
Reinvigorating Your BBS Program Part 1: Setting the Table
By Josh Williams, Ph. D.
Is your BBS process stale?
Do these symptoms of a flailing program sound familiar?
- Overemphasis on quotas
- Pencil whipped forms
- Focus on quantity but NOT quality
- Overly long checklists
- No open-ended questions on card; few meaningful comments provided
- No conversations following observations
- Observations only being done by a select group
- Weak analyses of observation data and comments
- Cards going into a “black hole” with little feedback share back to employees
- Few improvements based on observation feedback
- Low interest from employees and supervisors
If this sounds like your program, it’s time to level up with BBS 2.0.
BBS 2.0 focuses on the quality of conversations with observations and making tangible improvements based on employee feedback. The focus is NOT on card completion. With BBS 2.0, a shortened card is used with key behaviors which also includes open-ended questions (e.g., What do you need to stay safe? How would you improve the job?). The emphasis with BBS 2.0 is on conversations over cards and people over paper.
Propulo can help you reinvigorate your behavioral safety process by:
- Providing interesting and interactive training on BBS 2.0 with an emphasis on powerful conversations, taking action, and “what’s in it for me”
- Shortening and redesigning your card to promote better safety conversations and to address identified problems
- Involving employees in process design to increase discretionary effort
- Simplifying how cards are managed and analyzed; increasing focus on SIF potential
- Creating or rebooting a steering team to effectively manage the process
- Establishing operational leadership accountability to ensure process success
- Developing key mechanisms for improving system deficiencies identified from observations
- Creating more robust means to advertise improvements from observations
- Establishing ongoing check-ins to ensure BBS 2.0 stays on track
Unlike traditional safety training, behavioral safety has natural embedding tools for long-term sustainment. If you’re struggling with your BBS program, don’t abandon it entirely. Like old software, your program simply needs an upgrade. Let us help you revamp your process with BBS 2.0! You’ll see increased employee engagement, richer safety conversations, more actions taken to shore up system deficiencies, decreased SIF potential, and improved safety culture and morale.
So take action today and make your behavioral safety program a key driver for safety success!
At Propulo, we work with leaders to reboot BBS to improve safety culture and prevent serious injuries and fatalities.
Read more from this blog series: REINVIGORATING YOUR BBS PROGRAM PART 2: MAINTENANCE