Managing Beyond Zero:
How to Sustain an HSE Program nearing the Ultimate Goal of
Zero Incidents
Kent Van Eaton and Curt Cranford
Corporate Health, Safety and Environmental Managers
Grant Prideco - Houston, Texas
Prepared for
February 26, 2008
Managing Beyond Zero
In the late 1970’s, we can recall safety
meeting discussions centered on the lost
time injury rate. At that time we had
never heard of total recordable injury
rate. However, it didn't take very long
until the lost time injury rate became so
low that it was obvious that an LTIR
focus would not allow us to continue to
improve. We began to discount the lost
time injury rate and consider a broader
spectrum of injuries. We increased the
magnification, so to speak, and took on
the total recordable injury rate as our
indicator of success. Fortunately, in the
last 20 years we have made significant
progress in continuing to reduce injuries
in the workplace. And, once again, we
find ourselves reaching the point where
analysis of recordable injury producing
incidents no longer provides us with the
information we need to reach our
ultimate goal of zero injuries. It is time
to start managing beyond zero. Time to
take a fresh look, time to put new
interest in what is happening in our
workplaces that can be corrected to stop
every injury.
Our Past Success Points the Way to
the Future
For most of us the rallying cry used to
achieve the improvements over the last
20 years was “engineer the hazards out
of the workplace”. This strategy was
highly effective and you can see its
application time after time in almost
every activity be it in the workplace, at
home or in your community. Reflect a
moment on the standard automobile with
all of its now inherent safety features.
My, what a change from the old ’57
Chevy. This engineer based technique
will continue to serve us well but we do
not believe it will get us to our ultimate
goal. To get there, it will be necessary to
shift the majority of our effort to another
method.
The method we choose next must take in
to account two realities, interestingly
realities that result from our success to
date. First, as we successfully apply the
engineering based approach to reduce
hazards, the hazards that remain become
increasingly
small,
difficult
to
distinguish, many times, infrequent in
occurrence
and,
possibly,
only
momentary in existence. To do battle
with these hazards, we must be better
able to recognize these less obvious
situations. We must strengthen our
employee’s ability to recognize what
might hurt them. The ability to see,
envision, feel, and sense the hazard must
be honed to a point such that it is an
actively conscious mental process
running in the background at all times.
To illustrate this consciousness, many
times you will hear highly skilled
athletes talk about “the game slows
down” for them as they rise to a high
level of skill.
It is this actively
conscious sense of the game that makes
this “slowing” possible at the same time
the moment to moment details of the
game are actually getting faster. You
might recognize this consciousness in
yourself if you think back to your early
experiences in driving an automobile, for
instance, verses the comfort you now
have in driving.
The second of these realities can be seen
in the pure mathematics of the
calculation of total recordable injury
rate. When you think about a TRIR of
less than 2 or so, that means 98 out of
100 are not getting hurt. It is clear that a
lot of people are doing things right. It is
also obvious that a lot is not enough. To
progress further toward zero, everyone
must to it right. No one can be left out,
every employee must be involved in the
effort. What this means is that we must
have an approach that builds total
participation to a meaningful level as a
part of the plan.
engineering applications have made our
workplaces much safer than 30 or 40
years ago. Fortunately, the dulling of
our sense of awareness can be reversed
so it can help us move to our ultimate
goal of zero injuries.
A Sense of Awareness
Since developing a sensitive to hazards
provides returns quickly, we will focus
on how we can do that first. The ability
to see, envision, feel, and sense hazards
is a skill that safety professionals have
realized as important for many years.
Any number of observation processes or
programs
have
been
promoted
throughout industry.
Concerns That Guide Our Approach
We have to admit that we are always
uncomfortable
with
the
term
“awareness”. We’re sure many of you
will agree it is greatly overused as the
cause of all that is wrong in our
facilities. The operator was not paying
attention, the employee was careless, she
did not have her mind on what she was
doing. We see the use of awareness or
lack of awareness countless times as the
causation factor in many incident
analyzes to cover management and
system failure. With that in mind, let's
agree to use the term "seeing" rather
than awareness. So, throughout the
remainder of this article, we will speak
of building a keen ability to "see" the
hazards in your workplace rather than to
be “aware” of those hazards.
The ability to see the hazard may also be
thought of as awareness, or a sense of
awareness.
Human beings naturally
have a keen sense of awareness, but over
the years as we have engineered hazards
out of our lives that sense has become
dulled. For example, modern highway
design has greatly reduced the hazards of
driving. Who would have thought we
could take so many hazards out of
operating an automobile that we would
feel totally comfortable talking on the
phone while driving at 65-70 mph? You
simply do not have to be very aware to
survive on the road now. Similarly in
industry, proper machine design,
guarding,
computerization,
robots,
ergonomics, and other similar safety
A second concern we have is that we
overwhelm the vast majority of people
with ideas and techniques that do not
appear to the non-safety professional as
directed at the fundamental issue – how
can I get hurt. We make safety too
complex.
We have hundreds of
programs, all of which are meant to help,
but confuse the employee with buss
words and phrases. Here are some
examples – STOP, The 7 Habits of Hand
Safety, CBIs, Behavior Based Safety,
JSAs, JHAs, Cause Mapping, Systemic
Causation
Analysis
Technique,
TakeTwo, SafetySmart, PHAs, etc.
You, I am sure, can name a dozen more.
All of these have value and we are not
intending to demean them. But we think
So, to sum it up, the methods that will
get us the next great push toward zero
injuries will develop a very high, almost
total participation by our employees who
are highly sensitive to nearly invisible
hazards. No small task. But it can be
done.
you can see how a manager, supervisor
or employee outside the safety
profession can become glazy-eyed and
develop a “program of the month”
attitude.
The point is that we need to simplify the
language and ensure that our employees
understand the continuum of our safety
effort so they see how the tools we
provide address the issue of keeping
them from getting hurt. Help them
understand that it is an evolution and
maturing of the effort as the organization
itself matures and evolves to face ever
more difficult goals and problems rather
than a new program or process. If we do
not provide a clear roadmap or a plan
with consistent language and techniques,
we should not be surprised at the
skepticism we may encounter. There are
great techniques and tools in the myriad
of safety programs out there that you can
and should adopt. However, we must be
careful to do so in a systemic and well
communicated plan aimed at building
skills and maturity in our people.
The Ability to See
For developing the skill of “seeing”, we
prefer to use a very fundamental
technique that has been around for
decades but to use it in a different way.
If you are reading this article, we assume
you are a safety professional or at least
someone who is interested in safety.
You are familiar with the analytical
technique of classifying injuries, or
potential injuries in the cases of near
misses, into event types. You will recall
that event types include caught on, in,
under, between; contact with heat,
chemicals, electricity; strike against or
by; fall from same level or elevation;
and overexertions creating sprains,
strains, repetitive motion injuries,
hearing loss, etc. It is our belief we can
take these events, recast them as the
hazards that can hurt us, and utilize them
as a simple and effective way to observe
our workspace. Simply put, we look for
places in our workplace where we might
be caught, might come into contact,
might strike, might fall or might
overexert ourselves.
Suddenly, the vast world of ways things
can go wrong or ways I can get hurt
reduce to five. Five keywords – caught,
contact, strike, fall, overexert. You will
find these are applicable to practically
any situation. They can be rapidly
applied in less than 30 seconds. They
are easily communicated with simple
language and easy examples. They are
full of useful, focused information for
the employee’s safety. And, they can be
the basis of all the “seeing” techniques
we will discuss below. This last point is
important in keeping the terminology
consistent as the skills of the employee
improve and increase in maturity so they
can see the activities below as a
complete system.
A System of Observation
What we would like to do now is outline
a system of observation techniques that
we have developed and connect the dots
if you will. All of these are usefully in
sharpening an employee’s ability to
analysis the workplace. None of these
techniques will be new to you.
However, you may have never
associated them with techniques that
utilize the skill of “seeing” the hazards
in the workplace. These techniques
build your employees’ skill of sensing
the hazard, making them increasingly
capable of finding the danger before it
causes injury. Using this broad portfolio
of approaches, an employee gains the
ability to “see” the hazards through a
variety of ways and thus increases the
likelihood of injury-free work.
Technique #1 – Risk Assessments
The first observation process we want to
discuss is the fundamental baseline risk
assessment. This technique is the most
formal of the set but is very important to
setting the stage properly for sustainable
performance, solid training and efficient
operation. Within the risk assessment,
before you evaluate the consequence and
probability, risk assessment teams
identify the job steps and then hazards
associated with each of those steps. It is
this job safety analysis portion of the
risk assessment that is relevant for this
discussion because what we are
interested in is “seeing” the hazards that
might hurt us. Using the caught, contact,
strike, fall, overexert keywords greatly
focuses the work. For new processes
still being designed, it helps the
developers visualize the hazards. On
existing processes, it gives a common
language and sets a consistent level of
detail that many times people struggle to
establish.
Additional skill enhancement comes
from diversity of ‘seeing”. What I “see”
teaches you to “see” different things and
what you “see” teaches me. The most
effective risk assessment-based “seeing”
development comes from a diverse team
of operators, engineers, management,
maintenance and other experts. The
insight of these various stakeholders not
only creates a higher quality assessment
but provides each team member an
opportunity to “see” hazards from
someone else’s point of view.
Technique #2 – Workplace
Inspections
The next process that enhances
observation skills is the formal
scheduled workplace inspection. Most
of us use a checklist or some other
guidance to assist the people doing the
inspection but be sure to recognize that
this activity is a wonderful “seeing” skill
development process. We encourage
people to inspect areas familiar to them
and areas that are not so familiar. This
will improve their ability to “see” more
effectively. A depth of detail in their
observation is developed when in their
usual workspace while their diversity of
“seeing” is sharpened when in
environments that are not seen routinely.
Many of the items on your checklist deal
directly with the five hazards, for
example, are there hoses or cords across
the walkway? This is clearly related to
the hazard fall. Other items may not be
as obvious such as fire extinguisher
inspection.
In this case, encourage
employees to connect the inspection
with the hazard the equipment is
protecting, in this case, contact with
heat.
Technique #2 – 5x5
Tool number three is a simplified and
informal risk assessment. Called the
5x5, this “seeing” exercise is designed
for the employee to apply when the nonroutine job or task comes about. These
non-routine activities contribute an
inordinate percentage of injuries against
our goals as they are generally
unpredictable in timing and short-lived
in duration. Some piece of equipment
breaks down, some tool is missing,
something goes wrong in the machine,
something unusual happens that creates
a situation where employees are doing
unfamiliar tasks in what generally is a
time sensitive, high stress environment.
The 5x5 technique is to quickly think
through the task and ask yourself how
could I be caught?, how could I come
into contact?, how could I be struck?,
how could I fall?, how could I
overexert? It should take no more than
15 to 20 seconds. When finished with
these simple questions, you know what
you are dealing with and, just as
importantly, what you do not have to
worry about.
The 5 “how could I” questions above are
the source of the first 5 in the 5x5.
Going through the process of asking of
the questions is the first of the second 5.
Number 2 in the second 5 is why am I
doing the job in this manner, is there a
better way with less hazards? Next, we
dig a little deeper into specifically how I
or someone else would be hurt. This
leads to how we are going make the
hazard less likely to injure us. And,
finally, how are we going to protect
others.
When employees first learn this
technique, it is about a 60 second
exercise. After a few tries, they can do it
in 30 to 40 seconds.
Experienced
employees find they do it, for all intents
and purposes, as they go. On the fly, so
to speak. They are going through the
exercise in their head as they approach
the job. That is where we want them,
fully integrating safety into their
moment to moment work.
Technique #4 – General Observations
General observations in the workplace
are the next technique in our system.
The general observation process is the
informal version of the workplace
inspection. Once again, we advise the
use of the five hazards to focus the
“seeing” process.
Where the 5x5
focuses on a particular task, the general
observation has the employee observe
their environment and the activities and
conditions within it. A lot of us have
this technique in place and it is a great
technique. We believe you will get more
out of it if you will use the caught,
contact, strike, fall, overexert method as
this directs the “seeing” toward how you
can get hurt and it maintains consistence
within your approach.
Technique #5 – Peer to Peer Reviews
Number five in our system of
observations is peer to peer reviews.
Some of you might recognize this as
being very closely related to the
behavioral based safety observation
process. In fact, it takes its roots from
that process. Peer to peer reviews,
however, are designed differently to
overcome three distinct problems we
have encountered in the traditional BBS
observation process.
In peer to peer reviews, the review is
requested by the person to be reviewed.
I ask one of my peers to watch me and
give me feedback rather than someone
walking up out of the blue and asking to
observe me. This reversal in approach
removes a huge number of issues related
to interpersonal relations and personal
control. The employee being observed
can ask anyone he or she wants to do the
review. Best buddy, worst enemy – they
decide.
They control when the
observation is done. They control the
task which is observed. We find this
control greatly reduces the fear and
discomfort we have seen in the original
BBS approach. Yes, there is a risk of
poor quality reviews and buddy buddy
protection but it goes away as soon as
the employees see that management is
not using the tool in a negative fashion.
Besides, even when the guys aren’t
telling you everything, they are still
“seeing” it and talking about it and that
is progress.
Other beneficial attributes are developed
as the employees carry out a peer to peer
review. There is a development of trust
between teammates that goes far beyond
safety and health issues. They gain a
higher degree of comfort in giving and
receiving feedback making learning
increasingly welcome and desirable.
They may well discover additional
things that might get them hurt beyond
what has been identified. And, with the
exchange of ideas, they learn how to do
the job differently to make the work
easier, cheaper, and safer.
Secondly, we advocate using the JSA
portion of the risk assessment as our
critical behavior checklist rather than
creating one in the tradition of the BBS
process. If we are not capturing the
critical
behaviors
in
our
risk
assessments, we are not doing the risk
assessment properly. That document
should be the standard way to do the job
and it should define how to do that job
safely. By using the risk assessment in
this way, we show consistence in our
safety system, we get great training for
our employees, we get a risk assessment
audit, and we get continual improvement
in the quality of our risk assessments.
Lastly, we use our normal system of
observation and reporting, using
documents that have already been
produced for other processes, and we
make use of training that we do as a part
of our normal safety skills development.
There are no organizational requirements
or administrative needs beyond our
regular observation process and system.
The peer to peer reviews are integral to
work and blend into the daily activities
on the floor. They fit within the system
maintaining the consistence of approach
so the employee does not have a feeling
that they are just another program from
the safety department.
For the safety geek in us, there is a lot of
neat stuff we can do with the data. The
observation cards we use let us track
how much improvement we are making
in the safety of the facility. We can
calculate a percent safe acts using the
data submitted. The BBS gurus tell us
this is a great positive, leading indicator.
We can see trends in at-risk behavior in
an area, in the plant, and in the company
so that we can determine where our
training is not effective. We can get our
JSA/risk assessments corrected so they
actually reflect what our employees do
each day. Wouldn’t that be nice? And,
we get ideas into our tracking system so
they are tracked to a response and not
dropped through the cracks or forgotten
just to pop up and grab us at a later date.
Technique #6 – Process Audits
The final tool we want to offer is process
audits. This tool is the most advanced
tool in the system but we are finding it to
be quite powerful and an excellent
“seeing” skills enhancement technique.
It compliments the peer to peer view but
is procedure focused rather than task
focused. Additional, it is a team process
so there are a variety of viewpoints in
play.
In a process audit, a team of employees
go to each department or a good crosssection of departments and audit a
specific safety or environmental process.
They are judging how well that
department is implementing and utilizing
the process. Processes such as lockout,
welding and cutting, forklift safety, PPE,
elevated work, chemical handling, and
the like are reviewed thoroughly,
checking every detail for compliance
with the procedure. The procedure
provides the stimulus for what the team
members are looking for which allows
the team members to become excellent
“seers” as they observe and interview
employees during the audit. Employees
that are involved in the audit also benefit
as they point out the methods they use to
carry out the procedure.
acceptability by offering control and
variability while building the same skill
set. Yet, by using the five hazard focus
of caught, contact, strike, fall, overexert
as the basis of observation, the system
remains consistent and comfortable to
the employees and supports what really
counts to them – not getting hurt.
This is a great opportunity for employees
not normally involved in the day to day
operational aspects of the company. We
are finding that accountants, human
resources,
lawyers,
administrative
assistants, and sales personnel are very
good at this and really enjoy the change
of pace and focus this assignment
provides them. Their fresh set of eyes
have helped us find details such as
improper shades of welding lenses being
used and oversights in mobile crane
training.
Finally, using the five hazard focus
make the system simple enough
everyone can contribute. There may be
a need for higher skilled facilitation in
the formal risk assessment but beyond
that, anyone can do a reasonably good
job evaluating if there is a caught, a
contact, a strike, a fall or an overexertion
hazard in front of them. And they can
do a good job watching someone to see
if they follow a list of steps in a JSA or
asking someone to show them how they
do a certain item in a procedure. Will it
be prefect? Will they do it as good as
you can? No, but that is alright. They
will get better and better. But also
consider that just by doing it, they will
learn and they will “see” better and think
better. Have confidence that the level of
quality in the play of the game will
improve as long as they practice, as long
as they participate.
Observation Summary
This system of observation techniques
offers a multitude of approaches to train
and educate our employees and to
rebuild the natural ability to sense
danger. The methods are both formal
and informal, both specific and general,
both task-oriented and process- oriented,
and both individual and team based. The
variety works to enhance the overall
“seeing” skills of the employee in the
same way a well rounded fitness
program develops the overall health of
the individual. It provides interest and
Additional, the system uses documents
and other administrative systems already
in use so there is minimal if any increase
in cost or resources. It can be managed
using the organizational structure in
place and can and should be fully
integrated into the day to day way work
is done.
Getting Everyone Involved
That brings us back to the second reality
we identified. When you think about a
TRIR of less than 2 or so, it becomes
clear that a lot of people are doing things
right. It is also obvious that a lot is not
enough. To get to zero, everyone must
to it right. No one can be left out, every
employee must be involved in the effort.
Everyone must practice and hone their
sense of danger. It is a moment to
moment game we are playing and a
single error means so much. To success,
we need every employee participating.
Getting this to happen is the trick.
Before we go forward in trying to
generate participation, let’s step back a
moment and see if we can get help from
the people that study this kind of thing.
Let’s think about some principles of
human behavior and performance
improvement research. First, human
behavior.
One of the pioneers of behavior based
safety, Dr. E. Scott Geller, in his book,”
The Psychology of Safety Handbook”,
tells us that engaging people is
facilitated when they are in a positive
state of mind, have clear goals and feel
empowered to achieve those goals. He
speaks of creating a sense of “I can do
it”, of personal control, of belonging, of
self-esteem, and of optimism to set the
stage for getting involved. Next, set
specific goals that the person can clearly
understand, which can be done, which
are meaningful or relevant to the person,
and which can be tracked so that
progress can be seen and celebrated.
This provides the direction and lets them
know what they are getting themselves
into. Now, provide them with a tool
they believe will work to achieve the
goal and they will get on board. Another
way to express it is: If a person believes
they can do it, believes it will work, and
believes it is worth doing, they will do it.
But, what is “it”? We’ll answer that for
you in just a moment.
In his recent book, “Transforming
Performance Measurement: Rethinking
the Way We Measure And Drive
Organizational Success”, Dean Spitzer
explains why performance measurement
should be less about calculations and
analysis and more about the crucial
social factors that determine how well
the measurements get used.
His
"socialization of measurement" process
focuses on learning and improvement
from measurement. He encourages us to
ask such questions as: How well do our
measures reflect our business model?
How successfully are they driving our
strategy? What should we be measuring
and not measuring? Are the right people
having
the
right
measurement
discussions?
As I was reading his book, I kept asking
myself: To get to zero, are we measuring
the right things? I decide the answer
was many times we are. What we are
not doing is framing the measurements
in the manner Mr. Spitzer is advocating
as necessary to drive success. Earlier in
the article, we talked about a series of
observation techniques, many of which
we am sure are in use in your facilities.
You measure these in some fashion,
analyze them for trends and may even
utilize some more advanced leading
indicators such as: closure rate of actions
to address root causes of incidents,
closure rate of actions to address
observations, ratio of near misses to atrisk condition observations, ratio of atrisk behavior to at-risk condition reports,
etc.
But we can get more out of these
measurement if we can incorporate the
human behavioral and performance
improvement principles. We would like
to recommend a methodology for doing
this to you now. We would like to
define an “it” for you. We believe this
method will get the high level of
participation we need to build our
“seeing” skills and create that sense of
consciousness we are looking for.
A SMART Way to Success
The method is a system that is based on
using a fully integrated safety
management system with an emphasis
on proactive activities to eliminating
injuries. Its primary working tool is a
score card that tracks an employee’s
participation in the activities defined by
the management system. The goal is to
provide a system that motivates
employees to get involved and take
ownership in their safety training and the
other safety activities in the management
system. These activities include the
techniques we discussed above – general
observations, 5x5s, process audits, peer
to peer reviews, risk assessment reviews,
workplace inspections, as well as other
proactive
opportunities
such
as
mentoring, individual safety plans,
safety committee membership, safety
and toolbox meetings, and incident
analysis.
It is also designed to increase and
encourage support of the system from
supervisors and managers as the
collective accomplishments of their
employees are measured as a component
of their achievement. This collective
process is repeated up the entire
management chain, providing even the
CEO with a score indicating his or her
involvement and ownership.
Secondarily, while not directly designed
as such, the system provides a
standardized methodology for defining
and consistently applying the Human
Resources
group’s
progressive
disciplinary response to HS&E failures
by
employees,
supervisors,
and
managers.
How It Works
The concept is that each employee will
have a score which measures his or her
involvement in HS&E training and
activities. This score would distinguish
the employee’s HS&E standing, if you
will.
Each employee starts with a given score,
say 65. They gain points by completing
specific activities. They lose points by
violations of procedure or failures to
report.
Points are assigned to each activity, for
example, completion of training,
attendance at safety and toolbox
meetings, etc. A higher number of
points could be assigned to activities that
you might have a need to strengthen in
order to encourage involvement in those
areas. A reduction in points is assigned
to specific violations, like failure to wear
proper PPE or lock out equipment. In a
case where someone failed to report, you
might double the reduction points caused
by violations.
No points should be assigned to an
actual injury or property damage. You
want to avoid any claim that disciplinary
actions are taken for getting hurt or
damaging property. You want it clear
that disciplinary actions are taken
against violation of procedure, not the
results of the violation.
For supervisors and managers they
would gain or lose points based on both
their individual involvement and the
involvement of their employees.
Supervisors and managers gain points by
leading their group to higher individual
employee scores. Supervisors and
managers would lose points on
violations by their employees. Failure to
report by a supervisor or manager could
triple the points lost if you wanted to be
clear about the importance of reporting.
Recognition would be given employees
above 90 points. Additional recognition
might be given for employees above 95,
for example, given a free pass that could
be used should they have a violation.
They could use the pass so they did not
lose points if found in violation of a
procedure. In our system, a pass could
not be used in a failure to report case but
that is up to you. Maybe you would
allow employees to “bank” points up to
some level, say 110. These extra points
would serve as a buffer for “a bad day at
the office”.
Employees with scores between 80 and
90 would be neutral. These are the
beginning of your group of nonparticipants.
Focused effort and
communication with these employees
should take place so you have
knowledge of why they are not joining
in the improvement process. And, since
time is factored into the scoring as you
will see in a moment, these folks will
have to do some things or their scores
will go down.
Employees having a score below 80
would be placed on verbal notice. If
they continued to fall, when they went
below 70, a written notice would be
issued. Should the employee take no
action and his score go below 60, they
would be placed on probation. An
employee with a score below 50 would
be in serious risk of termination.
The Points Structure
Employees gain points by doing
proactive activities that improve the
performance of themselves, their
colleagues, and the facility. The more
advanced the activity or the more
commitment required by the activity, the
more points the employee earns.
Mentoring a new employee, for instance,
might be worth 5 points. Membership
on the safety committee might be a 5
pointer as well. You can also provide a
bit of quality control to such activities.
For instance, if you are mentoring an
employee and they lose points due to
violations of procedures, the mentor
could lose the same amount of points.
Or, if you are on the safety committee
and miss a meeting, you lose one of your
points.
For other activities where less effort and
commitment are required, you can make
the point or points dependant on a set of
actions such as submitting “good,
quality” observations. This would get
you 1 point for every 5 observations.
Attendance at toolbox meetings might
pay out at 1 point per 30 meetings
whereas attendance at monthly safety
meetings might get you 1 point per 6
months. You could allow 1 miss if you
wanted or require 100% attendance.
If there are particular areas of focus you
want to emphasize, you can set the point
structure to encourage those areas.
Maybe we give 1 point for every 2 near
miss observations rather than the 1 for 5
ratio for other kinds of observations. Or,
if you find there is a need to get a series
of risk assessments done for a new
process, you reach out for more
volunteers by offering double points for
that month.
Here are more examples of activities that
could receive points with an example of
the possible point structure:
 Completion of orientation, a one
time award of 10 points,
 Completion of the mentoring
process, a one time award of 10
points,
(Note: In our system,
completion of these 2 moves a
new hire to 85, or neutral)
 Conducting a workplace
inspection, 1 point for every 2
inspections,
 Participation in a peer to peer
review, 2 points
 Participation in a risk
assessment, new assessment, 1
point, review, 1 point for every 2,
 Participation in a Continuous
Improvement Team, 2 points,
 Completion of a “good, quality”
Individual Safety Plan, 1 point
 Leading a safety meeting, 2
points,
 Lead toolbox meeting, 1 point
per 5 meetings
 Completion of scheduled
training, on time 10 points,
within year 7 points,
 Participation in process audit, 1
point per 3 audits.
Points gained are good for 1 year from
the date earned. This keeps the score
dynamic and requires employees to
continue to participate. If you were
concerned that some might try to “load
up” their score with a flurry of activity in
a short time then stop doing anything,
you can limit the maximum number of
points in a given time period. You have
practically total control over the scoring
tool so you can build it to fit exactly
what you are trying to accomplish just as
Mr. Spitzer advises to use measurement
to drive your strategy.
Note also how this tool matches up with
principles of building a positive state of
mind. All of the activities we have
mentioned above can be done by every
employee given the normal training you
provide. Every employee has complete
control over what he or she does and
when they do it. No one is forced to do
anything except accept the consequences
of their own lack of participation. We’ll
talk more about it below but you can
easily set up department teams or other
group structures to create the sense of
belonging. Recognition is built into the
system and people and teams are
rewarded for doing well so self-esteem is
enhanced. And, finally, employees feel
more and more optimistic about
themselves, their team, and the facility
as improvements become apparent and
they see better conditions and control of
their work.
The tool can be designed so that it
cascades up through the organization
and helps you create a clear tie of group
performance to supervisors, managers,
directors, vice presidents, presidents, and
CEO’s success. For example, if a
supervisor’s group has an average score
above 95, they get 5 points. If it is
above 90, maybe they earn only 2 points.
And only 1 point if the group average
score above 85. Awarding points for
group performance to the boss
encourages that boss to support and
promote participation by his employees
because it pays off for him.
Some additional example of points for
supervisors and managers are:




Group completion of training, on
time, 3 points, within year 1
point
Entire group led safety meeting
within 12 months, 3 points
Entire group participated in
process audit within 12 months, 3
points
Entire group completed peer to
peer reviews within 12 months, 3
points
Consistent Disciplinary Approach
As we stated above, this tool is designed
to motivate employees to get involved
and take ownership in their safety
training and the other safety activities in
the management system. The tool does,
however, provide a standardized
methodology
for
defining
and
consistently applying the Human
Resources
group’s
progressive
disciplinary response to HS&E failures
by
employees,
supervisors,
and
managers. The beauty of the tool is that
the employee knows exactly how they
can recover and avoid this negative
consequence.
The loss of points in this system comes
from violations or failures to do what the
employees know are required. We base
our point reductions on identified
violations from observations, audits, and
our incident analysis process. All of our
incidents are reviewed and analyzed to
some degree depending on potential and
violations are fact-based and specific.
You want to be very careful when
issuing point reductions so you do not
create distrust. A good guide or measure
to track is to have your organization
strive to award 7 to 10 positive points for
every negative point. The idea is to win,
not to lose.
Point reductions, like point awards, are
assigned with consideration of impact.
More serious violation such as making
safety devices inoperative will cost you
10 points. Servicing equipment after
failing to apply appropriate LOTO locks
would also warrant a 10 point reduction.
Conversely,
allowing
an
at-risk
condition to exist in your workspace
would only cost an employee and maybe
their supervisor if he or she was aware of
the condition, 1 point.
Additional examples of violations and
examples of point reductions are:
 Failure to get permit, 5 points,
 Horseplay, 5 points,
 Operating equipment without
authority, 3 points,
 Using defective equipment, 3
points
 Improper position for task, 3
points
 Shortcutting risk
assessment/JSA, 2 points,
 Failure to use identified risk
control, 2 points
 Failure to use PPE properly, 2
points,
 Improper loading, 2 points,
 Using equipment improperly, 2
points,
 Operating at improper speed, 1
point
 Failure to inspect, 1 point,
 Chemical labeling missing, 1
point,
 Open chemical container, 1 point
Summary
So, let’s see if we have met our original
realities. First, we said we need people
to be highly skilled at “seeing” how they
can get hurt. We have outlined a series
of observation techniques, all of which
develop the skill to “see” the hazards
around us. Within those techniques, we
have given the employee the 5x5, a
simple, easy to remember and easy to
use tool so he or she knows what to look
for. We have formal and informal,
specific and general, task-oriented and
process- oriented, and individual and
team based techniques. Yet, by using
the five hazards of caught, contact,
strike, fall, and overexert as the basis of
all observation techniques, our system
remains consistent and comfortable for
the employees and supports what really
counts to them – not getting hurt.
Next, we realized we must have very
high, almost total participation by our
employees. The scoring tool provided
uses the principles of human behavior to
accomplish this.
It is a Specific
Motivational Achievable Relevant and
Trackable (SMART) way to increase the
individual involvement and ownership of
employees in safety training and
activities. There is clear guidance on
what to do to achieve success and
recognition.
Participation by every
employee is required in order to
maintain their acceptability to the
organization. But they are in control of
that participation so therefore make the
choice for themselves.
We have used guidance from the
performance improvement leaders to
ensure that our measurement system is
less about calculations and analysis and
more about the crucial social factors that
determine how well the measurements
get used.
The process focuses on
learning and improvement from
measurement yet also ties directly to the
strategy we are trying to drive. We are
placing increasing importance on
measuring leading indicators that are
proactive and preventative and reducing
our reliance on the measurement of
lagging indicators such as injury and
property damage.
Additionally, we
have the right people having the right
measurement discussions about things
that affect them on a daily, even moment
to moment, basis.
Our task was to develop a very high,
almost total participation by our
employees who are highly sensitive to
nearly invisible hazards. Have we done
it? We think we are well on the way.