Combining Safety I and Safety II for effective operations

One theme I’m passionate about is how safe operations are effective operations. It’s an area I’ve discussed before, but I think it’s worth repeating: “A task done properly is a safe task, but also an effective task.”

Accidents equal disruption

Let’s start with the obvious.?Any accident disrupts operations, irrespective of industry. If someone trips on an obstacle (let’s say a loose carpet tile) in a busy call centre, their colleagues nearby will be distracted, causing a drop in productivity.

That might not seem a big deal, but let’s tweak the scenario. Now place the obstacle and trip in a warehouse, on the factory floor, on a container ship, an oil rig. What if the employee was carrying something or the fall wasn’t onto a floor but down a flight of stairs or into the path of a forklift?

All because the area of operations wasn’t safe.

How Safety I and Safety II help achieve safe, effective operations

So, accidents cause disruption and reduce operational efficiency. That much is obvious and important. What’s less well appreciated though is the converse: that good safety is a positive contributor to operational performance.

Bringing in the concept of Safety I and Safety II, which I summarised last time, can help achieve that.

To recap, two schools of thought have developed on how safety should be delivered. Safety I favours a rules-focused approach, while Safety II leans more towards empowering and trusting workers to make the right choices in complex environments. While there are advocates (and critics) for both, I see the best way forward as applying the principles of each where relevant.

How does this apply to safe operations as effective operations?

First, let’s challenge the perception of the application of safety as restrictive. It’s an idea that’s outdated, outmoded and frankly incorrect. If anyone were to ask if there is a trade-off between safety and productivity, the answer would be a resounding no. An overly rules-based approach can hamper working practices and impact productivity, but it doesn’t create a safe environment either! Ultimately, workers will only follow the rules to the extent that they are convenient to them in their day-to-day activities.

Everything we do should be about applying safety in a way that supports workers in completing their activities safely and effectively.

Rules only where needed

To achieve that, we first need to identify risks. For those where we are not able to mitigate their impact by designing them out, we need to define appropriate ways of working, ideally in collaboration with the frontline. We then record incidents, draw lessons from them and adapt our approach. This forms the safety case, drawing on the Safety I approach. But the discipline applied to this process – plan, do, check, act – also applies to wider operations.?We can think of this as reinforcing wider good practice, embedding safety at the heart of effective operations.

At the same time, we should keep formal procedures to the minimum, only applying them when there is no alternative. Everywhere else, we want to bring in Safety II, empowering employees to draw on their practical experience and make the right judgement in the moment. In modern, complex operational environments, we need to treat them like the adults they are. ?

The benefit of this empowerment extends beyond safety. Empowered employees are more engaged. Engaged employees are more likely to have and, most importantly, share the ideas that are the lifeblood for continuous operational improvement. In short, engaged employees will find more effective ways of working.

Combining rules and principles

It’s a bit like crossing the road. At certain points, there are pedestrian crossings. In some countries, there are anti-jaywalking regulations. We train the young and inexperienced to look both ways, not to cross between parked cars, to find crossing points with clear visibility and so on.?This is Safety I, defining the rules and procedures and providing training where it has an essential role in hazardous situations.

But we can’t have pedestrian crossings outside every house – it would impede traffic flow. ?We trust adults to apply judgement and use their embedded experience to walk around safely – backed by restrictions in the most hazardous circumstances (e.g., barriers preventing pedestrian access to motorways).?They are empowered to find the most effective route and trusted to do so safely.

For safe operations to be effective operations, we need to follow the same approach. Combining the best of Safety I and Safety II to mitigate the most serious hazards while empowering employees to navigate the rest safely and effectively.

Next time I will be looking at how Safety I and Safety II enrich the role of safety professionals. In the meantime, I’d like to hear your thoughts. Are you an advocate for one safety over another? How do you ensure that your operations are safe and effective?