Introduction The management of occupational safety and health requires a shared approach among team members to be effective. After experiencing a number of accidents, the safety, health and environment (SHE) cluster came up with an initiative of developing SHE pacts within teams at the mine. These pacts were binding and were based upon a shared vision and values for the team and were supported by a set of critical behaviours to address identified focal risks faced by the team.

Methods An external facilitator who is a specialist in behavioural based safety approaches was engaged to roll-out the program over a period of three months. The facilitator played a background role in the process letting the team members come up with their top five risks and the set of behaviours needed to address the risks and the values needed to sustain those behaviours overtime and the overall vision for the team. The SHE pact was signed off by all for commitment and accountability. The document was framed and put on the noticeboards of the team’s work area with a photograph of all the team members and their signatures.

Result Acceptability of the SHE pact by the teams was high. The end points for usage within teams was defined by the number of stop and fixes carried out, the number of SHE related observations/inspections carried out by team members, commendations/rewards for SHE observations, near miss reporting statistics and supervisor inspections. There was a notable increase of these leading indicators after the adoption of the SHE pacts.

Discussion Behaviour based safety interventions are important to address the soft issues in SHE management. The focus on leading indicators is important in cultivating a culture of prevention within the workplace.

Reference

1. Available on request