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We use the 2019 paper, Safety in Numbers, to frame this week’s discussion.
Topics:
The amount of exposure increases the amount of risk.Safety in Numbers is a 2019 update to a 2017 paper of the same name.Why you should get down and dirty with the numbers.Be careful about what stats do and don’t tell you.How volume affects risk potential.Rate vs. raw number.How our systems encourage familiarity with risk.Quotes:
“A lot of statistically dodgy stuff gets published in some very, very good journals and some otherwise very good authors.”
“When something is psuedo-science, you tend to find that there are some studies that say that it works...until the very best studies show that the effect doesn’t work at all.”
“Whenever you use a concept of a rate instead of a raw number, you are assuming a linear relationship.”
Resources:
Elvik, R., & Goel, R. (2019). Safety-in-numbers: An updated meta-analysis of estimates. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 129, 136-147.
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In order to guide our discussion, we will use the paper Further Thoughts on the Utilities of Risk Matrices.
Topics:
The risk matrix was something to use to determine expected values.Today, the risk matrix is a table, not just an equation.Risk matrices can prove helpful in decision making.There are a few types of papers that discuss the efficacy of risk matrices.The Loss of Information idea.Cox’s coloring rules for matrices.How formal decision making processes can be damaging.How risk matrices are often used in organizationsQuotes:
“The assumption is that we use risk matrices, because they help us, in some way, to make decisions.”
“...What you’re representing on the matrix is less information than you started with: It’s either less precision than you had or its not representing the full range of uncertainty…”
“We’ve got a lot of tools in safety and risk management...and it’s worth knowing how those tools are being used and how effective people find them…”
Resources:
Ball, D. J., & Watt, J. (2013). Further thoughts on the utility of risk matrices. Risk analysis, 33(11), 2068-2078.
Anthony (Tony) Cox Jr, L. (2008). What's wrong with risk matrices?. Risk Analysis: An International Journal, 28(2), 497-512.
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Tune in to hear us discuss the paper Site Managers and Safety Leadership in the Offshore Gas and Oil Industry and its survey’s findings.
Topics:
Leadership is something everyone agrees is key to workplace safety.The paper we reference is Site Managers and Safety Leadership in the Offshore Gas and Oil Industry.Matching the research question to a survey is quite difficult.This research paper had a uniquely large sample size.Understanding what people think good leadership and safety look like.The methods by which the survey was produced and why they worked.The results of the massive survey.Quotes:
“If we think about the effort it would take now to try to actually get thirty-six organizations to, at the same time, want to do the same research project, may be near-on impossible.”
“I don’t think there is any particular reason to believe that people’s attribution of accidents changes with experience and leadership style.”
“Once we try to fix problems with safety by putting in systems and procedures...it’s not a case of being able to just easily build back in good leadership…”
Resources:
O'Dea, A., & Flin, R. (2001). Site managers and safety leadership in the offshore oil and gas industry. Safety Science, 37(1), 39-57.
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Tune in to hear us talk about how the drive to reduce costs can negatively impact safety. We frame this week’s discussion around the paper, An Industry Structured for Unsafety.
Topics:
When you submit a low bid for a tender, what does that end up doing to safety?How to work with and understand your contractors.Fixed and direct costs.Marginal cost pricing.The effect of cost-cutting on protective equipment.What you can do about cost-cutting.Quotes:
“I think this is going to be a really important question for many of our listeners.”
“The important thing here is that it’s all equipment that meets the technical minimum standards, but that means it’s cheap in other ways.”
“I still have only seen a handful of times in my career, where an organization has genuinely dismissed a tender because of safety performance…”
Resources:
Oswald, D., Ahiaga-Dagbui, D. D., Sherratt, F., & Smith, S. D. (2020). An industry structured for unsafety? An exploration of the cost-safety conundrum in construction project delivery. Safety science, 122, 104535.
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Tune in to hear us talk about this topic in the context of the paper we chose to reference this week.
Topics:
Our safety practices are always about reducing uncertainty.The paper we’ve chosen to use for today’s discussion is Promoting Safety by Increasing Uncertainty.The paper uses major accidents to frame its arguments.Differences of opinion is a type of uncertainty.Increasing uncertainty in practice.Feeling uncomfortable with increasing uncertainty.Encouraging people to speak out.Quotes:
“If you don’t understand the question or you don’t understand the problem well enough, then you’ve got very little chance of coming up with a good solution.”
“We need to take action that deliberately encourages introduction of contradictory information...breaking consensus, not forming consensus.”
“The responsibility is on the organization to provide the right psychological environment for people to speak up.”
Resources:
Grote, G. (2015). Promoting safety by increasing uncertainty–Implications for risk management. Safety science, 71, 71-79.
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Topics:
The relationship between safety and trust is harder to define than one would expect.We use the works of one doctor to help us understand this topic.Trust doesn’t necessarily lead to safer work environments.However, too much distrust can lead to an unhealthy workplace.One of the papers is about how to create trust.Quotes:
“...It’s not as simple as ‘trust is a good thing’ and ‘distrust is a bad thing’...when we trust people too much, we take their word for things, even when we shouldn’t.”
“The happy medium...you get good communication and you get good checking behavior.
“We actually can’t really make predictions about what these findings mean in real-world organizational settings, once all of those variables become reintroduced.”
Resources:
Conchie, S. M., & Burns, C. (2008). Trust and risk communication in high‐risk organizations: A test of principles from social risk research. Risk Analysis: An International Journal, 28(1), 141-149.
Conchie, S. M., & Donald, I. J. (2008). The functions and development of safety-specific trust and distrust. Safety Science, 46(1), 92-103.
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Topics:
We often talk about how leaders affect safety, but we never think of the team.Using the research paper Improving Safety Culture Through the Health and Safety Organization as a framework for this discussion.Getting a baseline measure before making any changes.What makes a good quantitative experiment.The findings of the research paper and what it tells us.How to be a role model for safety interactions.Quotes:
“We heavily rely on and almost solely rely on line managers in the organization to influence, create change and affect the organizational safety climate.”
“It’s really tempting to reduce safety to measurable indicators…”
“I think there are some things that we can, practically, learn from this [study].”
Resources:
Nielsen, K. J. (2014). Improving safety culture through the health and safety organization: A case study. Journal of safety research, 48, 7-17.
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Topics:
How to figure out which rules will be effective.We use the paper Catching Them at It as a framework for our discussion.Why rules are broken.Who to interview to get to the heart of the matter.Self-efficacy.Balancing the need for compliance with decision-making.How certain rules can be contradictory or problematic.Quotes:
“In all safety-critical environments, there are endless possibilities for individuals actions to influence the work outcomes.”
“There are a lot of safety academics who don’t even like that construction of thinking about safety in terms of rule…”
“If you give people freedom, sometimes you’re not going to like where they take that freedom.”
Resources:
Iszatt-White, M. (2007). Catching them at it: An ethnography of rule violation. Ethnography, 8(4), 445-465.
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Tune in to hear us discuss whether behavioral safety interventions are effective and worthwhile.
Topics:
We purposely picked a broad topic for this episode.Studies on behavioral safety interventions and how they were structured.Only one of the studies was done within a more traditional framework.Why it’s difficult to track safety in the workplace.Getting good evidence by looking more closely at the factors at play.Quotes:
“Human behavior change is absolutely a science, but behavior-based safety is probably mostly nonsense.”
“In a randomized control trial, every individual is either given or not given the behavioral training…”
“Interventions that are based on theory tend to be more successful.”
Resources:
Mullan, B., Smith, L., Sainsbury, K., Allom, V., Paterson, H., & Lopez, A. L. (2015). Active behaviour change safety interventions in the construction industry: A systematic review. Safety science, 79, 139-148.
