A 'pat on the back' can boost health and safety

Norwich Union Risk Services (NURS) training and consultancy manager John Phillips warned that even the best procedures and policies tended to fall apart when employees showed a poor attitude towards safety.

For this reason, those responsible for health and safety needed to win over the hearts and minds of staff, instead of simply issuing them with instructions.

"Employers should encourage a positive attitude towards safety in the workplace," said John. "This means rewarding safe behaviour, as well as clamping down on poor practices.

"People don't always appreciate a dictatorial approach - but let's be honest, health and safety is sometimes seen in this way. Rather than beating people up with a stick, organisations ought to introduce simple measures that minimise the potential for accidents by promoting positive behaviours."

John went on to explain that "behavioural safety" techniques were based on years of psychological studies into factors that influence behaviour.

He told us: "Because of its links to psychological practices, some see behavioural safety as some kind of 'dark art', but to be honest the methods used are little more than what most of us would recognise as good management."

Behavioural safety

The basic idea is that people's behaviour, and the consequences of their behaviour, can be influenced by both positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement.

In other words, behaviour can be affected by giving them something they want, or as a result of them avoiding something they don't want.

"Nobody wants to suffer an injury, but research suggests that this kind of 'negative reinforcement' encourages only the bare minimum of change in behaviour necessary," said John.

"On the other hand, positive reinforcement - let's say linking safe practices to individual appraisals, and therefore to reward and recognition - produces better results, because people go the extra mile and do more than is expected of them.

"In essence, people operate more safely and actually influence others to do the same as a result of positive reinforcement, because they 'want to' rather than because they 'have to'."

Norwich Union Risk Services has recently launched a one-day training course covering behavioural safety techniques. The next takes place in London on 17 June 2008. For further information call us on 0500 55 99 77, or get a copy of our latest 'Short Courses' brochure here.