A system of safety management practices and worker engagement for reducing and preventing accidents: An empirical and theoretical investigation

This study explored the links between safety management system practices, human performance concepts, employee engagement levels and both objective safety performance outcomes and self-reported injuries. Data was collected via surveys from safety managers, supervisors and workers. It’s a survey study, so take from it what you will.

Also, as always, caveat emptor around the stability and validity of incidents as a measure.

Note, none of the findings are particularly surprising or new but it’s good to see research focusing on how engagement and person-centred design mediates the effectiveness of practices & systems.

Providing background:

• In this study, human performance theory, mission, goals, policies, processes and programs have “latent organizational weaknesses that could give rise to flawed defenses and error precursors within organizations” (p118). These error precursors can contribute to hazardous situations/interactions
• Common error traps include time pressure, mental pressure, fatigue, experience, distractions, overconfidence
• “In the human performance system, human error is merely a symptom of some trouble deeper in the system” (p118)
• Further, it’s said to be rather inevitable that “latent organizational weaknesses (and resulting flawed defenses and error precursors) will arise within a system of safety management practices for a number of practical reasons” (p118)
• This includes the point that safety management systems can’t “plan for, control, and defend against all potential error-prone situations because in doing so work would need to be planned and controlled to such a high and constraining degree that it would be time-consuming, unworkable and uneconomical” (p118)
• Another reason is that SMSs “tend to be institutionalized through policies, plans, procedures, and processes and therefore are not easily and readily adaptable to the natural and inevitable variations occurring in work being conducted and the hazards being encountered” (p118)
• Another reason is that “humans, who are fallible, design and implement safety management systems. Therefore, the lifeblood of a safety management system is shared with the managers and workers who have birthed the system and have given it daily life (and sometimes death)” (p118)
• Moreover, people “bring their beliefs, values, and vision to the design and implementation of safety management systems and ultimately in performing work. In particular, the individual worker interfaces with the safety management system by participating or engaging (or by not participating or engaging) in the system” (p118)
• When systems of best practices are considered then these can be referred to as high performing work practices (HPWP). SMS practices can be viewed as having characteristics of HPWP
• SMSs are “flawed both during their development and implementation” (p120), and cannot, themselves, “anticipate and control all work situations”, nor quickly adapt to changing situations or uncertainty because “of their rigid, controlled and complicated structures” (p120)
• Therefore, it’s up to people to engage and adapt systems to suit the context of the environment. Higher engagement has been demonstrated in numerous studies with better organisational outcomes

Results

Some key findings:

• A significant negative relationship between the presence of ten individual safety management practices, as well as the composite of these practices, with accident rates
• a significant negative relationship between the level of safety-focused worker emotional and cognitive engagement with accident rates
• safety management systems and worker engagement levels can be used individually to predict accident rates
• safety management systems can be used to predict worker engagement levels
• worker engagement levels act as mediators between the safety management system and safety performance outcomes

Authors note that despite SMS practices being linked with incident reductions, safety performance also depends on cognitive and emotional engagement by workers.

Results suggest significant correlations between various safety practices on both worker engagement and safety outcomes. On further investigation, the effects of safety practices on safety performance were often mediated through the construct of worker engagement.

They argue that “The presence of a system of safety management practices inorganizations is a necessary foundation for achieving a safe working environment, but it cannot guarantee it” (p128). Further, while SMS standards, like 18001 or 45001, provide necessary “first steps”, it is “interesting to note that these consensus standards are primarily manager- or process-centric, rather than employee-centric, in terms of defining roles, responsibilities, and requirements” (p128, emphasis added).

Their results suggest that “the idea of a “safety system” needs to be expanded to more emphatically include workers beyond that emblematic of a strict safety management system. Workers are the system!” (p128, emphasis added). Perhaps most obviously, employee engagement appears to be critical for keeping safety management system practices effective.

It’s said that the best human performance tools [* and likely organisational mechanisms] may be those that allow workers to continually learn and adapt to deal with deficiencies and constraints within the workplace. That is, by learning about normal work, things go right because of how people adapt and overcome these constraints, including inappropriate or dysfunction procedures.

Firms should be “concerned about winning over the minds and hearts of their workers through human performance-based safety management systems designed to promote and enhance worker engagement” where workers “[are at] the center of safety management systems” (p129), such as through participatory problem-solving.

Finally, authors suggest that nurturing the cognitive and emotional support from workers doesn’t need to be distinct or independent, but rather embedded within the design of the practices and systems themselves.

Link in comments.

Authors: Wachter, J. K., & Yorio, P. L. (2014).?Accident Analysis & Prevention,?68, 117-130.