Prospects for the Development of the "Behavioral Safety Dialogue" Program

Transforming Safety Culture Across a National Company

The implementation of proactive HSE tools in companies with an extensive branch network inevitably faces scaling challenges. When production sites are scattered across the country, and some stations employ only a few people, classic control by HSE engineers becomes physically impossible. Under these conditions, the key barrier to zero injuries is the personal awareness of employees. Altynay Zhatkanbayeva shares practical experience in deploying a behavioral safety dialogue (BSD) program in a company with over 120,000 employees.

Emotional Engagement and Breaking Stereotypes

The foundational stage of the program's implementation was large-scale training covering all management levels — from top executives to line personnel. The speaker details the structure of the three-hour course, where the central focus is not dry theory, but emotional impact. To overcome the dangerous mindset of "it won't happen to me," a documentary film based on a real group accident was produced. Demonstrating the consequences of an injury through the story of a real employee, who later became an internal corporate trainer, shifts the conversation about safety from a formal level to a deeply personal one.

Digitalizing BSD: From Recording to Resolution

The tool for implementing the program was a corporate mobile app. It allows any employee to record an unsafe condition or action, attach a photo, and assign a person responsible for resolving it. The presentation shows how the transparent escalation system works:

• 30 days are given to resolve an observation. This is the baseline timeframe for solving a problem at the line level.
• If the issue requires additional administrative or financial resources, after 45 days it is automatically escalated to the chief engineer level.
• If unresolved, the problem is sequentially escalated up to the Chairman of the Management Board (90 days), completely eliminating the possibility of ignoring identified risks.

Motivation and Overcoming Skepticism

Any innovation in production faces resistance. To stimulate employee participation, a multi-level motivation system was developed. Every month, an open commission selects the best BSDs, whose authors receive cash bonuses, and the winner of the year is awarded a foreign trip for their entire family. Publishing results in a "before/after" format helps reduce skepticism and prove that the system works. An additional trust factor was a strict moratorium on punishments for violations identified during BSDs — the tool is used exclusively for prevention and improving working conditions, not for finding culprits.

What you will learn from this webinar:

• How to organize cascade training on behavioral dialogues in a company with over 100,000 employees?
• What material presentation formats work most effectively to change employees' attitudes toward their own safety?
• How to build an automated escalation matrix for unresolved HSE problems via a mobile app?
• What criteria are used to evaluate the quality of conducted behavioral dialogues?
• How does a transparent bonus system help overcome line personnel resistance and engage them in the risk identification process?