The way we handled the negative reinforcement end of things happened in the reporting process.
If someone had an incident (we never referred to anything as being accidental to instill a sense of accountability), they had to fill out and incident report and it was forwarded up the corporate ladder all the way to the top. After the safety violation the manager and local safety director would review the report with the foreman and person in question (the foremen were held as responsible as their crew members for any problems). In the end, each employee responsible for the incident would receive a letter reviewing the violation that would stay in their employee file and would show up come annual review time.
It wasn't a terribly nasty process and there certainly wasn't any sense of being chewed out, but you were put on the hot seat and asked to explain how your actions caused a problem and how that problem would be avoided in the future. It really sucked to have to sit there and explain how you f'ed up and it was a process you wanted to avoid like jury duty
Our incident reports were actually pretty useful, though. It was a questionnaire that asked how the accident happened and covered any contributing factors. The results were tracked and that allowed us to cover injury/damage trends at the local office safety meetings. When one type of incident was on the rise, we covered ways to avoid it and sent feedback from production up the chain so those in charge could develop policies that eliminated the issue. When trends of certain problem areas were going good, we used that positive information to reinforce and continue our progress.
I would know that the CR's can tell where people are most likely to screw up on the track and they sure do a good job of communicating the common pitfalls to us, but I wonder if a formal reporting process could give everyone greater insight into the specifics and details that lead up to or contribute to track crashes. It goes back to the quantify, then measure principle I posted earlier.
Just to give an example: We were advised at the local level that our tree climbers were getting injured by falling pole saws (12' pole with a very sharp saw blade on the end) and those incidents were on the rise (5 or more cuts per quarter resulting in lost time injuries) The solution that was worked out had us hanging the pole lower, facing away while working and using a special lanyard to hang it below us while climbing through the tree. After some adjustment this worked really well and those incidents were unheard of when I left. Once that top to bottom communication was established and everyone understood how and why things were happening, many injuries and damage incidents were avoided.
I wonder if a reporting process in combination with a dedicated safety forum here would help more people understand the higher risk areas? No names or anything that would embarrass a particular individual, but just a place to discuss trends and specific hazards that not everyone may be aware of.
Thanks for everyone's thoughts thus far. I think it's been a great discussion!
