Issue link: http://psai.uberflip.com/i/910300
W EEKLY EDITION NOV 29, 2017 Building a Culture of Safety Part I: Precursors to Serious Incidents …continued By PSAI Exec utive Director Karleen Kos With this data in hand, the researchers started looking for patterns and crunching numbers. Starting with between 40 and 50 possible safety incident precursors , the team had a couple of goal s: • Reduce the number of variables to only those that could meaningfully be associated with an eventual accident or safety incident • Develop an equation for the probability that a serious safety event would occur . When they finally finished their work, they had a list of statistically likely accident or incident precursors and an equation that looks like this: Now, in case you don't have your graphing calculator handy , you'll be glad to know that you don't reall y need to do math to understand accident precursors and what to do about them. Let's look at the short list of statistically verified accident precursors that Dr. Ha llowell and his team discovered. Though they pertain to construction sites, most are applic able to companies in the portable sanitation industry as well. Company - Level Accident or Incident Precursors Poor Work Planning • Employees are unaware of proper work procedures • No/poor plan to address changes in work or work routine • No/poor pre - task plan or discussion specific to work Productivity Dominated Culture (items in this group carry double weight as an accident or incident precursor) • Employees are NOT active in safety program/following procedures • Fatigue • Schedule/productivity pressure • Significan t overtime • Prior safety performance is poor Vulnerability to High Energy Sources (items in this group carry double weight as an accident or incident precursor) • Lack of control barrier or visual warning • Line of fire is uncontrolled • Improvisation in work procedures Outside Safety Influences • Congested workplace/crowding • Distracted workers • Limited safety supervision • Poor quality or inexperienced managers • Working alone PAGE 3 CONTINUED ON PAGE 4