This is a quick shout out to my LinkedIn connections, especially those who are involved in “safety differently“.
I am doing research on health and safety assurance with a view to putting out a new book on the topic. My basic premise is that current health and safety reporting processes and metrics, including lead indicators, give us very little if any insight into whether health and safety risks in a business are being managed. To this end, I am interested to understand how organisations achieve health and safety assurance under the safety differently model.
If anyone out there who is implementing the safety differently principles would be willing to share information about, or examples of their health and safety reports/reporting, it would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers.
My Safety Thoughts 
Hi Greg,
Thought I would share our reporting and one part of our Critical Risk Assurance process with you after your shout out in Linkedin.
Essentially the process and then subsequently the reporting looks at if the control for the critical risk is in place and if the control is effective. The effectiveness of the control is determined through conversation with the worker/s on why the control is in place and how the control works in practice to reduce the risk. It is subjective, however we also have a more objective look at the critical controls that support this process. This is in development.
We look at ‘weak signals’ we also identify good practices and reward reporting both. Its been a long journey to get here though and still a long way to go to use this data more effectively.
There is a whole process behind how we have come to this point that I am happy to talk through. I am still not clear on what Safety Differently is or how it works, however this is where we sit in terms of critical Risk Assurance.
I cant see anywhere to attach a file, happy to share the report.
Brad
I am currently undertaking a masters in Behaviour Change in Occupational Safety. I am and have written papers which review safety differently implementation in my workplace (a facilities organisation in the UK). I would be happy to discuss and share (or write) as appropriate. Best Jonathan
Greg
I will look forward to the book with great anticipation – sadly I can share multiple anecdotes of the effect of poorly designed metrics and the unintended consequences and behavious.
Just wanted to see if you had read a recent paper by Drew Rae and Rob Alexander titled “Probative blindness and false assurance about safety” (Safety Science, Vol 92) – it might add some additional context and research to your hypothesis.
Cheers. Thanks for the comment and the reference.