The Safety of Work

It's Modelling the Micro-Foundations of the Audit Society: Organizations and the Logic of the Audit Trail by Michael Power. This paper gets us thinking about why organizations do audits in the first place seeing as it has been proven to often decrease the efficiency of the actual process being audited. We discuss the negatives as well as the positives of audits - which both help explain why audits continue to be such a big part of safety management in organizations. Topics:What kinds of audits are happeningWhy is the number of audits increasing?Why do we keep doing audits when they seemingly do not help productivity.Academia and publication metricsThe audit societyThe foundations of an audit trailThe process model of an audit trailThe problem with audit trails.Going from push to pull when audits are initiatedWhy is it easier for some organizations to adopt auditing processes than others?Displacement from goals to methodsAudits help different organizations line up their way of thinkingPractical takeaways Quotes:“We see that even though audits are supposed to increase efficiency, that in fact, they decrease efficiency through increased bureaucracy. - Drew Rae“The audit process needs to aggregate multiple pieces of data, and then it has to produce a performance account, so the audit actually needs to deliver a result.” - David Provan“We become less reflexive about what’s going on in terms of this value subversion - so we stop worrying about are we genuinely creating a safety culture in our business and we worry more about what’s the rating coming out of these audits in terms of the safety culture.” - Drew Rae“Audits themselves are not improving underlying performance.” - David Provan  Resources:Griffith University Safety Science Innovation LabThe Safety of Work PodcastFeedback@safetyofwork.comResearch paper: Modelling the Microfoundations of the Audit Society 

The specific paper found some interesting results from these simulated situations - including that it was found that the debriefing, post-simulation, had a large impact on the amount of learning the participants felt they made. The doctors chat about whether the research was done properly and whether the findings could have been tested against alternative scenarios to better prove the theorized results. Topics:Individual and team skills needed to maintain safety.Safety-I vs Safety-IIIntroduction to the research paperMaritime Safety and human errorSingle-loop vs Double-loop learningSimulator programs help people learn and reflectResearch methodsResults discussionRecognizing errors and anomaliesShared knowledge to define limits of actionOperating the system with confidenceImportance of learning by doing and reflecting back afterwardComplexity and uncertainty as a factor in safety strategy.Practical Takeaways  Work simulation is an effective learning processHalf of the learning comes from the debriefRead this paper if doing simulation training Quotes:“Very few advocates of Safety-II would disagree that it’s important to keep trying to identify those predictable ways that a system can fail and put in place barriers and controls and responses to those predictable ways that a system can fail.” - Dr. David Provan“It limits claims that you can make about just how effective the program is. Unless you’ve got a comparison, you can’t really draw a conclusion that it’s effective.” - Dr. Drew Rae“A lot of these scenarios are just things like minor sensor failures or errors in the display which you can imagine in an automated system, those are the things that need human intervention.” - Dr. Drew Rae“Safety-I is necessary but not sufficient - you need to move on to the resilient solution ”  - Dr. Drew Rae“I don’t really think that situational complexity is what should guide your safety strategy. - Dr. Drew Rae Resources:Griffith University Safety Science Innovation LabThe Safety of Work PodcastFeedback@safetyofwork.comResearch paperNorwegian University of Science and TechnologyEpisode 79 -  How do new employees learn about safety?Episode 19 - Virtual Reality and Safety training

The podcast discusses safety clutter, identifying duplication and over-specification as common forms. The hosts highlight the consequences of safety clutter on safety management and workforce engagement. They explore the challenges and negative effects of inflexible safety rules and permit processes. The podcast suggests reversing the burden of proof in safety management as a solution to reduce safety clutter. It also emphasizes the importance of redefining the role of safety professionals to create meaningful safety outcomes.

While there may be many reasons for this - this particular research paper looks at how younger workers are inducted into the workplace and how they learn about the safety practices and requirements that are expected. The findings are pretty fascinating - especially for people responsible for hiring new employees. TopicsIntroduction to the research paperTypes of questions researchers asked research subjectsLiterature reviewHow people learnLearning safe practicesIndustries researchedMetalworkElderly careRetailGeneral inferencesCommunity of practiceGradient towards unsafety Practical TakeawaysThere’s a direct link between employment practices and safetyTemporary workers are less likely to follow safety precautionsAwareness of safety and how it relates to labor-hireReflective practiceLook at what happens during a new employee’s first weekAre your formal and informal induction and onboarding processes aligned to your safety risk profile of the different roles within your organization  Quotes:“Learning isn’t about uploading knowledge, it’s about creating a sequence of experiences, and each person in the experience, they reflect on that experience, they learn from that, it leads them on to new experiences.” - Drew Rae“When we induct workers, it’s not just about knowledge transfer, it’s not just about uploading the knowledge they need, it’s about how do we get them to start taking part in discussions and decisions and arguments and thinking about the way work happens.” - Drew Rae“The one thing that we maybe can maintain is the formal standards that we communicate in the induction in the hope that creating some of that tension, creates discussion.” - David Provan“Onboarding a person into the workplace is an investment in the person, so people are maybe likely to invest more if there’s more return.”  - David Provan Resources:Griffith University Safety Science Innovation LabThe Safety of Work PodcastFeedback@safetyofwork.comResearch Paper Discussed

The reason we are talking about this today, is because this tactic is often used in workplace safety videos and we ask whether or not it works for everyone, how well it works for workplace safety and whether its even ethical in the first place, regardless of its efficacy.  Topics:Deciding to discuss shock tactics/threat appeals in the podcastDo they have a place in organization safety management?Ethics behind using fear tacticsThe research paper introductionAbout the authorsHow does fear connect with persuasion?Too much fear-mongeringAdaptive vs maladaptive response to the message General problems with research in fear messagingPractical takeawaysSix things that determine how people respond to the message: The severity of the fear SusceptibilityRelevanceEfficacy The wear-out effectThe credibility of the message Quotes:“Just because something is effective, still doesn’t necessarily make it OK.”  - Dr. Drew Rae“The amount of fear doesn’t seem to determine which path someone goes down, it just determines the likelihood that they are going to hit one of these paths very strongly.” - Dr. Drew Rae “Communication which gives people an action that they can take right at the time they receive the communication is likely to be quite useful. Communication that just generally conveys a message about safety is not.” - Dr. Drew Rae Resources:Griffith University Safety Science Innovation LabThe Safety of Work PodcastFeedback@safetyofwork.comThe role of fear appeals in improving driver safety (Research Paper)

The findings of this research point to the importance of staff buy-in and a team-driven approach to safety. Topics:Introduction to research paper Seven features of safety in maternity unitsThe premise of the studyUnderstanding the process behind data collection for this studyThe Finding of the paperSix Features/themes of patient safetyRules & procedures vs social control mechanismsPatient feedbackRefining the Safety findingsCommitment to safety and improvementStaff improving working processesTechnical competence supported by formal training and informal learningTeamwork, cooperation, and positive working relationshipsReinforcing, safe, ethical behaviorsSystems and processes designed for safety -regularly reviewed and optimized.Effective coordination and the ability to mobilize quicklyGeneralization of processes isn’t always helpful Quotes:“The forces that create positive conditions for safety in frontline work may be at least partially invisible to those who create them.” - Dr. David Provan“Unlike last time, we’re now explicitly mentioning patients’ families, so last time it was ‘just do patient feedback’, now we’re talking about families being encouraged to share their experience.” - Dr. Drew Rae“These seven [Safety Findings] may or may not be relevant for other domains or contexts but the message in the paper is - go and find out for yourself what is relevant and important in your context.” - Dr. David Provan Resources:Griffith University Safety Science Innovation LabThe Safety of Work PodcastSeven features of safety in maternity units -Research PaperThe Safety Of Work - Episode 14Feedback@safetyofwork.comEpisode 75 - How Stop-Work Decisions are Made

Greg makes it very clear how important it is to avoid oversimplifying the term “due diligence”. He shares how this mistake has, unfortunately, led to safety officers and businesses being held liable for incidents at their premises. Today’s conversation with Greg was incredibly insightful to me and he clarified all his examples with real-life examples. Topics:Introduction to Greg SmithPaper SafeCapacity Index vs incident count safety metrics research paper in epiWhat is due diligence?Misleading due diligence productsReasonably practicable vs due diligenceThe validity of injury ratesSite inspection limitationsThe role of health and safety reportingLearning from incidentsPractical tips from Greg Advice for safety officers meeting with the board of directors  Quotes:“I find it fascinating the number of different disciplines, all landing at the same point at about the same time but without any reference to each other, I think it says something about the way that health and safety is managed at the moment.”- Greg Smith“Due diligence creates a positive obligation on company officers in the same way that the reasonableness elements of WHS create positive obligations on employees.”- Greg Smith“Injury rates from a legal perspective are not a measure of anything. They don’t demonstrate reasonably practicable, they do not demonstrate due diligence.” - Greg Smith“ I am not an advocate of moving from complexity to simplicity. I think we need to be careful of that because a lot of what we do in safety is not simple and by making it simple, we’re actually hiding a lot of risk.”  - Greg Smit Resources:Paper Safe Book - by Greg SmithForgeworks - Safety work vs Safety of WorkA capacity index to replace flawed incident-based metrics for worker safetyFeedback@safetyofwork.com

Together, Jop and I discuss a topic on which Drew and I previously touched: We revisit how stop-work decisions are made and why this is such an interesting topic of research. Topics:Jop’s research methods.How to interpret and explain procedures.Why rules don’t always lead to a work stoppage.Why stop-work happens.The perception vs. reality of stop-work.Myths and expectations of safety culture.The main takeaway. Quotes:“I think I’ve probably been guilty myself of not fully defining what I’m talking about.”“Only one case I found where a rule actually led to stopping work.”“First of all, compared to current interventions we see around stop-work...they all paint this picture of real significant decisions...and well, I found that plenty of stop-work decisions are basically considered insignificant.” Resources:Deciding to Stop Work or Deciding How Work is Done?Feedback@safetyofwork.com

This topic interested us mainly because of a paper we encountered. It’s a very new peer-reviewed study that has only just been published online. We will use that paper as the framing device for our conversation.Join us for this interesting and exciting conversation about the capacity index. Topics:The belief in required metrics.Low injury rates and what they actually mean.The regulator paradox.The six capacities.Due diligence.The problem with the study’s names for metrics.Measuring activities.Practical takeaways. Quotes:“Injury rates aren’t predictive of the future, so using them to manage safety, using them as your guide, doesn’t work.”“And while I think you could always argue that there are different capacities that you could measure, as well, I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with the capacities that they have suggested.”“Basically, what we’re doing is we’re measuring activities and all of those things are about measuring activities. Now, unless you already know for sure that those activities provide the capacity that you’re looking for, then measuring the activity doesn’t tell you anything about capacity.” Resources:A Capacity Index to Replace Flawed Incident-Based Metrics for Worker SafetyFeedback@safetyofwork.com

As our workplaces become more automated, it becomes the task of human workers to monitor the automated actions. At times, this may require a physical response or action on behalf of the human worker. So, while the physical load of workers has been lessened, their mental and emotional load has increased.Tune in to hear us define pointing and calling and the ensuing discussion about its efficacy within the workplace. Topics:What is pointing and calling?The lack of research on pointing and calling.How pointing and calling potentially slows down work.Measuring mental and physical demands.Practical takeaways. Quotes:“You point your index finger directly at that thing and you say aloud what that thing is currently showing”“But this pointing gesture also acts as a cue to trigger this attentional shift towards the information.”“The researchers did not state clearly what their hypotheses were. For those of you out there who are doing research, this is a big no-no when you’re doing an experiment…” Resources:The Effects of “Finger Pointing and Calling” on Cognitive Control Processes in the Task-Switching Paradigm