Behavioral safety in the food industry: Challenges and outcomes

摘要

Workers in food service industries regularly carry out work practices and behavior that may cause injuries to them. Injuries can be from sharp object, machinery, slippery floors, hot surfaces etc. This can also happen due to repeated at-risk behaviors such as lifting heavy objects, being in the same position for long and perform a tedious job etc. Too many non-fatal injuries are reported from food industries every year. This can cause employees being away from duty for many days for health reason. Behavioral safety interventions can effectively reduce the incidences of injuries and thereby increase available man-hours in the work-place. Peer-safety observations increase the integrity of behavioral safety interventions and reduce the recorded number of incidents. This paper examines the impact of prior-based behavioral safety process on injury rates. This paper also provides insights on the relationship between the number of prior-safety observations on the outcome variables namely, rates of injuries, lost days and restricted days. The authors undertook a 6-year consultancy on behavioral safety practices on a food industry that is a university dining commons. The authors fed many problems throughout the project implantation. This paper presents comprehensive view of the project implementation and the effect of safety intervention in the work area. (22 refs.)