go through study strategies to enhance the workplace rules and day 2 found ration decrease less than 4 employees and incessantly it was not instantaneously increase or decrease ration 9 & 10 on day 3 and day 4. But the interesting and most impressive outcome appeared in during the study was, applied strategies could help completely into decrease the repeated violation ration at workplace and employees were finding to follows the instructions habitably without any more explanations.

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2

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Day 1

Ration of violation as daywise

DayWise

Day 2 Day 3 Day 4

5 N

o. o

f em

ploy

ee

Repeated

Perception ‘The view or picture that an individual has of the environment and of the things which are happening in that environment.’

Errors and violations >Human facts > Ignorance, Carelessness, Poor Communication. Psychological > Rest/Activity Cycles > Experience > Influence of Peers> no Trainings

2.4 Communication within the organization An Effective commanding and communication process is most desirable and used medium in any organizations. It can help to get more profitable business without losing valuable time, productivity, morals, quality and safety.

Barriers to communicating The instructor massage(Trying to communicate at the ‘wrong level’, Making assumptions as to people's understanding, , Inappropriate messages) and Receiver cannot pick up correct with(Language & Learning difficulties, Lack of interest, and distraction or boredom, Misunderstanding, fatigue due to work for concentration)

How to Overcome by Continuous Learning through Trainings, Avoiding negativity in the process, being positive and enthusiastic environment, Making communication 'two-way' ,Using attention-getting techniques, Ensure comprehension through feedback, testing etc. And in hereunder given graph statistics shows some contributory factors which are not compliance with health & safety regulations in during human behavior study and leads towards any unsafe condition/act or incident on workplace.

Found the Human behavior though violations is major cause of any disobedience with minor or major rules of workplace and furthermore in the absence of proper supervision/monitoring system and employees sudden mistakes are also could increase involvement in unprofitable consequences . Another factor like a work stress/fatigue, work environment, lack of trainings, Age difference are also elaborated in negative behavior progression.

More interesting fact also arose regarding the supervisory positions those were also involved in human behavior non-compliance study process because of their low competencies & qualification in their occupations.

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22%

12%

8% 5%

33%

20%

Ration of Contributory Factors

Mistake/error

Fatigue/work Stress

Work Environment

Lack of Tainings

Behavior/Violation

No Supervision

Health and Safety, Quality manager &Executives

According to the Health and Safety Executive: "It is estimated that up to 80% of accidents may be attributed, at least in part, to the actions or omissions of people". However, although people may be directly involved it is often the underlying organizational problems that are at the root of the matter. These organizational issues often involve design, managerial and decision-making failures. Trust between employer and employees and open, two-way communications are vital if organizational failures are to be identified and rectified before they lead to human failures and consequently to accidents.

0% 50% 100%

Age Factor

25 - 35

35-45

45-55

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CategoriesWorkers

Supervisor

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With the regards of compliance with basic PPE’s at worksite, it’s been observed that when safety and health norms should not compliance strictly management side and line supervisor could not recognized the actual consequences than employee failure to obliged with basic safety terms and made it their habit, but these several minor negligence due to poor human behavior call to big work incident. Following are categorized violation/errors ration during the observing in workplace.

Organizational policies and procedures:

The foundation of any organization start with objective policies where the superior person as well as line, sub management made commitment to implement the norms as per employees welfare and safety, environment, company quality production progress accordable with civil laws and also introduce many work procedure to run work flow smoothly.

Following are the management process steps which can help to create work efficiency:

Emerging: Development management to supervisory level commitment on human behavior improvement aspects of production, quality & health and safety. Managing: realize the importance of front line staff and develop personal responsivities. Involving: Engage all employees to develop cooperation and commitment to improving health and safety on workplace. Cooperating: Develop consistency and help though learning process. Continuous improvement: Repeat the development cycle from management to employee levels.

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notproperaccess

hard hatWork

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Faceshield

hot workHandgloves

Ear PlugMissingPermit

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4.1 Disciplinary action plan and penalties ticket: With the regard of positive human behavior improvement process about rule and regulation compliance, some of employee follows them because of respect and feel their duty to oblige them. In another case some employee are follow not for they like them because of it there is punishment. To make highly standards in organization than they should develop some kind of disciplinary action plan and arrangement of penalties (warning letters & monetary deduction system) to run the system smoothly & safely without any discrimination affect.

Responsibilities of employer & employee through behavior concept

Employer:

• Active listening of front line supervisor needs. • Encourage employees at all levels to contribute idea for improvements. • Communicate freely and often about initiatives, strategies and goals. • Confront poor performance or counter culture. • Provide leadership by example. • Recognition of the importance of employee perceptions of problems. • Support and reward positive employee behaviors.

Employee:

• Acceptance of responsibility and accountability. • Challenge assumptions by seeking basis for tasks. • Confront issues that do not seem right. • Employees give feedback about process improvements. • Performance excels beyond regulatory compliance levels. • Record deviation events and share lessons learned. • Strict procedural adherence according work steps.

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• Questioning attitude on unclear process. • Workers feel comfortable raising issues up to management. • Workers stop work when work cannot be performed as prescribed. • Workers support one another for batter performance.

5.2 How to minimize behavior based safety concerns The human behavior is the main key for success and give more importance while hired in any type of organization. So line manager should be matching the job to the individual will eliminate a lot of problems and ensure that employees are not overloaded. The design and layout of the workplace is critical for ensuring that any accident potential is reduced to an acceptable standard.

Consideration must also be given to the task being carried out and whether or not it is repetitive and boring. If it is, then the accident potential increases considerably and ways must be found to reduce the repetitiveness of the job.

Work related trainings continuously arrange to control behavior based violation/ errors and recognized the employee performance.

5.3 Trainings and recognitions to improve behavior An adequate training a crucial ingredient in motivating staff and in providing the skills necessary to undertake work in safety and profitable outcome. Management should be focus on, what level of health and safety training is currently provided Poor levels of supervision, health and safety information and training can be significant factors in reducing health and safety awareness and therefore affecting the culture but is hardly the option of first choice in terms of human behavior. Throughout the training process employee interact with directly the core issues which are having lower or higher work behavior related consequences and learn how to mitigate them by two way effective communication.

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Managers and supervisor recognize that a wide range of human behavior factors cause accidents and the root causes are likely to come back to management decisions. Also in organization health and safety personnel and work supervisor are should be responsible for appreciate employee behavior who care their own health and safety and another. All department give importance of all employees feeling valued and treated fairly is recognized.

Conclusions All over the study of human positive behavior with aspect of health and safety or general outcomes are always coming from human internal perceptions means how to react, feel at particular situation based on “behavior” “Attitude” & “Aptitude”. One more most important thing is that when human Internal behavior once build than it is very hard to change throughout life journey but attitude and aptitude which are lies with surrounding conditions, can be changed under quality leadership, punishment process, learning and training.

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