Behaviors, Values, and Positive Reinforcement: Developing a Strong Workplace Safety Culture - 22166

The U.S. Department of Labor reported that in 2019 alone there were 2.8 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses, as well as over 5,000 work-related fatalities recorded in the United States. That same year, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reported 4,413 workdays lost, transferred, or restricted due to occupational injuries and illnesses across the Office of Environmental Management (EM) complex. Various accident and event casual studies have shown multiple underlying factors contribute towards these workplace accidents. That said, Herbert W. Heinrich, author of the 1931 text Industrial Accident Prevention: A Scientific Approach, identified unsafe behaviors by employees as the leading root cause to most workplace incidents - attributing nearly 90% of accidents to worker behaviors. While much of Heinrich's 'Domino Theory' has been replaced by more modern scholarship and his original findings are somewhat controversial, unsafe workplace behaviors are still considered to make up a significant share of event precursors by contemporary accident causation models. During the late 1990's, the DOE developed and published an Integrated Safety Management (ISM) Policy with the purpose of lessening the frequency and severity of workplace accidents. The objective of the ISM system is to encourage the use of processes and initiatives aimed at improving organizational and individual performance. This is done by integrating safety into management and work practices at all levels, addressing all types of work and all types of hazards to ensure safety for workers, the public, and the environment. Savannah River Remediation LLC (SRR), a prime contractor at the DOE's Savannah River Site in South Carolina, has recently implemented two such initiatives for improving organizational and individual performance: Safety-Talks Achieve Results (STAR) with Four Keys of Safety and Reinforcement for Achieving Values and Expectations (RAVE). The STAR program is designed to focus on specific work behaviors and actions that are determined to present the greatest risk for injury. The RAVE program is centered around a web and mobile application that allows employees at all levels to nominate another employee for work that exemplifies one of SRR's Core Values: Safety, Integrity, Ownership, Teamwork, and Continuous Improvement. By focusing on the principles of immediate, frequent, specific, and face-to-face recognition, the RAVE program works to reinforce SRR's Core Values by rewarding employees for demonstrating positive behaviors, actions, and attitudes. Together these programs have been implemented as part of an even broader effort to promote a strong Safety Culture and have helped SRR to experience reportable injury rates significantly lower than those reported for comparable industries across the United States. While many contractors across the EM complex utilize similar programs, the injury statistics published by the Departments of Labor and Energy show that opportunities remain to refine and improve workplace safety practices. To assist with those efforts, this paper provides a brief review of literature regarding workplace safety programs, with a focus on Behavioral-Based Safety and Nuclear Safety Cultural approaches. A discussion of the programs implemented at SRR and their impacts follows. Lastly, this paper provides a series of best practices for managers developing their own workplace safety programs. (authors)