Goals and Objectives of BSA. Efficiency Evaluation Metrics

The vast majority of incidents are caused by unsafe human actions (according to various sources, 85% to 95% of all accidents result from unsafe actions by personnel). The traditional method of inspecting occupational health, industrial, fire, and traffic safety primarily focuses on identifying technical faults, violations, and defects in equipment, technical devices, material storage, documentation, and other technical and organizational aspects unrelated to personnel behavior.

The goals of behavioral safety audits (BSA) are:

• eliminating unsafe actions of workers and, consequently, reducing the number of unsafe conditions;
• developing workers' enduring habits of taking responsibility for their own safety and the safety of others, thereby fostering a new level of safety culture;
• enhancing workers' competence in applying safe work practices.

The primary objective of a behavioral safety audit (BSA) is the timely identification, mitigation, and prevention of unsafe actions by employees while performing their duties, achieved through:

• identifying instances where an employee is within the potential impact zone of a specific hazard (based on observation results);
• stopping the employee's unsafe actions or eliminating an existing/emerging hazard;
• conducting an explanatory conversation to determine the employee's competence level, their conscious commitment to their own and their colleagues' safety, and the root causes of their unsafe actions;
• explaining safe work methods and practices, and developing corrective measures;
• positively motivating the employee to work safely;
• fostering a strong occupational safety culture within the team.

A very important part of the BSA tool is the efficiency evaluation metrics. In our company, the following parameters have been developed and are generated electronically:

1. BSA and UC/UA (Unsafe Conditions/Unsafe Actions) statistics — the dynamic ratio between the number of BSAs conducted and the number of UAs/UCs identified;
2. BSA Index — comparing the index against the baseline/alarm threshold;
3. Action plan dynamics — the total number of corrective actions versus the number of implemented actions;
4. Employee suggestion dynamics — the total number of suggestions versus the number implemented;
5. Risk groups — the dynamic count of employees falling into high-risk categories;
6. Top employees by the number of UAs/UCs;
7. Classification and potential consequences — by the following categories:

- employee reaction

- workwear and PPE

- instructions, rules, and procedures

- employee position/posture, human actions

- condition of tools and equipment

- workplace housekeeping

8. Potential severity of consequences — high, medium, and low.

Additionally, as part of the development of the Safety Culture system, changes were made to simplify the completion of the BSA form from 15 minutes to 5 minutes:

• added the option to praise an employee (takes 1 minute of BSA documentation);
• automated the selection parameters for BSA criteria;
• added the ability to log a "safe" BSA (takes 2 minutes of BSA documentation);
• added an "eliminated on the spot" option (eliminates the need to write out corrective actions for issues resolved during the BSA itself).

To break down the classification and potential consequences (BSA categories), the selection of root causes has been detailed:

• lack of employee knowledge
• underestimation of risk by the employee, overestimation of their capabilities
• manager forcing the employee to work in unsafe conditions
• other causes.