Phase 4

Antecedents

Consequences

Things that activate or trigger the behaviour. These events occur before the behaviour

An observable act

Things that follow the behaviour that have an affect on it

(roll over the pictures to see examples)

BBS Info Intro

BBS History

BBS Principles

BBS Applied

BBS Minerals Applications

Useful Refs

BSQ Guide Intro

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Phase 4

Phase 5

Phase 6

Case Study

BBS Slide Show

FAQ

PHASE 4

PHASE OBJECTIVES: Step 1: List checklist comments Step 2: Group comments Step 3: ABC analysis Step 4: Other root causal analyses Step 5: Summarise analyses	Step 6: Suggest solutions Step 7: Write action logs Step 8: Propose action logs to seniors Step 9: Inform workforce of proposals

ANALYSIS OF ROOT CAUSES

= Additional
materials available,
not on this website.

This phase gets to the real reasons for unsafe acts occurring.

Examining the root causes of safety behaviours

Step 1: List Checklist Comments

The comments on the back of the observation checklists were written as reasons provided by the operatives for acting out certain KSB.

Write a list of all these comments (word-for-word).
There may not be many comments. Step 4 of this phase provides other methods of finding out the reasons for such behaviours from operatives.

Step 2: Group Comments

Once step 1 is completed, the list of comments should be grouped into themes.

Example of the KSB of not cleaning splillages:

Poor Equipment	Relying on Others
"because it's too difficult with those hoses. I've hurt my back before"	"no one else does it so why should I"?
"The sweep doesn't really sweep anything. It's so old."	"It gets done in the end"

For real examples, please see the case study example 4.2.

Step 3: ABC Analysis

Why ABC Analysis?

The next step is to analyse the grouped comments from step 2 in order to uncover the various reasons why unsafe practices are continueing on site.

ABC or 'Functional' Analysis is one method of getting to the real (often subconscious) reasons for acting in a certain way.

It is called 'ABC' because it looks at the Antecedents or Activators of a Behaviour and its Consequences.

The reason for looking at the Antecendents and the Consequences is because research on behaviour has found that these are two main contingencies that drive people's behaviours.

The impact of consequence also greatly affects the behaviour. The following table explains that consequences can be of high impact or low impact. This means that the consequence of a behaviour will have a big affect (high impact) on a behaviour or a small affect (low impact) on it.

Impact of consequences depend on their SIGNIFICANCE / TIMING / CONSISTENCY.

Significance

Positive

Negative

-Level of Importance
-Personal or Impersonal

Timing

Immediate

Delayed

Consistency

Certain

Uncertain

More specifically, the combination of these factors determine whether that consequence will greatly or moderately influence a behaviour to occur. The following table illustrates these combinations:

High Impact Consequences	Low Impact Consequences
*(Immediate & Certain)*	*(Delayed & Uncertain)*

POSITIVE or NEGATIVE	POSITIVE or NEGATIVE
&	&
IMMEDIATE	DELAYED
&	&
CERTAIN	UNCERTAIN

For example, if you look back to the smoking example provided above, and think of the impact of the example consequences it will soon become clear that low impact consequences for the unsafe behaviour of smoking are very important but negative consequences. See below:


	Consequences	Impact of Consequences
	Consequences	Significance	Timing	Consistency
The behaviour of Smoking	Positives
	Nice Buzz	Positive	Immediate	Certain
	Removes Craving	Positive	Immediate	Certain
	nice taste	Positive	Immediate	Certain
	looks cool	Positive	Immediate	Certain
	comforting	Positive	Immediate	Certain
	Negatives
	Heart Disease	Negative	Delayed	Uncertain
	Cancer	Negative	Delayed	Uncertain
	Respiratory infection	Negative	Delayed	Uncertain
	complications in pregnancy	Negative	Delayed	Uncertain
	yellow nails/teeth	Negative	Delayed	Uncertain

Understanding the impact of consequence is very relevant to understanding why many unsafe behaviours are continued. This is because more often than not unsafe behaviours have consequences that increase the likelihood of that behaviour occuring - positive, immediate and certain.

E.g. *give quarry example

Learn more on ABC

As ABC analysis is very important for the programme and has been found to be the step that causes the most confusion, it is recommended that the steering team run through the presentation on ABC analysis that can be found in the materials case 4.3b.

This presentation covers the roots of ABC and examples of Antecedents and Consequences.

ABC is also further explained under BBS principles.

Materials 4.3a - ABC Analysis
Form
Additional Materials Available

ABC analyse the 20 KSB

(1) For each KSB, list the antecedents and consequences, as obtained from the back of the checklists. You can do this with the aid of the following form.

*ins. pdf of ABC form

NB. There is an interactive version in the materials case 4.3a

(2) Write down the impact of each of the consequences (you can also write this on the form above).

(3) Brainstorm as a group ways to turn consequences of safe actions into PICs and unsafe actions into NDUs. E.g. If there are no positive consequences for people to adhere to wearing PPE, create some!

NB. Remember the key is to reward safe actions and not unsafe ones.

Materials 4.3b - ABC Presentation Additional Materials Available

Step 4: Other Root Causal Analysis

5-Whys Exercise

What is the 5-Whys?

It's a method where you ask why 5 times and get to the real reason people are carrying out an act unsafely.

Method of carrying out the 5-Whys?

In the materials case 4.4 you will find a sheet to use.

NB>The 5-whys is best obtained through a steering team member asking someone face-to-face, as opposed to leaving the 5-whys on the desks of people.

E.g.


Why don't you wear your hi vis?	Because it is too short
Why is it too short?	Because that's all they have in the stock room, short hi vis.
Why is that all they have in the stockroom?

For more external information on the 5-Whys click here

Materials 4.4 - 5-whys Sheet
Additional materials available

Step 5: Summarise Analyses

Put all the information found from steps 3 & 4 into a table like the one below.

*ins pdf of table of 5-whys/ABC/back of sheet solutions

Materials 4.5 - Solutions Table
Additional materials are available

NB. Please find an modifiably version in the materials case 4.5

Clearly this table is just one format example of how to summarise the data to allow for the next step of suggesting solutions. However, this format or something similar will allow the steering team to put forward suggestions based on the analysis.

This is an integral part of a BBS programme as...

All solutions must be based on the data collected and analysed and specifically on the root causes of the behaviours.

Step 6: Suggest Solutions

1) Using the sumarised table in step 5, brainsorm solutions to fill in the table.

This is best done with an many steering team members present as possible. Others outside of the steering team can also be invited to participate in suggested solutions based on the summarised analyses.

2) With the list of suggestions, decide which ones are going to be carried out.

You can also check their affectiveness with a cost/impact matrix. *ins link

Step 7: Write Action Logs

Create an action log. This should include:

The suggested solutions from step 6 transformed into tasks
The time scales set for each task
Decide who is going to carry out the task. Here you should try and delegate work to other people outside of the steering team.

See an example of an action log in the case study example (4.7).

NB> Make sure that the task deadlines are being adhered to. If they are not, find out why and amend the deadline accordingly.

Step 8: Propose Actions Logs to Seniors

Step 9: Inform workforce of proposals

PHASE SUMMARY

In this phase, analyses of the results from Phase 3 were used to uncover the underlying reasons for the at-risk KSB. This information will be used to make relevant changes to safety in the next phase.