What happens when human factors and workplace safety cross paths? This episode will answer that question by exploring a "No Blame Mindset" and how it can lead to a stronger safety culture. Episode 1 of 6 discussing Safety Climate Success Factors.
Host: Danny Smith
Guest: Leigh-Ann Stewart
https://safestart.com/file/idclip/
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1032442/episodes/9825473
What happens when human factors and workplace safety cross paths? This episode will answer that question by exploring a "No Blame Mindset" and how it can lead to a stronger safety culture. Episode 1 of 6 discussing Safety Climate Success Factors.
Host: Danny Smith
Guest: Leigh-Ann Stewart
https://safestart.com/file/idclip/
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1032442/episodes/9825473
Welcome back to Safe Talk with Safe Start. I'm Danny Smith and, if you were with us last week, we were joined by the author of Safe Start's latest white paper, Dr. Pandora Bryce, and Executive Advisor Pete Batrowny. Pandora and Pete joined me for an overview of their paper Success Factors for Improving Safety Climate a Human Factors Management Perspective. If you haven't listened to that episode, you may want to stop now and go back and listen to that, because what we're going to be doing over the next few weeks is Tim Page-Bottorff and I will be drilling down into the six main elements of that paper. So joining me today to help kick off this series is fellow consultant Leigh-Ann Stewart. So, Leigh-Ann, first of all, welcome back to the podcast.
Leigh-Ann Stewart:Thank you, Danny. It's always a pleasure catching up with you and our Safe Talk audience.
Danny Smith:So great to have you back with us. As I said, a bit of background on Legh-Ann if you're not familiar with her. She's been a consultant now for about a year with us and our career has been really, really extensive, to say the least. Leigh-Ann is a Canadian registered safety professional with a 24-year career that includes working with high- risk, dynamic industries managing retail, warehousing, long haul trucking, mining, municipalities, ski hills which I find really interesting and also tons of manufacturing as well. airing her experience with the Occupational Health and Safety Deployment from the British Columbia Institute of Technology.
Danny Smith:Leigh-Ann was also listed as one of the top women in safety of 2023. She currently volunteers as the vice chair for the Women in Occupational Health and Safety Society and she's a board member of the Tire Industry Association. And I might add she's also one of my favorite people Really glad to have her a part of our consulting team now. So, as I mentioned, we've got Leigh-Ann back with us here to help unpack the first element of a No Blame Mindset. So, Leigh-Ann, I remember when such a thought of no blame or a no blame mindset was really just kind of considered heresy in the safety field it sure was, and it doesn't really seem that long ago, does it, and I would say that there's even perhaps a few out there still lingering.
Leigh-Ann Stewart:But yeah, you would have an incident I remember back in a day and you'd work your way through the hierarchy of controls by the way, still a very worthy endeavor looking for a system or person to blame, and most would skip the hierarchy and default to blaming the employee. We now know, though, through Safe Start, there are four states, or combination of states, feeding four errors resulting in these unintentional accidents or incidents. More importantly, there are four critical error reduction techniques or personal skills that you can use to avoid or minimize that human error.
Danny Smith:A no blame mindset really is the first step in creating a successful safety climate. In other words, there's a usually a perfectly good reason behind the mistakes that people make and help to create the climate right. Not only do top performing leaders accept that fact, but they also have to equip their employees with human factors training like Safe Start.
Leigh-Ann Stewart:Yes, exactly Danny. Things like rushing, frustration, fatigue and complacency all states I wish I could avoid. However, they've dogged mankind our entire existence and my guess is that a thousand years from now there'll still be a problem. That is assuming AI doesn't get us for sure.
Danny Smith:Yeah, as long as there are humans in the equation, they're going to be human factors there, right? I've reminded of one of the slides from our Safe Start Now presentations where it says, you know, as long as there are people in the workplaces that I always say hey, as long as you and I are in the workplace, you know, because that's exactly what it is right. So two key factors we want to talk about here. First of all, the first understanding is really understanding how the mind works and that habituation and autopilot are very normal things for our minds to do and those are normal modes for our mind. The second is how leaders respond, and that's huge. You kind of alluded to that already Pause, think and then respond, rather than just reacting in the moment.
Leigh-Ann Stewart:Yes, and Danny, I'm going to take the first one here that here that normally mindset improves the safety climate really in a number of different ways, but that first one. We were talking about that workers are human, right and so as long as we have humans in the workplace, human factors will be present. So an organization, systems and processes are dependent on the correct execution by humans in order to achieve the desired outcomes they want. So it may sound obvious to think this way, but if an organization is overly focused on creating injury proof systems without considering how the system will work when workers are affected by those physical factors or mental states, such as being tired or working faster than usual, or perhaps experiencing upset conditions, they may be surprised when those human factors increase that level of risk and contribute to a safety incident. So I remember my aha moment on this topic.
Leigh-Ann Stewart:There was someone that was talking about Volvo and how Volvo builds their cars, and Volvo claims to manufacture the safest cars in the world. So they build their cars with this thought in mind when drivers make an error, our cars are going to help reduce the damage or the extent of injury, or it was something like that anyways, and I was shocked when they were like when drivers make a mistake. So it wasn't about saying people need to be perfect and not expecting people to ever make a mistake. It's to ensure that when we do make a mistake, that it doesn't cost us our life. So as a safety pro, I remember I was just wow. Can you imagine if employers had that similar mindset and we equip them with the personal skills they need in our systems and process to manage that when you make mistakes? And here we are.
Danny Smith:Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you know, and that's kind of the intent of some things. Like you know, PPE, I think I boil a lot of things down to driving myself. You know, if we didn't think we were ever going to have an accident, well, we put the seat belt on. But yet I understand regulatory requirements required in most states and provinces. But at the same time, if you think about that, you know that is there because we want to account for those mistakes that happen, right?
Danny Smith:I recall a conversation with Gary Higbee, a former senior consultants who's retired now. Gary is a trained engineer and he told me early on in his career that he designed workflow and or processes in a very linear fashion straight line point A to point B. That is the shortest point, after all, as we've always learned right. But he quickly realized that that's not the way the work actually gets done on the shop floor in most cases. It's usually more of a wavy line where employees are really constantly adjusting their efforts to help to compensate for a number of things you know, including human factors, and frankly, I think what happens to us so often is what looks good on paper in a boardroom or in the planning room. I'm an old production scheduler, so I can relate to that. Sometimes it just doesn't work when it gets down to the production floor.
Leigh-Ann Stewart:Sure. Another way human factors affect individual safety is a feature of the human brain that develops pathways for familiar activities. It does this to reduce the brain power that's required to do them. So, for example, driving. When I first started driving, there were so many things to remember signaling, perhaps, what route to take, et cetera. However, now, driving to me around town is second nature. So these pathways to act like autopilot, and they're very helpful for being able to do complex tasks like driving without having to relearn all of the skills every single time you perform that task.
Leigh-Ann Stewart:So while there's clear positive outcomes from the brain creating these strong neural pathways for familiar activities, when it comes to safety it can lead to unsafe behavior as our awareness of the risk gradually reduces as the dangerous task becomes more and more familiar. So when a dangerous task feels like the same old, same old, we can let down our guard, especially when nothing bad has happened. In these instances. We're not deliberately choosing to be unsafe at the moment, like some in the past may have thought we were. We're just behaving in a normal way that human brains manage familiar tasks. I've often heard people say you know, I could do it in my sleep.
Danny Smith:Those kind of things, those are those are not Right yeah, right yeah.
Leigh-Ann Stewart:So really, Danny, there's little point in punishing a worker for having a human brain kind of seems silly, and blaming workers doesn't do much to prevent similar incidents in the future.
Danny Smith:Sure, yeah, and it's funny. I was doing a leadership session with a group back a while back and I remember one of the managers. We were talking about accident investigations, incident analysis, whatever term your organization uses and one of the comments from the group was that they use the 5 Whys system, which is very common in safety, and we were talking about that in terms of human factors, and I recall one of one of the supervisors there said usually, if we start talking about human factors in terms of 5 Whys, it's easy for us to devolve down to blaming the worker, and so they were very, very conscious of that and looking for this and, like you said, not punishing somebody for having a human brain, because that's the way we function right. So I find it when awareness of human factors really becomes embedded in a company's safety climate, you can get past that right. You can get past the who made the mistake that caused the injury, who made the mistake that that you know damaged the equipment or the product, whatever it is. You can really find out what the human factors are that contributed to it, the environmental conditions that contributed to it, and then that gives you the opportunity as we talked about in our human factor framework to use that as a learning opportunity. Right, and with regards to what we're talking about today in terms of culture, that's where this idea of pause, think and respond is really, really helpful, rather than just reacting with the blame center what the heck were you thinking, or were you thinking, kind of deal.
Danny Smith:The situation now becomes an opportunity just to really have a genuine dialogue, candid conversations, about how the systems are working. Are the processes themselves leading to inefficient or ineffective ways that need to be improved? Are there human factors there that are affecting fatigue, distraction, rushing, just to name a few? So many things that are out there, Leigh-Ann, and you would just kind of put this all in context for us a bit here.
Leigh-Ann Stewart:All right, I'll give it a go, but let's just say that you have an employee going through the plant and they're reading a work order and he doesn't see a slick spot on the floor and he goes down in a heap and perhaps twists his ankle.
Leigh-Ann Stewart:You've probably got some rushing, maybe some complacency wasn't expecting to see a slick spot on the floor and maybe a bit of frustration that led to eyes of mind not on task. Now a leader could tell him what an idiot is, which is really not helpful, very helpful at all, thank you very much. Or leaders could choose to, like you said, pause, think and respond which can be really powerful and ask him how he's doing and together, like you said, they can have this genuine dialogue, this conversation, and discuss some of the solutions, something to make it better. So, depending on the climate, you can, you know, maybe perhaps work on more housekeeping, but don't discount the role the human factors played in this incident, you know. And in the second example, when the leader paused, they displayed a no-blame mindset, which is really the starting block of trust, which is the foundation of this first unit, sure.
Danny Smith:And you know, by focusing on human factors plus controls, you really can eliminate a myriad of accidents and incidents. Putting again my old operations management hat on, supervisors would write on accident reports under corrective actions. You employee needs to be retrained or needs more training. You know, and thinking about this, the person that twisted their ankle. I don't know that a lot of us need remedial walking training.
Danny Smith:I mean, I don't mean to sound extremely sarcastic, but I'm thinking most of us had that down, you know, probably by the time we were three or four. For sure, you know, may have still bumped into a few things, but I think as adults we pretty much understand that. But in the example you just gave, clearly human factors training is what's needed to deal with those distractions, to deal with the rushing, to deal with those underlying human factors that are going on there.
Leigh-Ann Stewart:Yes, yes, exactly, and I think, in short, really leaders need to be safety coaches and not safety cops, and so that's a bit of a mind shift from back in the good old days that we've had. Why this no-bling mindset is so important, and that's where the process of SafeL ead comes in. SafeL ead can equip leaders with the skills they need to create that trust that we're talking about earlier, and it's really the starting place for any good safety climate. Hey, Danny, I have to tell you, last night I broke a glass when I was washing dishes and I just wasn't thinking. My husband and I were talking and, just using that scenario, you said can you imagine if my husband at that time said, Leigh-Ann, I think you should go to some dishwashing training? I lose my mind, so I would be irked as well. So I'm glad those days are behind us.
Danny Smith:Sure, yeah, it's funny, that's so true. We have so many things like that where our default is retrain, redo, and sometimes it's just asking the simple question, having that conversation and having the climate where you can have that conversation, and I think that's that conversation. And again, that comes back to having the no blame mindset to help build that strong safety culture. Right, also, you mentioned the idea of the safety coaches, not safety cops. That's something we did a podcast on a while back, so we'll drop that into the show notes as well there. So, really, really great. I think that goes right along with some of the things that we're talking about here today. Right, sure does Well.
Danny Smith:Leanne thanks so much for oh, you got something else, Go ahead.
Leigh-Ann Stewart:No, no, no, it's all good. I just don't want this to end.
Danny Smith:I was going to say thanks for joining us today. I think there's been a really really good discussion about this idea of the no blame mindset and really sets the stage for us as we're beginning to look at these various components of the safety culture that we're talking about from the white paper. So again, thanks for being here with us.
Leigh-Ann Stewart:Yeah, you bet, Danny. It's always a pleasure being with you and I appreciate the invitation.
Danny Smith:So, on behalf of Leigh-Ann and the entire Safe Talk team, thank you for your time today and again, please share the episode. And, just as a reminder, I want you to check out several items that I mentioned that are in the show notes for today. This is only the first of six safety climate success factors podcasts that we'll be doing. Tim and I will be covering those over the weeks to come, so stay tuned. As they say, this is one of those ongoing series here. For sure, kind of the cliffhanger here, I guess you could say.
Danny Smith:So remember, whatever you're doing, if you're looking to change the culture in your organization which we hear a lot of organizations, a lot of people say that your culture didn't get like it is overnight. It's developed over time. So, focused on the climate, focus on today and then your climate over time will help to improve the culture, and that's what we're all talking about here, and that's a part of the white paper that we'll be discussing. That we've discussed as well. So, for Safe Talk with Safe Start. I'm Danny Smith. Have a great day.