The New Management of Risk - Competency--Based Safety

摘要

The management of safety has undergone a number of radical changes inrnthe past 100 years.The most important paradigm shifts occurred throughrnthe work of Heinrich,followed by the advent of the safety systems erarnand,more recently,the behavioural safety approaches that have becomernincreasingly popular around the world.Each of these ‘approaches 'tornsafety has left an indelible mark on the way we target safetyrnimprovements,helping decide which interventions are deployed and howrnthey will be measured.They have also resulted in a number of ‘myths 'rnabout safety management,each of which will be discussed,analysed andrnchallenged in this paper.This paper highlights the complexproblem ofrn‘complacency ',that has arisen out of the increased levels of regulationrnand consequent perceived protection that workers enjoy in the workrnplace.It also looks at a phenomenon called ‘accident migration 'whichrnresults from a superficial treatment of accidents with changes to rules andrnprocedures.The most recent approach to safety is generally known asrnbehaviour-based safety,which flowed from the human sciences andrnquality management era.This approach has had a dramatic impact on thernway safety is managed around the world,b t still falls short in a numberrnof key aspects,most notably the area of risk awareness and riskrnunderstanding.Many workplace accidents occur simply because the riskrnis unidentified,underestimated ,not understood or ignored .This paperrnproposes a new direction for safety,called competency-based safety.It isrnbased on cognitive psychology aimed at combating the consequence ofrnmodern protection.A case study is presented detailing the deployment ofrnthis approach throughout Placer Dome.