Safety is changing and with it regulations, standards, and strategies. This is particularly the case in the area of people or worker safety. In recent years there has been a growing debate and criticism with respect to safety outcomes, performance and the role of:
Prescriptive compliance
Safety measurements
Lagging indicators
Checklists
"ZERO" goals
Can't measure what didn't happen
Quantitative metrics / reductive / reactive
Leading indicators
Safety management systems
Heinrich's Safety Pyramid
and others
This has generated much discussion and debate along with new approaches to safety under names such as:
Safety I & II
Behavioral Based Safety
Safety Differently
Human and Organizational Performance
It is too early to tell if these will converge into one unified approach to safety. However, what we can say is that they are heading towards viewing safety more holistically as a system that can be improved over time through learning and continuous improvement.
This will require new skills that include: risk-based and systems thinking, scientific methods, analytics, and continuous improvement.
To prime the pump, so to speak, I have included the following video clip from the American Society of Safety Professionals ASSP (formerly ASSE) Safety 2017 conference. You will hear from leading experts in the field of BBS (Dr. E. Scott Geller) and HOP (Dr. Todd Conklin) along with companies such as GE discuss the merits of BBS and HOP based safety.
The world of safety is changing and as some have said, "it's about time!"
