Safety Game Focuses on Safety Culture and Human Behaviour

A new safety game targeted at safety leaders, HSE professionals and workers has been released – combining years of HSE practice and experiences with elements from Safety II, Safety Differently, and behavioural design.

The makers of SAFETALK say all workplaces can benefit from the game, which is designed to work in any environment or industry where people work together and collaborate.

Why a safety game?

Many sectors have reduced accidents significantly over the years by focusing on technical solutions and establishing systems. However, despite legislation, safety management systems, and a commitment from both management and employees, some workplaces have experienced an accident curve that has flattened.

Many companies no longer feel that it is possible to do much more to create a safer workplace with the tools they have. It is as if safety leaders and HSE departments do more of the same without getting better.

The intention with a safety game is to create a new context in which people can talk about the unspoken norms that characterise any workplace, as well as to try and explain why people do what they do, the way they do it.

“It can be considered as a gap analysis of how the work is actually done – and the way you might think the work is done. The shadowland between systems, procedures, KPI’s, rules and the way you see the work being done on a normal day,” the developers say.

“SAFETALK is useful in creating new energy in the safety discussions in the aim to bring the accident curve even further down. Focus on the people who lead, and the people who do their work, understand their intentions, their terms, and their opportunities for action.”

“Safety will always be a common concern and something you create in unison and more than what is sentenced to a piece of paper, a statement of intent, or in a management system.”

The developers believe that people handling their own work know the challenges they face and have ideas about how to resolve them – both managers and employees.

“This is where SAFETALK is ideal, because it is those facing challenges and successes, who start dialogues about the good and the bad.”

“Over the years, there has been a paradigm shift in the way leaders as well as employees, collaborate and learn. With respect for risk assessments, safety rounds, safety meetings, KPI’s and e-learning programs, it has been the developer’s experience that these methods need to be supplemented with processes that contribute to giving effect to collaboration, ownership, motivation and commitment.”

The safety game consists of 90 situations people should talk about. Here’s some examples:

• It’s not difficult to inform the immediate manager of bad news.
• There is a big difference in the way employees perform their work, and the way in which their immediate manager believes the work is being done.
• There are so many different companies working here that it’s often difficult to figure out which rules apply.
• The way some of the workplaces are designed means that we have to deal with risks on a daily basis.
• There is an acceptance of human errors here – as long as we learn from them.
• It is difficult to make heads or tails of the terminology when reporting an incident.
• We keep quiet about minor injuries for fear of destroying good accident statistics.
• Should someone break a rule, we are curious about the intention behind it.
• We talk about what goes well at work in order to do more of this.
• Our immediate managers spend time understanding how we work and why we do things the way we do.