The Safety of Work

The podcast explores the challenges of determining root causes in accident investigations, emphasizing the social aspect of the process. It discusses the importance of generating hypotheses and avoiding bias, as well as the need to address systemic issues. The limitations of current accident investigations and the flaws in the approach are also examined, proposing a new method focused on actionable recommendations and goal-setting.

We use the paper, Observation and Assessment of Crossing Situations Between Pleasure Craft and a Small Passenger Ferry, in order to frame our discussion. Topics:The small ferry referenced in the paper and the plans to replace it with an automated craft.Why commercial vessels get priority in the water.Incorporating human factors into the study of boats.What you lose by automating this particular ferry.Strategizing the right of way in the water.Interpreting Norwegian navigation rules.Why replacing the captain with an autonomous system could prove disastrous.  Quotes:“So, the rationale for a lot of the waterway rules, is about what different vessels are capable of.”“Even if the automation can solve for the navigation, can it actually solve for the rest of the system properties, as well?”“...When I look at a system like this, that we’ve explained, in a dynamic environment...I’m just not sure if it’s a system that you could automate.” Resources:Observation and Assessment of Crossing Situations Between Pleasure Craft and a Small Passenger FerrySend us your experiences with automation and its unintended consequences to Feedback@safetyofwork.com

To help frame our conversation, we use the paper How Does Audit and Feedback Influence Intentions of Health Professionals to Improve Practice? Topics:Our feelings about audits.Feedback from the audit process.The format of a cluster-randomized trial.Lab vs. field results.How to act on audit results.Analyzing the study’s results.Final takeaways. Quotes:“...The two parts of this study that we’re going to talk about now, are really trying to address that first part of it, which is the information to intention gap…”“In the field, there’s obviously other information, which is going to affect the decision, other than this particular report.”“If there’s no data, professionals really want to see the data, before committing to whether or not they need to improve.” Resources:How Does Audit and Feedback Influence Intentions of Health Professionals to Improve Practice?Feedback@safetyofwork.com

In order to frame our discussion, we use the paper Fads and Fashions in Management Practices.Topics:Recent changes in the spread of ideas.Where new management techniques come from.How innovations get labeled.How messages often get broadcast.Six Sigma training.The acceleration and deceleration of broadcasting.Why general ideas are more diffuse.Be conscious of the differences between academics, promotors, and researchers. Quotes:“Interestingly, when we get into the literature, you may, um, look at those books with a little bit of skepticism, when you see how books on management get published.”“The fads start off with small groups of innovators solving problems within their own companies. But those initial innovations aren’t able to spread by themselves.”“But now that industries...not really having the uptake in behavioral safety practices they were maybe twenty years ago, you don’t see much broadcasting in the market for, you know, behavioral safety practices.” Resources:Piazza, A., & Abrahamson, E. (2020). Fads and Fashions in Management Practices: Taking Stock and Looking Forward. International Journal of Management Reviews.Feedback@safetyofwork.com

The paper we use to frame today’s discussion is Leading or Lagging? Temporal Analysis of Safety Indicators on a Large Infrastructure Construction Project. Topics:Similarities between Economists and safety professionals.Definitions of performance measures.The researchers methods for this study.What the data showed about this particular organization.Errors in human reporting.Practical takeaways from the study. Quotes:“One definition of a performance measure or indicator should be...the metric used to measure the organization’s ability to control the risk of accidents.”“There’s lots of things in nature that aren’t supposed to generate bell curves.”“Safety is performed by humans, who react to the things that they see.” Resources:Lingard, H., Hallowell, M., Salas, R., & Pirzadeh, P. (2017). Leading or lagging? Temporal analysis of safety indicators on a large infrastructure construction project. Safety science, 91, 206-220.Feedback@safetyofwork.com

Tune in to hear our discussion and insights.Topics:Journals and how content gets submitted.Using Google Scholar instead of Google.Search tips.How to request copies of papers.University access to research papers.How to determine what is being measured in a paper.Internal and external validity.The difference between papers and books.Why you shouldn’t pay for papers. Quotes:“The basic rule for what is legal and what is not, is authors own the text until they submit it to a publisher.”“Anyone who’s got even just a student account at a university, shares in the subscription. So if they log in, while they’re on campus, then they have free access to a lot of stuff which is paywalled, when they’re off campus.”“Internal validity is how much within the scope of the paper it has correctly answered the question.” Resources:Feedback@safetyofwork.com

The discussion centers around institutional logics and their impact on safety culture. The hosts critique traditional safety management approaches, emphasizing the need for a contextual understanding. They explore how local rationalities influence decision-making within organizations. The complexities of safety practices in the railway construction industry showcase competing logics of safety and cost. Insights reveal that changing these entrenched logics is challenging, underscoring the importance of understanding them for improved safety outcomes.

We use the paper, How Institutions Enhance Mindfulness, to help frame our discussion.Topics:Mindful organizing.How the researchers conducted their survey and how it affected results.When the regulators are from the government.Four key activities that enhance safety.Why the org in the study leaned towards punishment rather than education.The two disparate views within the paper.How to create an environment that supports good decisions.Shifting blind reinforcement to reasonable reinforcement.Quotes:“So, they talked about this collective mindfulness as emerging out of the five principles of high-reliability organization theory.”“I was trying to interpret how much of this was down to national culture and how much of it was down to the research itself. And it certainly appears that in this situation, the primary regulator...the government regulator is the police.”“Initially operators must learn and follow the rules. But to function effectively as operators, they can’t mindlessly follow the rules, because the rules are sometimes irrelevant or unhelpful, leading to unnecessary violations.” Resources:Kudesia, R. S., Lang, T., & Reb, J. (2020). How Institutions Enhance Mindfulness: Interactions between external regulators and front-line operators around safety rules. Safety science, 122, 104511.Feedback@safetyofwork.com

We use the papers to frame our discussion: A Systematic Review of the Effectiveness, Compliance, and Critical Factors for Implementation of Safety Checklists in Surgery; Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effect of the World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist on Post-Operative Complications; and The Effects of Safety Checklists in Medicine.Tune in to hear our thoughts on this potentially life or death issue.Topics:The good reputation of checklists.Equipment Failure.The decrease of information loss.Do checklists slow things down?How closely checklists are followed.The rhyme of reason for checklists.Quotes:“Checklists are one of those things that have been associated with safety for a long time and associated in a way that gives them quite a good name.”“Lots of stuff being recorded as positively improving with the introduction of a checklist.”“If you can’t convince a multidisciplinary team that this belongs on the checklist, because they all agree there is a clear link between this item and a particular accident that they all know about, then you don’t get to put it on the checklist.”Resources:Borchard, A., Schwappach, D.L., Barbir, A., & Bezzola, P. (2012).A Systematic Review of the Effectiveness, Compliance, and Critical Factors for Implementation of Safety Checklists in Surgery Annals of Surgery, 256, 925–933. Bergs, J., Hellings, J., Cleemput, I., Zurel, Ö., De Troyer, V., Van Hiel, M., ... & Vandijck, D. (2014). Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effect of the World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist on Post-Operative Complications. British Journal of Surgery, 101(3), 150-158.Thomassen, Ø., Storesund, A., Søfteland, E., & Brattebø, G. (2014). The Effects of Safety Checklists in Medicine: a systematic review. Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica, 58(1), 5-18.Feedback@safetyofwork.com

We use David’s paper, Benefactor or Burden, to frame our discussion today.Topics:The distinction between role and identity.The stereotypes about the safety profession.Saturation.What to consider when hiring safety employees.Tertiary education.Change and the journey of safety.The values of safety professionals.What is important to talk about, when talking about safety professionals.Quotes:“Very few safety people describe themselves as bureaucrats.”“...Just that word, ‘Professional’. It tended to be the case that people who had tertiary education thought of that as being important as part of being a professional.”“We value belonging and involvement, but we also require authority to do some of our role.”Resources:Provan, D. J., Dekker, S. W., & Rae, A. J. (2018). Benefactor or Burden: Exploring the professional identity of safety professionals. Journal of safety research, 66, 21-32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsr.2018.05.005Feedback@safetyofwork.com