Employee Relations

Emerald Article: A proactive team-based approach to continuous improvement in health and safety management Luise Vassie

Article information:
To cite this document: Luise Vassie, (1998),"A proactive team-based approach to continuous improvement in health and safety management", Employee Relations, Vol. 20 Iss: 6 pp. 577 - 593 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/01425459810247323 Downloaded on: 23-04-2012 References: This document contains references to 18 other documents Citations: This document has been cited by 4 other documents To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com This document has been downloaded 1754 times.

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by B S ABDUR RAHMAN UNIVERSITY For Authors: If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service. Information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Additional help for authors is available for Emerald subscribers. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com With over forty years' experience, Emerald Group Publishing is a leading independent publisher of global research with impact in business, society, public policy and education. In total, Emerald publishes over 275 journals and more than 130 book series, as well as an extensive range of online products and services. Emerald is both COUNTER 3 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.
*Related content and download information correct at time of download.

A proactive team-based approach to continuous improvement in health and safety management

Luise Vassie
Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK
Introduction Organisations and the people in them are faced with a variety of challenges in order to meet the demands of competitive standards driven by a global economy. In response, proactive organisations have developed continuous improvement strategies, based on the relatively simple, well-established principle and process of incremental modification and adaptation (Schroeder and Robinson, 1991) aimed at enhancing their performance. These continuous improvement processes are normally focused on customer needs and seek to achieve waste minimisation by proactively managing quality in rather than inspecting defects out. The total quality management (TQM) approach seeks to promote continuous improvement in all aspects of an organisations activities. From a health and safety management perspective, total quality would imply a goal of an injuryfree and healthy working environment. Organisations adopting this approach, therefore, need to recognise that proactive risk control, through an assured health and safety management system, is more effective than reacting to accidents and ill-health once they have occurred. While current guidance on health and safety management (BSI, 1996; HSE, 1997) encourages the application of the principles of TQM to health and safety, it is reported that in many organisations, emphasis on continuous improvement in health and safety lags behind that in other management areas (Osborne and Zairi, 1997). The TQM approach advocates the importance of an underlying supportive organisational culture, together with the involvement of all employees (Wilkinson et al., 1992). Evidence from the quality and health and safety domains suggests that continuous improvement programmes can fail if they do not take root in the organisations which try to implement them (Boyle, 1995; Brown et al., 1994). In some reported improvement programmes (Cooper et al., 1994) based on modifying employee behaviour, there is evidence to show the importance of communicating the need for and achieving employee
The author gratefully acknowledges the support and co-operation of Unilever Research, Port Sunlight Laboratory, in undertaking the reported study.

Continuous improvement in health and safety 577

Employee Relations, Vol. 20 No. 6, 1998, pp. 577-593, MCB University Press, 0142-5455

Employee Relations 20,6 578

involvement. Employees, therefore, need to be encouraged to become involved in the continuous improvement process and a key factor here is that every employee should want to achieve overall improvement in the organisation. This desire to improve is a key principle in kaizen (Masaaki, 1986), the Japanese approach to continuous improvement. In recent years, there has been a growth in the extent of employee involvement in various aspects of the business and in the format it takes (Ramsay, 1991). Participation in safety programmes has also led to improvements in communications and industrial relations (Cooper et al., 1994). Likewise, in the quest for continuous improvement in health and safety, organisations are using a range of activities and programmes focused on involving employees at all levels (HSE, 1997), e.g. setting performance standards, devising operating systems, helping in monitoring and auditing, and problem solving. Employee willingness to become involved, however, will depend on the organisations prevailing culture. At the heart of successful safety management lies effective risk management, which is underpinned by risk assessment and risk control. Broadly speaking, there are three areas of control which can be employed: (1) physical; (2) procedural; and (3) employee controls. The overall level of safety (or residual risk) in an organisation is, therefore, dependent on these three areas of control, which can be represented by the following equation: Safety = {physical controls + procedural controls} human factors Physical controls and procedural controls are seen as separate, independent factors which are additive in increasing the level of safety, while human factors are seen as independently influencing the effectiveness of both physical and procedural controls. A workforce which does not use the physical controls and does not operate the procedural controls provided, even where these are of a high standard, will experience a reduced level of safety. Similarly, a workforce which is well-trained and motivated but not operating within the bounds of structured management and physical control systems, will develop its own individual standards of operation, which will also inevitably lead to a reduced level of safety. Addressing the individual factors within this safety equation can form the basis of a targeted continuous improvement programme for health and safety. For example, by addressing the human factors component and, in particular, employee behaviour in a working environment where physical and procedural controls are already of a high standard. The way in which individuals behave at work will be a function of the individuals themselves, the job and the organisation (HSE, 1995). Thus, by addressing the way individuals behave within their working environment and involving employees in identifying key

behaviours, understanding behavioural influences, developing behavioural Continuous norms for their work activities and setting targets will enable employees to improvement in take ownership of an improvement process. While the involvement of health and safety employees in activities such as task analysis is recognised by the Health and Safety Executive (1995) as a positive contributor to risk reduction, it is important that goals are set participatively rather than imposed (Cooper et al., 579 1994; Komaki et al., 1978; Locke and Latham, 1990), otherwise the success of the strategy is jeopardised. Several interventions addressing employee behaviour have provided short-term improvements in accident statistics (McAfee and Winn, 1989). However, there is limited evidence reported in the literature of the expected long-term improvements associated with a sustainable continuous improvement processes. Post-intervention maintenance of these processes is documented as a key issue (Cooper et al., 1994). Bessant et al. (1994) argue that there are six key principles for successful long-term implementation of continuous improvement programmes: (1) Clear strategic framework which must be clearly incorporated into the organisations strategic agenda. (2) Underlying supportive culture with widespread recognition of the importance and value of continuous improvement and an acceptance that everyone in the organisation has something to contribute to the process. (3) Enabling infrastructure with the adoption of organisational structures which promote efficient two-way communication and decentralised decision making. (4) Strategic management including regular targets and milestones (short and long-term) and well-communicated measurement and display routines. (5) Process management with the adoption of learning or problem solving processes. (6) Range of supporting techniques including problem-solving tools with training in their application. This paper reports on a case study in which the six key principles for sustainable continuous improvement strategies, proposed by Bessant et al. (1994), have been applied to health and safety management. The case study builds on the benefits of a proactive team-based approach and addresses workforce behaviours and practices. Organisational setting The organisational setting for the case study was the UK research division of a multi-national chemical company that employs 1,300 staff in a range of

Employee Relations 20,6 580

scientific and support services groups. The organisation had already achieved a good safety performance, in terms of reportable (HSE, 1996) accident frequency rate (AFR) compared to the sector average performance, illustrated in Figure 1. One section, within the research division, consists of a number of laboratory and pilot plant areas and employs approximately 100 employees as managers, assistant managers, technical assistants and secretarial support staff. Physical controls within the work environment and a safety management system based on HSE (1997) guidelines provide a high level of protection to employees. This group had for some time been considering how it might effect further improvements in its safety performance through its approach to accident and incident reduction. Methodology The overall aim was to use an intervention programme to develop a continuous process for monitoring and improving workplace behaviours. The intervention programme would aim to guide work teams through the understanding and appreciation of behavioural influences on employee safety. This would be achieved through employee participation in the recognition of critical safe behaviours followed by goal setting for, and monitoring of, these critical behaviours and practices, as advocated by a number of previous studies

0.7 0.6 AFR per 100,000 hours 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 1993

1994

1995 Year

1996

1997

Figure 1. RIDDOR reportable accident frequency rates, 1993-1997

Key Chemical Industries Association Case study organisation HSE sector average

(McAfee and Winn, 1989). The specific aim within this case study was to Continuous develop this process and incorporate it within an existing quality culture, so improvement in that it would be sustainable within the organisation following the end of the health and safety initial intervention. The overall implementation strategy broadly followed the Bessant et al. (1994) six principles for continuous improvement, which have been 581 incorporated into the four phases described below, and spanned a 15-month period. The implementation was directed by the author working as an external facilitator, in collaboration with a company site programme co-ordinator, who led a programme group of ten advisors. Phase 1: preparation for the intervention A review of previous accident and near-miss data was undertaken, in order to provide a profile of the type, nature and severity of accidents in the workplace. Discussions were then held with a cross-section of employees to discuss the introduction of a continuous improvement process targeted at improving safety critical behaviours and practices in the areas identified. This was followed by a half-day workshop in which the proposed continuous improvement programme was outlined to all employees who were then invited to undertake a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis of the intervention. A letter from the senior site manager was also sent to all employees, which acknowledged previous achievements in safety performance but stressed the long-term company target of zero accidents. In addition to the workshop, which considered aspects of the culture and organisational structure, an assessment of certain aspects of the health and safety management system was undertaken to provide a benchmark position prior to the programme. This included an assessment of the management system through the use of a customised audit programme and an assessment of employees attitudes to, and perceptions of, the management system, using an employee questionnaire. The audit approach and scoring method followed that described by Fuller (1997) and the aspects covered within the audit were: co-operation (e.g. safety representation, management input), communication (e.g. team meetings, management meetings), risk management (e.g. hazard identification, control measures), safe systems of work (e.g. operational procedures, training) and accident investigation (e.g. accident reporting, nearmiss investigation). The questionnaire, containing 27 items, reflected the themes of: management commitment; personal involvement; work environment; behaviour; and communication/reporting.

Employee Relations 20,6 582

Phase 2: development of framework, goals and targets Since the senior management vision and final target were disseminated during phase 1, it was then possible to develop a plan for the implementation and management of the overall programme, incorporating smaller milestones, as shown in Figure 2. In addition to developing a plan with milestones, a number of possible measures were considered for monitoring and feedback of performance, which would be used following the completion of phase 3, e.g. numbers of safe and unsafe behaviours observed, numbers and types of comments/actions raised by employees, numbers of actions resolved, numbers of accidents and incidents and feedback from progress review meetings between the author and programme team. Although the intervention was planned to be part of the organisations on-going continuous improvement plan, the involvement of the author had a finite deadline (15 months), therefore the initial benchmark survey and audit were repeated at the project end to assess progress. Feedback from bi-monthly progress review meetings between the author and the programme team was used as a progress measure during the implementation period. Both the implementation plan and the selection of measures were communicated widely across the group by means of cascade

Phase 2 3 months

Development of framework, goals and targets Define and communicate long-term vision Plan implementation Define measurement and feedback criteria

Phase 3 6 months

Training in supporting techniques Recruit programme team Prepare training materials Train programme team Define work team composition Train work teams Develop and test checklists Set targets for observations

Phase 4 6 months

Figure 2. Implementation plan and milestones

Process management Define roles and responsibilities Define interface with existing management system Prepare system manual Evaluate progress 15 months from start of Phase 2

from the programme team, electronic mail and section briefings. Various other media, e.g. stationery items, were used to promote awareness of the programme. Phase 3: training in supporting techniques Following the half-day workshop, ten interested employees were recruited to assist with the development and implementation of the programme. This group, together with a local company project co-ordinator, formed the programme team. The composition of the programme team reflected the full range of job functions within the research division, e.g. managers, assistant managers, technical assistants and administrative support staff. The author provided training to this group in a range of analytical skills, e.g. analysis of accident data, root cause analysis, task analysis and behavioural influence analysis and process skills, e.g. observation, questioning, and active listening, necessary to support the programme. A training video highlighting key safety practices in the area was designed and prepared by the group. Subsequently, all employees were divided into ten natural work teams based on the particular laboratories or pilot plants in which they worked. Each team had a programme advisor, who was also a member of the programme team and had responsibilities for overseeing the progress of the teams and working with the author. The teams comprised all grades of employees in the work area. Each team attended two one-day training sessions. The first was aimed at equipping employees with the necessary skills to analyse their work activities in order to identify unsafe practices, specify safe practices and gain an appreciation of the analysis of behavioural influences. Techniques for monitoring observable workplace behaviours using checklists of safety critical behaviours (Cooper et al., 1994) were also introduced. The second day was focused on the observation and feedback skills associated with monitoring workplace behaviours. Teams, together with their programme advisor, set targets for the number of observations per week based on the type and level of activity and number of team members. These were combined to give a target for the pilot plant areas and laboratory areas respectively. All members of the team were encouraged to participate in the observations in order to give everyone the opportunity to observe and be observed. Initially, observations focused on testing the checklist and giving team members experience of observation. Subsequently, team members were encouraged to approach individuals during observations and discuss issues, e.g. deviations from expected behaviours. The number of safe and unsafe behaviours over a period of time were recorded and also a percentage safe figure, calculated as follows: number of safe observations 100 percentage safe = number of safe + unsafe observations The scoring technique adopted by the teams was one of what you see is what you score. For example, taking the checklist shown in Table I, if there are ten people working in the area and eight are wearing safety spectacles and two

Continuous improvement in health and safety 583

Employee Relations 20,6 584

Task Working on the pilot plant (or laboratory) Weighing out dusty raw materials Transporting raw materials Carrying solvents Using forklift truck

Expected safe behaviour Wears safety shoes Wears overalls Wears safety spectacles Uses flow booth Keeps flow booth tidy Replaces lid or uses cling film Uses secondary container Sounds horn when approaching thoroughfare Drives with forks lowered Monitors pressure before sampling

Safe

Unsafe

Comments

Table I. Sample checklist

Taking samples from from line Total Percentage safe

are not, then this results in 8 in the safe column and 2 in the unsafe column. The comments column was used to record additional information during the observation, e.g. if an employee is observed not wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) but it was known that PPE was not available then this would be noted. Comments are particularly important in addressing the reasons underpinning unsafe behaviours and practices. Phase 4: development of the process management system Although the implementation of the system for monitoring safe and unsafe practices spanned a discrete time period it was important that the system itself was seen as a continuous learning cycle (e.g. Kolb, 1984) and not seen as a single event. To this end the system needed to be managed as a continuous process and in order to support this, the programme team devised a management system for defining roles and responsibilities, information channels and setting targets for the numbers of observations to be carried out over a given period. This phase was the final phase in the implementation project and was concluded by the authors evaluation of the intervention using the criteria set out in phase 2, after which the management of the process was operated from within the organisation. Results Phase 1 The analysis of injury accidents and near-miss data indicated that the accident pattern was made up of injuries due to: handling chemicals (30 per cent), contact with sharps (e.g. glassware and needlesticks) (21 per cent), handling

objects (21 per cent), slipping or falling (14 per cent) and striking against (14 per Continuous cent). Causal analysis of these accidents highlighted that both primary and improvement in secondary causes were largely due to the manner in which the person had health and safety performed their task, even though a procedure may have been followed. Feedback from the initial discussions relating to the introduction of a continuous health and safety improvement programme indicated that there was 585 a favourable response to the concept. More detailed information on employees views was provided by the SWOT analysis undertaken by groups of employees at the workshop, as detailed in Figure 3. Although groups perceived some weaknesses and threats associated with the proposed continuous improvement programme, the majority of the groups considered that, on balance, the strengths and opportunities outweighed the weaknesses and threats, while the remaining groups considered that the balance between these was equivocal. A total of 74 employees completed a questionnaire, representing an 82 per cent response rate. Responses to items concerned with managements commitment to health and safety were indicative of very positive views on this aspect. For example, 75 per cent of respondents felt that management show an interest in safety issues and 60 per cent felt that managers express concern if safety procedures are not followed. However, almost half the respondents were undecided about whether managers set a good example on safety issues. In terms of communication and reporting issues, almost 80 per cent of respondents felt that there was good communication about safety issues, although opinion was divided about whether line managers communicated this information to their subordinates; 60 percent of staff felt that they did not receive praise for working safely. However, 70 per cent of respondents felt that there was under reporting of accident and near miss incidents. Perceptions of

Strengths
Identifies key issues Structured, common sense approach Uniting Other programmes can be integrated Raises awareness Improves safety performance Demonstrates commitment from the top Promotes team work

Weaknesses
Paper exercise Insufficient time No behaviour change Number and range of tasks to consider Initial assesssment influenced by under reporting Need for honesty

Opportunities
Identifies training needs Life preservation skills Minimal accidents Increases awareness Efficiency gain Learning Focus on safety at the operational level Reviews existing procedures

Threats
Bureaucracy Long term commitment Slows down work activities Observation Costs Impact on other programmes Long-term maintenance of programme Use/abuse of incentives

Figure 3. Summary of key comments from SWOT analysis

Employee Relations 20,6 586

the work environment indicated that opinion was divided, with almost equal numbers (35 per cent) agreeing and disagreeing that there was insufficient time to get the job done safely and that workplace conditions sometimes inhibited safe working. Furthermore, 40 per cent of respondents felt that there were insufficient staff levels to complete jobs safely. Employees were well aware of their individual role and responsibilities and contribution to health and safety performance. For example, approximately 80 per cent of employees felt that health and safety was their responsibility, that they always encouraged other people to work safely and that they could influence health and safety performance in the company. With respect to the influence of human behaviour in accident causation, 75 per cent of employees indicated that they believed accidents were caused by peoples behaviour rather than faulty machinery. Results of the audit (see Table II) indicated that there were well managed safety systems in place with respect to the aspects assessed, with the exception of communication. Phase 2 Completion of this phase resulted in the development of the implementation plan, incorporating a number of milestones (see Figure 2) and the selection of identified measures for monitoring and feedback of performance. The measures chosen for inclusion in phase 3 of the programme were: percentage safe behaviour, numbers and types of safe and unsafe behaviours, numbers of checklists completed, numbers and types of comments raised by employees during observation, and the number of safety actions raised from the observation process which were subsequently resolved. Phase 3 Following the initial training, teams designed checklists by identifying the safety critical behaviours associated with their tasks, with the support of their programme advisor. The checklists contained a number of tasks together with the safety critical behaviours associated with those tasks and a means for recording and scoring the observed behaviours (see Table I). Once agreement had been reached among the team on the checklist content, team members
Audit section Co-operation Communication Risk management Safe systems of work Accident investigation Total Pre-intervention audit 12 7 12 12 12 55 Post-intervention audit 14 11 12 14 12 63

Table II. Audit data

Note: Maximum score in Audit section column is 16

undertook observations using the checklist. On average, one observation Continuous period, lasting 10-20 minutes, was completed per day and involved a team improvement in member undertaking an assessment of critical behaviours in their laboratory or health and safety pilot plant, guided by the checklist. This provided a snap-shot of behaviours and practices, and in order to develop a full picture several observations over a period of time were needed. The observation targets for the individual teams 587 varied between seven and 12 observations per week. Targets were set for the combined pilot plant teams (37 per week) and the combined laboratory teams (32 per week). Completed checklists were collated by each teams programme advisor and a weekly percentage safe data figure recorded. In addition to the weekly percentage safe figures (which ranged from 77 per cent to 98 per cent), the number of checklists completed each week by the combined pilot plant teams (range 5-31) and the combined laboratory teams (range 3-25), the numbers of safe behaviours (range 35-649 in the laboratory area and 63-544 in the pilot plant area) and unsafe behaviours (range 6-39 in the laboratory area and 5-67 in the pilot plant area) and the types of comments raised were also recorded. These data were also recorded on a cumulative basis. Phase 4 The management system, developed by the programme team and embodied in the information flowchart (see Figure 4), describes the information channels and decision points. Roles and responsibilities for the personnel identified in Figure 4 have also been defined (see Table III). Ideas and suggestions produced at the informal team meetings were channelled, via the programme advisor, to the programme advisors meeting and decisions taken were fed back to the team members. Major actions arising from these meetings were input to an existing safety actions database which contained actions arising from separated weekly and monthly section safety inspections. Over the six-month period since the development of the process management system, 20 actions were raised, concerned with communication (nine), co-operation (seven) and safe systems of work (four). In addition, a system manual describing the process management was produced by the programme team. Data for the implementation stage of the programme have been recorded for nine months, while the management system has been in place for the final six months of this period. End of implementation There was a 71 per cent response rate to the post-implementation survey. Responses to items concerned with managements commitment to health and safety continued to be indicative of very positive views on this aspect. Of the respondents, 90 percent felt that management show an interest in safety issues and 65 per cent felt that managers expressed concern if safety procedures were not followed compared with 75 per cent and 60 per cent respectively in the previous survey. Almost 50 per cent of employees felt that managers did set a

588

Employee Relations 20,6

Figure 4. Information management system flowchart

Who?
Team Team Advisor Safety Co-ordinators & Team Advisors Safety Co-ordinators Unit Managers

How?
Checklists
Review Action

Checklist

Team Leader Meeting

Actions Database

Actions Database

Safety/Staff Meetings

Assesses Issues
Confirmed Action

What?

Behaviours Comments

Collate weekly scores Forward comments Feedback to teams

Discuss comments Raise issues Decide actions Implement

Record team scores Record actions

Enforce actions Feedback to teams

Generic issues raised

Feedback

Informal Meetings

Team Scores Noticeboards

Noticeboard

Action List Minutes Bulletin

Role Team member

Responsibilities

Programme advisor

Safety co-ordinator

Unit manager

Carry out observations Record safe/unsafe behaviours and comments Input at informal team meetings Collate weekly scores and update team notice boards 589 Forward comments to safety co-ordinator Discuss comments and issues with other programme advisors Decide actions Feedback to team minutes from programme advisors meeting Record team scores Discuss comments and issues with other programme advisors Decide actions Forward minutes from programme advisors meeting to programme advisors Table III. Update actions database Roles and Enforce actions responsibilities Feedback to teams for process management

Continuous improvement in health and safety

good example on safety issues; in the previous survey only 30 per cent felt that this was so and half the respondents were undecided on this issue. In terms of communication and reporting issues, more than 90 per cent of employees felt that there was good communication about safety issues, however, only 40 per cent of respondents, as in the previous survey, felt that safety information was brought to their attention by their line manager. Just in excess of 50 per cent of respondents felt that they did not receive praise for working safely. The percentage of employees who felt that there was underreporting of accidents and incidents had decreased from 70 per cent to 60 per cent. Employee perceptions of the work environment indicated improvements compared with the previous survey. Approximately 45 per cent felt they had enough time to get jobs done safely and that workplace conditions did not hinder safe working, compared to 35 per cent in the previous survey. Almost 45 per cent of employees felt that there were sufficient staff levels to complete jobs safely, compared to 25 per cent in the previous survey. Employees continued to be well aware of their individual role and responsibilities with respect to health and safety matters, with responses to these items similar to the previous survey. In terms of behaviour, an increased number (60 per cent) of respondents, compared to 48 per cent, felt that unsafe behaviours were not tolerated under any circumstances and 45 per cent of respondents, compared to 35 per cent in the previous survey, felt it was unnecessary to take short cuts to get work done. A similar number of

Employee Relations 20,6 590

employees continue to hold the view that accident causation was attributable to human behaviour rather than faulty machinery. Additional items included in the second survey to directly gauge employee views on the new process indicated that the implementation phase had enabled just more than 50 per cent of the respondents to form the view that the new process had made a contribution to improvements in health and safety and just over 60 per cent of respondents felt it would be sustained. The post-intervention audit (see Table II) identified that the section continued to demonstrate well-managed safety systems throughout the intervention. There was evidence of improvements in the areas of co-operation and communication which were directly related to the new process. Employee suggestions on both process and safety-related matters were now encouraged through personal feedback during observations and through team discussions. With respect to communication, performance data from the new process were communicated via notice boards and there was informal discussion of operational and safety issues among teams. Views expressed at the programme review by programme advisors indicated that they considered the major achievements of the implementation period were that it had: raised the profile of safety; provided a benchmark position; facilitated the identification of weaknesses in physical, procedural and behavioural controls; and facilitated greater involvement of line managers. The programme team also recognised that some additional emphasis was required in the following areas: ensuring that team members provided comments as appropriate during observation; maintaining a variety of media for communicating progress; and reaffirming the overt and sincere commitment of senior management via participation in observation. Discussion The four-phase approach adopted has incorporated Bessants (1994) six principles for sustainable continuous improvement processes. The first phase addressed the strategic framework of the intervention by demonstrating the senior managements commitment to the process and the emphasis on the companys long-term target of zero accidents. This framework was enhanced by an underlying supportive culture, which is demonstrated by the positive results obtained from the employee questionnaire and the SWOT analysis (see Figure 4). Although, there are no blueprints for the right organisation for successful continuous improvement programmes, the groups infrastructure

favoured a flat structure with team working and a degree of localised decision Continuous making. improvement in Phase 2 was crucial to the implementation of the process with the health and safety establishment of the strategic management approach. Clear targets (see Figure 2) and communication routes were established across the organisation; additionally, the communication routes were successfully incorporated into the 591 companys existing management control procedures to ensure long-term commitment to the process. Achievement of this organisation-wide communication during the intervention encouraged employee involvement in the programme and this is demonstrated by the informal meetings, actions list and progress charts. The measures chosen for assessing performance reflect the proactive long-term nature of the programme. In previous programmes concerned with behaviour modification, a commonly used measure was the effects of the intervention on the organisations accident rate (McAfee and Winn, 1989) over a short period of time. This was considered to be an inappropriate measure in this case because the organisation and section under study already had a very low AFR and thus over the 15-month implementation period there was unlikely to be any statistically significant changes which could be attributed to the introduction of the new process. The development of the process management system was considered to be vital to the sustainability of the process. While the desire to be involved and want improvement is a contributor to the sustainability of the process, this will undoubtedly diminish if there is not a system in place which supports the process. The development of the process management system has successfully effected the integration (dove-tailing) of the new process into the organisations existing safety management system. Identification of causes of unsafe behaviour, via team-based discussions, has resulted, in most cases, in the actions leading to modifications in either physical, procedural or behavioural controls in order to support safe behaviour. Previous behaviour modification programmes have reported the effects of the intervention in isolation and there appears to have been no attempt to discuss the dove-tailing into the safety management system to achieve an integrated approach. The authors previous experience of implementing these approaches suggests that the integrated approach is a major factor in achieving sustainability of the process. The intervention programme was supported by a range of supporting techniques (e.g. root cause analysis, task analysis) with the provision of training and facilitation in their application in order to maximise their effectiveness. In this case it was considered particularly important that the required tools and techniques should be imparted to the organisation, and the individuals in it, to sustain the programme following the end of the implementation period. Initially, teams rarely met their weekly observation targets, due, in part, to over-ambitious target-setting and these targets were subsequently adjusted to be challenging, yet realistic. The data provided by the observation process indicated that all teams had a consistently high percentage safe level (approximately 90 per cent); however, it is also necessary to consider the form of

Employee Relations 20,6 592

the scoring techniques used. The simplistic what you see is what your score enables relatively high scores to be produced, whereas other scoring techniques, e.g. weighting the critical factors, produce lower scores. While the high scores may possibly give an impression that things are better than they are, other measures were also used to give indicators of performance, e.g. numbers of checklists completed, number of safety actions raised which were subsequently resolved. The post-intervention audit and survey clearly identified a number of improvements in the health and safety management system and in employees perceptions of and attitudes to this system. The introduction of the process has facilitated improvements in the areas of co-operation and communication among employees. Furthermore, the process has provided a vehicle for management to further demonstrate their commitment to health and safety and for all employees to participate in the modification of work practices and behaviours. Conclusions The case study demonstrates how the philosophy and principles of sustainable continuous improvement strategies, proposed by Bessant et al. (1994), can be applied to health and safety management, and in particular to a team-based approach for improving workplace behaviours and practices. The study also overcame the potential problem areas in behavioural safety programmes, highlighted by Cooper et al. (1994), of process management and the integration of the new process into the existing safety management system, communication of strategic targets, milestones, progress and the involvement of all employees. The results from this case study demonstrate that if these issues are addressed at the planning stage they can be used to strengthen the overall success of the programme. The process was implemented over a 15-month period and has been incorporated into the routine management system and subsequently sustained to date for a further eight-month period.
References Bessant, J., Caffyn, S., Gilbert, J., Harding, R. and Webb, S. (1994), Rediscovering continuous improvement, Technovation, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 17-29. Boyle, K. J. (1995), Quality in laboratory safety management, The Health and Safety Practitioner, June, pp. 18-22. British Standards Institute (1996), Guide to Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems, London. Brown, M.G., Hitchcock, D.E. and Willard, M.L. (1994), Why TQM Fails and What to Do about It, Irwin, London. Cooper, M.D., Phillips, R.A., Sutherland, V.J. and Makin, P.J. (1994), Reducing accidents using goal setting and feedback: a field study, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 67, pp. 219-40. Fuller, C.W. (1997), Key performance indicators for benchmarking health and safety management in intra- and inter-company comparisons, Benchmarking for Qual ity Management and Technology, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 165-75.

HSE (1995), Human Factors in Industrial Safety, HS (G) 48, HSE Books, London. HSE (1996), Reporting of Injuries Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations, HSE Books, London. HSE (1997), Successful Health and Safety Management, HS (G) 65. HSE Books, London. Kolb, D.S. (1984), Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, Prentice-Hall, London. Komaki, J., Barwick, K.D. and Scott, L.R. (1978), A behavioural approach to occupational safety: pinpointing and reinforcing safe performance in a food manufacturing plant, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 63 No. 4, pp. 434-45. Locke, E.A. and Latham, G.P. (1990), A Theory of Goal-setting and Task Performance, PrenticeHall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. McAfee, R.B. and Winn, A.R. (1989), The use of incentives/feedback to enhance workplace safety: a critique of the literature, Journal of Safety Research, Vol. 20, pp. 7-19. Masaaki, I. (1986), Kaizen: the Key to Japans Competitive Success, Random House, New York, NY. Osborne, J. and Zairi, M. (1997), Total Quality Management and the Management of Health and Safety, CRR153, HSE Books, London. Ramsay, H. (1991), Reinventing the wheel: a review of the development and performance of employee involvement, Human Resource Management Journal, Vol. 1 No. 4, pp. 1-22. Schroeder, D. and Robinson, A. (1991), Americas most successful export to Japan continuous improvement, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 67-81. Wilkinson, A., Marchington, M., Goodman, J. and Ackers, P. (1992), Total quality management and employee involvement, Human Resource Management Journal, Vol. 2 No. 4, pp. 1-20. (Luise Vassie is Lecturer in the Centre for Hazard and Risk Management, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK. E-mail: l.h.vassie@lboro.ac.uk)

Continuous improvement in health and safety 593