Creating A New Behavioral Safety Process

When Bob Foxworthy, a behavioral consultant with Quality Safety Edge (QSE), received a year-end request to develop a fully operational behavior-based safety (BBS) process within six days, the “Mission Impossible” theme song began playing in his head. The request came from ICL Performance Products’ phosphate plant in Lawrence, Kansas. The plant had once successfully operated a behavior-based safety process that had gone by the wayside over a decade ago. Now, the facility’s safety team wanted to begin anew with a limited budget, a limited time frame, and an unlimited determination to make it happen.

A year or two ago, I wrote a column that outlined QSE’s position that voluntary participation is the best option for most organizations. I proposed that using “% Participation” as a metric of complacency and the better quality of observations in a voluntary process justified the added work associated with promoting participation.

In this article I want to explore the benefits of mandatory participation and some of the circumstances when a mandatory approach is appropriate. Those of you familiar with Quality Safety Edge recognize that we do not believe in a “one size fits all” approach and that we believe that different organizations have different needs. I can think of two different QSE clients that implemented mandatory observation processes and I have no doubt that we will see more, especially as we increase our work internationally. 

by Gail Snyder

When a company has not only survived, but excelled for more than two centuries, that company is doing something right.  Not only lasting, but growing (and exponentially so), requires the ability to evolve with the times via a continual quest for improvement. This approach is the current that has energized Tucson Electric Power (TEP) since the late 1800s. Today, this principal subsidiary of UniSource Energy Corporation generates and transmits electricity to more than 400,000 customers in Southern Arizona.

By Gail Snyder

When Terry Nay joined Arizona’s Tucson Electric Power (TEP) several years ago as its corporate safety director, he already knew from firsthand experience how a behavior-based safety (BBS) process could be made to fail through improper implementation. So when several safety representatives at TEP expressed an interest in BBS, he not only knew what to do, but what not to do.