Safety culture: The role of mindfulness and communities of practice

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Safety cultureThe role of mindfulness and
communities of practice

• David Borys

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Safety culture regulation

• Can regulation be used to stimulate safety
  culture and if so how?
• What type of safety culture would regulation wish
  to stimulate?
• Is safety culture something that can or should be
  enforced?
• Would the regulator have the requisite knowledge
  and skills to enforce a safety culture?

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Structure

• Meat industry case study
• Lessons from the case study
• Some implications for regulators

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Meat industry case study

• Sustainable OHS Improvement Project - Victorian
  Meat Industry
• Joint venture project MLA, VWA, AMIEU, NMAA,
  Victorian Meat Processors

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The intervention

• Started out as a behaviour based safety
  intervention
• Ended up being an intervention to grow a mindful
  and informed safety culture
• In the context of a shared prevention framework

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Characteristics of a mindful and informed safety
culture
An Informed Culture
Collective Mindfulness
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A shared prevention framework
A mindful informed safety culture
A suitable organisational environment
A suitable management approach
Well designed physical work environment
Fit-for-purpose equipment
Risk control
Competent and knowledgeable workers
Suitable rules and procedures
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The intervention

• Target groups
• All managers
• All workers
• Method of intervention
• Training program
• External trainer

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Evaluation

• Evaluation
• Pre
• Organisational data
• Mindfulness questionnaire
• Post
• Organisational data
• Mindfulness questionnaire
• Focus group

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Questionnaire Factors promoting
mindlessness/mindfulness
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Results

• Participation
• 165 workers
• 26 managers
• Questionnaire
• 95 response rate pre
• 12 response rate post

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2. People are expected to perform their jobs in a
particular way without deviations
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6. People have little discretion to take actions
to resolve unexpected problems as they arise
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12. People are willing to report errors and near
misses
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(No Transcript)
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Focus group

• I hear a lot (of) ideas for how things can be
  improved but remain quiet it is easier to stay
  quiet
• not in our culture to complain
• what is important to you many not be for them.
• People not bringing up issues may be a lack of
  confidencefeels embarrassed or silly.
• I dont think a real lot walked away planning to
  remember what it was about

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Focus group

• more local examplesfor example, smalls
  chain
• (needed) more employees involved in delivery
• wonder if it has lost focus lately

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Lessons for improving safety

• How organisations learn is as important as the
  content of the learning
• Difficulties in taking existing ideas and
  implementing and evaluating them

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Learning to improve safety

• Understanding the difference between espoused and
  actual practice (Brown Duguid, 1991)
• Learning is as much about participation in social
  practices as it is a cognitive process
• Learning as legitimate peripheral participation
  in a community of practice (Lave Wenger, 1991)

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Community of practice (COP)

• A set of relations among persons, activity and
  world, over time and in relation with other
  tangential and overlapping communities of
  practice. A community of practice is an intrinsic
  condition for the existence of knowledge thus,
  participation in the cultural practice in which
  any knowledge exists is an epistemological
  principle of learning (Lave Wenger, 1991, p.98)

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COP safety

• Gherardi et al. (1998)
• Learning and practice is socially constructed
  through participation, negotiation, observation
  and story-telling
• Organisations are made up of multiple and at
  times conflicting sub-cultures
• There may be as many safety cultures as there are
  communities of practice

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The dynamics of culture change from a COP
perspective
Safety
enable/impedes
Culture
changes/ reinforces
Mindful informed
is
Can be a virtuous or vicious cycle
in
Practice
Learnt
COP as a site for learning
through
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Top Down
Some dynamics of a culture of safety
Monolithic
Values
Mindfulness, Reporting, Learning
Organizational systems
The culture of safety is constantly being
negotiated and updated
Culture of safety
Learning takes place through practice in COP
Practices (symbols, heroes, rituals)
Values
Differentiated
Values
Values
Bottom Up
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A framework for learning to improve safety
Organisational approaches to improving safety
Change safety culture
OHS improvement idea
Practices of an informed culture
Practices of collective mindfulness
Organisational learning about the OHS improvement
idea embedded in
Communities of Practice
Cultures of safety
Resulting in
A reduction in fatalities, injuries and disease
Resulting in
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Key question

• Are communities of practice an effective level at
  which to intervene in an organisation to grow a
  culture of safety that is mindful and informed?
• How would regulation deal with this approach?

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Lifeworld
System
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Implications for regulation

• Safety culture and regulation
• Special Commission of Inquiry into the Waterfall
  Rail Accident
• Safety culture
• Maxwell Report Occupational Health and Safety Act
  Review (Victoria)
• Mindfulness

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Implications for regulation

• Safety culture and regulation
• Can regulation be used to stimulate safety
  culture and if so how?
• What type of safety culture would regulation wish
  to stimulate?
• Is safety culture something that can or should be
  enforced?
• Would the regulator have the requisite knowledge
  and skills to enforce a safety culture?

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Safety cultureThe role of mindfulness and
communities of practice

• David Borys