While investigations continue we should keep an open mind about the possible causes and not automatically assume, like some media coverage, that the captain is totally [...]]]> If we are going to learn from the tragedy of the Costa Concordia, the cruise ship that ran aground off the Italian coast, we have to be brutally honest.

While investigations continue we should keep an open mind about the possible causes and not automatically assume, like some media coverage, that the captain is totally at fault. However, it is inevitable that human factors contributed to this incident, as they do to every workplace accident and injury. Human factors encompass both errors and violations – two separate things which need to be treated separately. Camouflaging a violation as an error may be more palatable in the short term, but in the long term it does no one any favours.

The CEO of Costa Cruises was quoted as saying: “we cannot deny human error”. But he alleged that the captain of the Costa Concordia had sailed his ship away from its intended route to show it to people on a nearby island, ignoring the alarms that would have been sounded by the ship’s navigational computer.

It concerns me that the captain’s actions have been labelled as human error. If the allegations are true, what happened was actually a violation; a conscious, deliberate decision to deviate from the established safety procedures.

Violations are largely caused by our perception of the way things normally get done – the culture. To eliminate violations, what’s needed is a positive safety culture. If violations are never questioned, they become the norm, and people start to think there is no risk. Companies should develop a culture where everyone is encouraged to praise safe behavior and challenge unsafe behavior. That way violations become rare.

Errors, on the other hand, are honest mistakes, things we didn’t mean to do in the first place. They are caused by things like tiredness, distraction and frustration. It would be easy to trivialize them and regard them as inevitable. But that needn’t be the case; we just need to correctly identify what is error and what is violation.

We can’t suddenly decide to never be tired again to eliminate error. But often the number of injuries sustained due to error can be reduced if people are trained to spot the signs.

So, the direct cause of the Costa Concordia accident was not, apparently, a mistake. To reduce the likelihood of future incidents, we must acknowledge not just that an error is different from a violation, but so are the causes and methods we should use to eliminate them.

I hope the Costa Concordia investigation recognises what were errors and what were violations, and strives to identify the real causes of each. If the investigation into this, and any other, incident regards violations and error as the same thing, it is difficult to see how effective preventative measures will be selected.

Additionally, I hope it establishes whether deviations from approved routes at the whim of the captain were commonplace in the Costa culture or whether this was a genuine one-off. This will help to identify who is truly culpable. A no-blame policy is often referred to when developing workplace safety culture. But, occasionally, making people accountable for their actions is the right thing to do. What we should really be developing is a safety culture that is just – and we will explore that concept further next time.

But before that, we like to talk things through with you so that we can [...]]]> We understand that before you commit to a change in the way you approach safety, you may need more information or you may need help in convincing colleagues. That’s why we offer a free (subject to availability) two-hour taster session.

But before that, we like to talk things through with you so that we can work out what it is you really need. That means you get more than a standard presentation. You get an insight into behavioural safety that has been tailored to your organisation.
 

The workshop

• An introduction to behavioural safety
• An introduction to health & safety culture, and the critical link between behaviour and culture
• Management’s role in influencing the culture
• Elements of a behavioural safety and culture change programme

What the workshop delivers

• An understanding of behavioural safety and safety culture
• An insight into the changes you need to make to improve injury rates
• A basis for discussing safety improvement programmes within your organisation
• The language and ideas for convincing others within your organisation of the need for change

Target audience

Directors, managers and safety professionals.
 

Duration

Typically two hours (tailored to your needs)
 

Book today

This is a very popular workshop and the availability of our consultants means we can only offer a limited number. So get in touch today to book your taster workshop.

Tel: 01435 831500
Email: info@lattitudesafety.co.uk

The recent release of occupational injury and ill health statistics for 2010/11 by the HSE has attracted a great deal of debate. [...]]]> An accident frequency rate of 3 seems likes it’s close to zero but actually it means everyone in your organisation (on average) is going to be injured three times in their working lives.

The recent release of occupational injury and ill health statistics for 2010/11 by the HSE has attracted a great deal of debate. Yes, there was evidence of a continuing downward trend in the number of people injured or made unwell at work: 24,726 compared to 26,268 in 2009/10.

As the chair of the HSE, Judith Hackitt, rightly said, “Britain can be proud that it has one of the best health and safety records in Europe.” However, there was also an increase in the number of fatal injuries: 171 in total, up from 147 the previous year. This is clearly of concern, with Judith Hackitt adding in response, “we can never let up in our commitment to addressing the serious risks which continue to cause death and injuries in the workplace.”

The reasons for both the good and bad results have been much debated and the overall sentiment that we must always continue to improve cannot be argued with. However, the figures got me thinking about how Health & Safety statistics can so easily be ignored or misunderstood. The figures above are absolute totals and are very hard to misinterpret: cases of injury and ill health have decreased, fatalities have increased. Simple. But we very rarely deal with straightforward numbers. We always calculate an Accident Frequency Rate – and this is where the confusion often begins.

Let me just clarify one thing. This isn’t a criticism of accident frequency rates. Far from it. There is a growing tendency to focus on leading edge indicators such as closed out near miss reports, employee suggestions – and rightly so. It is important to concentrate on prevention rather than only dealing with incidents after they’ve happened. But it’s still really important to monitor the trailing edge measures, like AFR, to gauge how effective your leading edge initiatives actually are. Also, calculating a rate using a standard formula allows comparison across time, departments, sites, companies, industries, countries etc. and help us to quantify improvements and differences. Using a standard approach to accident frequency and continuing to measure it is a good thing. Being blind to what the numbers really mean though is not.

Sometimes the AFR can feel a little bit abstract. On its own, an AFR just looks like an arbitrary number. Out of context, it’s easy to ignore, simple to misunderstand and a doddle to regard as “pretty good actually”. This was proved to me recently when talking to a company director who was really enthused by a year-on-year reduction in his company’s AFR to 2.3. The corporate target is ZERO ACCIDENTS and he concluded that 2.3 was pretty close to ZERO, so they were doing OK.

The target is zero accidents and he concluded that 2.3 was close to zero

As an arbitrary figure, yes, 2.3 is close to zero. With this perception of what the AFR means it would be easy to imagine the directors perhaps easing off as far as Health and Safety is concerned and concentrating of the “more important” targets they had. But as far as I’m concerned 2.3 isn’t really close to zero at all, and so I discussed the AFR with him in the context of the numbers of people potentially affected and how. He began to see things very differently.

Behind any AFR are the real stories; the human cost. Any frequency rate is a reflection of the number of accidents that have actually occurred. And accidents more often than not result in someone actually getting injured. So instead of the AFR just being a lonely number, we began to consider it in terms of the number of people who were getting hurt. Amazing how people are more interested in the story behind a broken leg than they are in the number 2.3.

So, let’s look at the potential human cost by reviewing how we calculate an accident frequency rate and seeing what it really means. The most commonly used formula is:

AFR = No. of RIDDOR incidents x 100,000 / No. of hours worked

So the output of this basically provides a rate; a number of RIDDOR incidents per 100,000 hours worked, in this particular case 2.3. To show why this type of calculation is used, imagine a close competitor declared twice as many RIDDOR injuries. On paper this looks like a much worse record. However, this competitor has twice as many employees who work approximately twice the number of hours. Therefore, they both end up with approximately equal AFRs. They are declaring their performance on a level playing field – the number of RIDDOR incidents per 100,000 hours worked.

So, 100,000 – there’s another arbitrary, abstract number. But it isn’t. It isn’t selected just because it’s a big, round number. It’s used because it’s a round number which roughly equates to the number of hours we put in on average in a working lifetime. So our AFR of 2.3 means 2.3 RIDDOR reportable injuries per working lifetime. Each. That’s right, 2.3 each, per person, for everyone.

An AFR of 2.3 means 2.3 injuries in their working life. Each.

I told the director their AFR was unlikely to get any better if they were collectively satisfied with it. In truth, it’s more likely to start creeping back up but we agreed to assume it would remain fixed at 2.3. That means that if the injuries are shared out equally, every employee can expect to have 2.3 RIDDOR injuries during their working lifetime. But let’s also assume that not everyone is going to have their fair share of the RIDDOR incidents; the office staff, the managers, the directors themselves aren’t likely to have as many. So the remainder of the employees will have to “take a few for the team”. They’re likely to be facing around 3 each now.

The director really connected with this analogy. All of a sudden he realised, it’s the number of injuries that each person who works for him was likely to sustain during the course of their working lifetime. Injuries so serious that at the very least they’ll be unable to work for nearly a week. Or worse. Who’s going to have the dislocated shoulder? Who’ll be happy to take the broken ankle, the chemical burn, the penetrating eye injury, the amputation? Allow enough to happen, share enough around and he might be left guessing which of his staff will have to have the fatal accident.

So, I asked him this question, “If the board is satisfied with 2.3, why not tell everyone that’s what to expect in the future. Why not get it out the way and ask for volunteers to take the nasty injuries? If the AFR sticks at 2.3 it’ll happen anyway so why not plan for it?”

All of a sudden, that arbitrary number looked very different to him. He realised it really wasn’t anywhere near zero. We agreed that the target to strive for zero was there because it wasn’t just a number to boast about, it had a real meaning. It meant people weren’t going to get hurt. No-one.

So, if you’re ever facing some ambivalence about the need to improve your AFR, or the people who can help to improve it think it’s good enough or don’t really think about what the number actually means, perhaps present it to them in this context. Let it sink in, let them imagine the way all of those injuries will affect their workforce and their families. And before they move on to the “more important things” ask them, “What is more important than preventing a single person from suffering a couple of serious injuries?” Well, preventing your entire workforce from suffering a couple each – that’s what.

Statistics and quotes from: http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2011/hse-statistics2011.htm – accessed 17/11/11.

Lattitude Productions and Lattitude Safety are two independent companies with a cross-over in ownership. But we work together to offer our customers something that is unique.

Lattitude Productions makes mould-breaking health and safety films including:

Rob Coyle, the head guy at Lattitude Productions and producer of many of their safety films, was watching a nature documentary one evening. It was about Meerkats. As he watched, a lightbulb appeared about his head. These [...]]]> A lot of people in health and safety seem to be talking about meerkats these days. Here’s why

Rob Coyle, the head guy at Lattitude Productions and producer of many of their safety films, was watching a nature documentary one evening. It was about Meerkats. As he watched, a lightbulb appeared about his head. These fuzzy little fellows had themselves an interdependent safety culture.

Rob brought the footage to us to check it out. Sure enough, meerkats operate a safety culture that puts many prestigious companies (and the supposedly smarter humans who run them) to shame. So Rob made a film, using footage from the original BBC nature documentary, that shows how much we can learn from meerkat behaviour.

We’ve been using All for One – The Meerkat Way in our team safety training courses for a while now and people really seem to respond well. In fact, some organisations have started using a meerkat as the symbol of their safety programme. One company takes its staff to a safari park to see meerkats behaving safely in the flesh. This meerkat thing is really catching on.

Take the next step… .find out more about our team safety training

Experience counts: our experts have all worked in a range of industries and understand the practicalities of running a business [...]]]> It is not enough to be an expert in your subject. If you want people to learn, you need skills in communication and motivation. At Lattitude Safety we have those skills by the shed load

Experience counts: our experts have all worked in a range of industries and understand the practicalities of running a business inside out.

Case studies make things clear: people learn better with real world examples. Because we’ve all worked in the real world, these are what we base our training on.

Doing is better than listening: most people learn best when they work things out for themselves. Our training is stuffed with practical exercises.

Seeing is believing: because of our link with Lattitude Productions, we are able to incorporate film presentations into our training. These bring the ideas behind our safety philosophy to life.

Passion is compelling: feedback from our training sessions often mentions the passion of the presenter. That is because we all want to make a difference. Health and Safety is not a dreary subject – it is life or death.

No other safety training organisation is able to offer all these advantages. The result is that our training is the most effective in the business.

Take the next step… find out more about Lattitude’s safety training

Martin Woodall, Lattitude Safety’s principal [...]]]> Ken Woodward was left blind in 1990 after he was involved in a chemical accident where he worked at Coca Cola. Since then he has become one of the best-known and most effective motivational speaks on safety. His mission is to make sure no-one else makes the mistakes he made.

Martin Woodall, Lattitude Safety’s principal consultant, was asked to put in place a behavioural safety programme at Coca Cola in the aftermath of Ken’s accident. During that time Martin and Ken worked closely together.

Although Ken works independently as a motivational speaker, there are close ties between him and Lattitude Safety and we often work together to convince people to change the culture within their businesses.

• We tell Ken’s story in more detail on this site in the Business Case for Behavioural Safety
• You can find out more about Ken at his own site: www.kenwoodward.co.uk
• You can watch Lattitude Production’s film: Hindsight – the Official Ken Woodward Story

When you work with Lattitude, your starting point may have been that you wanted help understanding behavioural safety or putting a programme in place. It make have been that you were looking for new ways to reduce injury rates.

martin@lattitudesafety.co.uk

Peter Owen

Testimonials

“Martin Woodall from Lattitude Safety has helped us develop a positive safety culture within our organisation, assisting the management team to look at themselves and others with an approach to lead by example. The behavioural safety programme and understanding of human behaviour has been and will be a [...]]]> Some of our clients

Testimonials

“Martin Woodall from Lattitude Safety has helped us develop a positive safety culture within our organisation, assisting the management team to look at themselves and others with an approach to lead by example. The behavioural safety programme and understanding of human behaviour has been and will be a main focus of our safety management systems going forward. Martin’s practical approach and charismatic charm together with life experiences has helped us change our safety culture. All for one and one for all! – creating a safer workplace”
DHL- Nicola Crick Health & Safety Manager