Most companies place great value on safety, often seeing it as the absence of accidents. However, there is a difference between the absence of unsafety (negative definition) and safe working (positive definition).
We define safety as having control, which means you have control over what happens. Control implies that everything goes as planned. If you lose control, or grip, the chance of an accident is greater than if you maintain control.
It is therefore desirable to investigate what causes you to risk losing grip in which situations? Behavior plays a crucial role in this. By encouraging and shaping our behavior and environment in such a way that loss of grip becomes less likely, safety can increase. More grip leads to more safety in the long term, but also to more profit and better quality. All these are results of having grip.
The theory of BBS explains how behavior originates, why we do or don’t do things, and how this can be influenced. In addition, we have identified various ‘leading indicators’ in a literature study that are important predictors of future safety behavior. With this knowledge, we have developed a questionnaire. In 100 compact questions, the experiences of employees, staff, and management are mapped out. The differences in thinking between the various groups in the organization are also very interesting. Large differences can indicate a communication gap, where loss of grip can also occur.
We have found that collecting information through interviews can strongly influence the data. Moreover, it takes a lot of time. Therefore, we prefer to use a telephone questionnaire. In this way, everyone can answer the questions anonymously and without external pressure.
The answers are given by moving a horizontal slider to the position you think is correct. Completing the questionnaire takes about 15 minutes.
The data is processed into a clear management report, using the 10 BBS themes as a framework:
Goal Setting Balancing (grip first) Leadership Team Behavior Social Safety Reporting Rules Readiness Risk Awareness Organizing Each theme is discussed in detail. A theme always begins with a brief overview of the theory so that everyone can understand the background of the questions, even if you have never done a BBS training before. This is followed by an analysis. From this, the conclusions and recommendations flow. Positive and negative outliers are named.
