BBS on Life Support: What Happens When it Fails?

by admin on September 1, 2010

“I work for a large railroad, and we have BBS from one of the top ‘big name’ BBS consultants. I am an agreement employee and have coordinated the process for over two years. It has flat-lined, and we are now looking to go back and motivate our teams–or try to. I am not convinced the ‘same ‘ole materials’ will do the trick. I’m looking for fresh ideas. I am afraid we have too many so-called experts within who don’t understand the design of BBS, but I am only one voice. I know I don’t have all the answers, but I understand I know just enough to get me into problems. Management has invested big $$$, and they did put up some good numbers—which, in my opinion, were more the result of luck than the BBS process. Now they want to move in and manage in hopes of a repeat. We made all the classic mistakes–didn’t get union buy-in, no management involvement starting up, etc. They put the process in our ‘rank & file’ hands, which was a big mistake. I am afraid we are on a crash course……

…Can you help us Bill?”  –anonymous BBS coordinator

 If I had a nickel for every email like this I’ve received over the years, I’d be starring in my own permanent Corona Beer commercial.

Over my 25+ year history I’ve seen thousands of big-name, consultant-driven BBS systems thrive, strive, and then die.   I’ve learned there are a couple of signs that tell you when your BBS program is sucking wind….

 ……do any of these sound familiar to you?

 If you have observers who pencil whip and fake the observational data…… you may have BBS on Life Support…

 If your BBS process started with lots of passion and fire but now it’s like shoveling out the barn to get participation…… you may have BBS on Life Support…

 If you ask permission to do an observation of an employee and he tells you NO…… you may have BBS on Life Support…

 If you have a hard time getting people to do observations…… you may have BBS on Life Support…

 If you collect tons of data but never process, analyze, or communicate it back to your workers…….. you may have BBS on Life Support…

 If you are struggling as a BBS coordinator to find ways that will positively reinforce achievements and you are sick and tired of t-shirts and ice cream parties…..you may have BBS on Life Support…

 If your company just downsized half the workforce and you just lost your BBS coordinator…. you may have BBS on Life Support…

 If your performance has plateaued or flat-lined…… you may have BBS on Life Support…

 If you have BBS on Life Support, it’s time to put the FUN back in your process!

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Advances in BBS Observational Tactics

by admin on September 17, 2009

A common complaint among companies that have been implementing behavior-based safety is that, over time, there is a distinguishable loss of interest – among all employees – leaders, managers, supervisors, and frontline employees. The robust energy exhibited in the first few months has deteriorated; the observations, meetings, and interest have devolved into a monotonous routine.

At every conference I hear BBS champions and Safety Managers voicing the same request: “Do you have any ideas about how we can give our BBS process a ‘shot in the arm?’” BBS processes in which observers are enlisted voluntarily suffer more conspicuously than companies that have institutionalized their BBS process as a job requirement and a “condition of employment.”

As an aside, I believe that BBS processes should be voluntary until employees are familiar with the process and have refined and customized tactics to functional efficiency. At some point you have to ask the question, “If BBS is essential to ensuring our employees work more safely, then we need to make it mandatory.”

Safety training, job safety analysis, incident analysis, accident investigation, hazard identification, safety audits, safety policy, permits, emergency response – all these practice and many more are not considered options; they are institutionalized and mandatory components of safety management. Similarly, observations – work sampling for safety – should be an essential and obligatory part of safety management.

Getting back to the issue of how you can reenergize your BBS process, in previous blogs I have suggested some alternatives:

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Reviving a Struggling Behavior-Based Safety Process: Using Your Observers to Improve Quality and Productivity

August 28, 2009 Uncategorized

Sooner or later you hit the wall; your process becomes routine…your observers are going through the motions…they may be pencil whipping out of boredom. Employees have lost interest; it is getting harder and harder to keep the steering committee interested in meeting.
Anyone who is involved in Behavior-Based Safety (BBS) for any length of time [...]

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Using BBS Skills for Emergency Preparedness

August 25, 2009 Uncategorized

If you are implementing behavior-based safety correctly, you have taught your observers what a behavior “is,” or “is not” – meaning they know a behavior from a non-behavior. A behavior can be observed; a non-behavior, like “thoughtfulness,” (the word implies a state of mind, not directly observable behavior) cannot be directly observed. We [...]

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Energizing Observers

August 14, 2009 Uncategorized

I’m not advocating that you discard the 30 minute observational audits you have come to know and love. Of course you need a thorough assessment of the work setting to encourage a thorough assessment of risk, but everyone knows that after a few years – even months – these things get pretty routine and [...]

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Employee Initiated, Spontaneous Observations

August 11, 2009 Uncategorized

When I wrote my last blog about this, I expected a rush of responses about how this idea would transform the ethos surrounding BBS – that the idea would create insights and epiphanies. I expected corporate safety managers and BBS facilitators to gush about the empowering possibilities it released.
Maybe I did not make myself [...]

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On-Demand Observations

August 9, 2009 Uncategorized

Thousands of companies around the world are performing employee observations – the same way. You design an observations system, you create an observations checklist then you perform an observation and record the data.
One big problem is that many people don’t like being the object of an observation or the company culture does not favor [...]

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Behavioral Observations: A Two Dimensional Approach

August 7, 2009 Uncategorized

Observational checklists are an important component of every behavior-based safety process, but there is a lot of variability in the items, the length of the observation list, and how the observations are accomplished.

Length – some observational checklists are several pages long; they are more like safety audits than behavioral observations, while other lists have as [...]

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Behavior-Based Safety Leadership

July 29, 2009 Uncategorized

Leadership gurus have made a fortune defining what leadership is and most men and women aspire to be identified as representative of the elevated stature associated with being a “leader.” Leaders have followers – they are purportedly charismatic and transformational. Managers have subordinates – they are transactional and influence through the authority provided them.
One recognizes [...]

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Seven Reason Why Your Behavior-based Safety Process is Flopping

July 29, 2009 Uncategorized

7. You Don’t Know How to Deliver Effective Feedback, Recognition, and Celebrate Success
What leadership attends to, what they talk about positively, and what they reward becomes the key values in an organization. Most supervisors don’t know how to interact with employees in a way that energizes critical behaviors – that helps performers identify value added [...]

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