BASIC PRINCIPLES IN OCCUPATIONAL HYGIENE Day 5 19

BASIC PRINCIPLES IN OCCUPATIONAL HYGIENE Day 5

19 – BEHAVIOUR AND CULTURE

Impacts of Behaviour in Occupational Hygiene Worker behaviour has an important influence on exposure to hazardous agents in the workplace • Using contaminated tools • Using soiled personal protective equipment (PPE) • Poor housekeeping, working untidily or not cleaning up after work

Impacts of Behaviour • Failing to use PPE properly when needed • Unhygienic behaviour such as failing to remove protective clothing and wash hands before a meal break • Failing to switch on a ventilation system • Handling a material vigorously instead of carefully • Standing downwind of an exposure source

Minimise Individuals Impact • • • Good engineering controls Good operating procedures Training workers Supervision Education regarding contaminants

"Swiss Cheese" Model of Accident Prevention

Motivation and Behaviour Modification Antecedents - Behaviour - Consequences (A - B - C) model • Antecedents create the initial motivation to act • Instructions from the manager, publicity campaigns and how these are received which depends on workers background • Behaviour is the observable act • It can be quantified and is objective • Consequences are what happens after the behaviour • Did the instruction help or hinder them, e. g. were they able to work more easily or was the job made harder. Will they do it this way again?

Behavioural Intervention A behavioural intervention can be planned in three distinct stages as follows: 1. Motivation: Firstly it is necessary to motivate individuals in order to get them to want to change their behaviour. 2. Instigation: Once people are motivated they need to be supported to enable them to change behaviour. 3. Maintenance: When a behaviour has been changed efforts need to be made to ensure that it doesn’t revert back.

Health and Safety Culture • When a pattern of behaviour becomes widespread in an organisation it can be described as the organisational culture • Culture can be a nebulous concept – a simple definition is “how we do things around here” • Culture defines the unwritten rules of an organisation • Once a behaviour becomes embedded in the organisation's culture it can be hard to change • An organisation's culture can be said to be positive for health and safety if it encourages behaviours that minimise incidents and exposure to risk • Negative cultures are often characterised by fear and blame, which inhibit reporting of dangerous conditions and inhibit improvement. Employees flout the rules and managers turn a blind eye

An Example of a Culture Maturity Ladder Source: Glaxo. Smith. Kline