Behavioural safety is a proactive approach to health and safety that focuses on the human element of the workplace. Its primary goal is to prevent incidents by identifying and encouraging safe behaviours while discouraging unsafe ones.
While traditional health and safety strategies are essential, they often focus on engineering controls (e.g., machine guards), systems (e.g., permits-to-work), and compliance with regulations.
Behavioural safety does not replace traditional H&S but adds a crucial layer that addresses why people act the way they do and how to proactively and positively influence their safety-related choices.
The behavioural safety approach is founded on the following principles:
- Shared Responsibility: Safety is everyone’s responsibility, from senior management to every individual
- Proactive Focus: We focus on preventing incidents by understanding and influencing behaviours before things go wrong
- Observation and Feedback: Regular, constructive observation of work practices and the provision of timely, specific feedback are essential
- Positive Reinforcement: We will recognise and reinforce safe behaviours to encourage their repetition
- Learning Culture: We learn from both successes and failures, using insights from behavioural observations and incident investigations to improve
- Engagement and Empowerment: We will involve our workforce in identifying risks, developing solutions, and promoting safe practices
- Fair and Just Culture: We will distinguish between human error, at-risk behaviours, and reckless violations, ensuring a fair and consistent approach to managing safety performance
Implementing a behavioural safety approach could provide significant benefits, including:
- Fewer Incidents: This is the primary goal and benefit. By addressing unsafe behaviours before they lead to an incident
- Increased Safety Awareness: Employees become more mindful of their own actions and the safety of their others
- Empowerment: It gives employees a direct voice and a tangible role in shaping their own safety, leading to a greater sense of ownership
- Improved Well-being: A safer workplace directly reduces physical harm, stress, and anxiety associated with workplace risks
- Stronger Safety Culture: It moves the company from a “rules-based” culture to a “values-based” one, where safety is genuinely part of everyone’s job
- Reduced Costs: Fewer incidents mean lower costs associated with investigations, recovery, medical treatment, compensation claims, equipment damage, and operational downtime
- Improved Morale and Engagement: When employees feel their company genuinely cares for their well-being and involves them in solutions, morale, job satisfaction, and productivity tend to increase
- Improved Compliance: A proactive focus on safety often leads to improved and more consistent compliance with H&S regulations
Written by Daniel Prosser, MSc CMIOSH L4DipFRA OSHCR
Health, Safety and Wellbeing Professional