Latest / Safe As Podcast / Ep 9: How certified systems & auditing mask psychosocial issues

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Ep 9: How certified systems & auditing mask psychosocial issues · Safe As Podcast

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  Have you ever felt like you're playing a game where the rules
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  are clear, the score is kept, but the real challenges are
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  happening off the scoreboard? That could be the case in
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  workplace safety. We pour resources into certified
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  safety systems, tracking countless metrics, believing
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  we're safer. What if these various systems
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  designed to protect us are creating unhealthy blind spots?
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  What if, in our pursuit of what's measurable and orbitable,
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  we're inadvertently turning a blind eye to the more complex,
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  human and pernicious issues in our organisations?
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  Think about the invisible, precious, crushing workloads,
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  the unspoken stresses, the subtle erosion of well being.
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  These aren't always neat, quantifiable risks, yet they're
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  happening every single day. This week we're diving into a
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  paper that argues that our certified safety systems, while
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  technically compliant to standards and well intentioned,
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  might be tragically I'll equipped to handle these messy
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  real world problems. They push us towards auditable
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  knowledge, reshaping our understanding of safety and
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  potentially leaving important human issues unaddressed,
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  festering in the shadows. Good day everyone.
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  I'm Matt Hutchinson, This is Safe as a podcast dedicated to
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  the thrifty analysis of safety, risk and performance research.
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  Visit safetyinsights.org for more research.
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  Today's paper is making work environment auditable.
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  A critical case study of certified occupational health
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  and safety management systems in Denmark by Henry and HASSLE
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  2011, published in Safety Science.
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  So this paper investigated and described the impact of
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  certification on occupational health and safety management
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  systems or safety management systems and the related audits
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  including values, the logics of what they were doing and why,
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  and concerns about the systems for addressing workplace issues
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  called the environment in this paper.
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  So if I refer to environment, I mean the work environment.
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  So what are the methods? They employed a case study
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  approach focusing on a Danish manufacturing company they
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  called Metalworks. This company was selected
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  because it was a high performer implying that any problems found
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  there would likely exist in other companies very quickly.
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  The data was gathered through multi methods.
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  So they used semi structured interviews with diverse
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  personnel, 10 personnel, they use observations during
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  meetings, tools and shopful activities.
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  They use wooden materials like procedures, audit results and
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  more. Now their analysis, which was
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  guided by a constructivist perspective, focus on their
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  certification and external audits transform the sorts of
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  work that people do and why they do it.
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  A constructivist perspective suggests that practises like
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  auditing aren't neutral or objective tools that simply
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  measure the world or measure reality or facts.
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  Instead, they are understood as social processes that actively
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  shape and produce reality that they are supposed to audit.
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  Put another way, whereas some perspectives, like positivistic
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  perspectives, believe that there's a clearly an objective
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  reality that's observable separate to the observers, you,
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  me, them constructivists recognise that A a real world
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  does exist B it's always filtered and interpreted through
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  the subjective lenses of the observers.
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  So what did they find? Well, there was a creation of an
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  audible environment. So certified safety systems
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  actively create an environment of measurable and audible facts,
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  driven by external demands for visible standards.
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  This means the system itself guides what is seen, measured
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  and reported, often prioritising what could be easily proven.
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  There was a narrowing knowledge base focus on safety.
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  The system's knowledge is heavily influenced by
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  measurability and competitiveness.
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  This leads to an explicit focus on safety issues, often
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  discussed first with safety can play with the broader work
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  environment in the rhetoric, but not in practise.
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  In other words, while they talk about the work environment in
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  practise, they often only deal with the easily quantifiable
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  safety instance. Furthermore, almost all
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  performance indicators were safety related, with few
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  measures measuring long term health hazards or psychosocial
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  factors. The system converts uncertainty
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  into easily audible risk management forms.
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  This shows a clear preference from metrics that fit the audit
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  criteria over those that reflect wider, more complex risks.
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  There was a standardisation of conduct and cultural values.
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  Management promoted order, tardiness, Good Housekeeping as
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  core safety values, integrating them into tools and discourse.
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  This also served as a marketing tool for external
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  accountability, like compulsory PPE was widely enforced,
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  sometimes overriding professional judgement.
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  Essentially this means surface level behaviours were
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  emphasised, even if they didn't always directly address deeper
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  safety links or worker experience issues.
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  There was the exclusion of complex psychological and
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  psychosocial issues. The certified safety system.
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  Often they collected work environment problems that were
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  difficult to audit such as job intensity, work pressure, and
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  employee well being. These complex issues into waving
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  with production were not easily reduced to visible performance
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  indicators. This highlights a critical blind
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  spot where important human factors are simply not captured
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  by the auditing system, nor are the psychosocial factors well
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  integrated within the conventional safety management
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  system approaches. There was a shift from problem
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  solving to visible accountability.
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  Certification redirected focus from solving real world
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  environment problems in the workplace to demonstrating
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  compliance for external audiences, similar to what Ray
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  and proven in a safety of work model called Demonstrated Safety
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  and written systems became valid more for that demonstrable
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  compliance than for the actual control of issues.
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  This means the system's purpose often shifts from genuinely
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  improving safety to merely proving it on paper for external
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  stakeholders. And finally, there's a
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  compromise of professional judgement.
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  The strong emphasis on standardised procedures while
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  ensuring measurable rules devalued employees professional
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  judgement and flexibility, potentially contributing to
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  psychosocial issues. In essence, workers on the
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  grounds expertise and ability to adapt were undermined by rigid
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  rules, potentially leading to new problems like workarounds
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  and silent fixes. So, limitations.
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  The authors acknowledged that the observed outcomes were not
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  solely due to the ISO accreditation or auditing
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  system, but like all resulted from a number of different
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  factors to do with the organisation, the cultures,
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  processes and more. Additionally, a study is based
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  on a single company, so we don't know how generalizable the
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  findings are. Although I should note these
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  authors have also published later research which both sort
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  of support some of these findings but also challenges
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  some of them. Also, I might cover one of them
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  in the future. So what do we make of the
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  findings? Well, let's reiterate some of
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  the key conclusions. First one, certified safety
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  systems may not address some urgent workplace issues after
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  excluding complex problems like psychosocial factors and work
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  intensity. This suggests that relying
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  solely on certified systems or traditional safety management
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  system approaches won't automatically solve a company's
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  biggest human related safety challenges or interpersonal
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  risks and whatnot. 2 This drive for auditability leads to a
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  narrow technical understanding of the work environment,
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  emphasising safety and measurable deviations over
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  holistic well being. This implies that looking safe
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  might become more important than being safe in areas that are
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  hard to quantify. Third, the demand for
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  standardised solutions while making systems auditable can
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  compromise professional judgement and flexibility.
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  Inhibiting work is adaptive abilities on the shop floor or
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  their risk saving us. So what can we do?
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  I fear there's no simple silver bullets for these complex
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  sociotechnical issues. Some might even say wicked
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  problems. But I think at the least, recent
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  changes in Australia regarding psychosocial hazards is probably
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  a great area of focus to make up for some of these shortfalls in
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  the SMS approaches. 2 We probably need to resist changing
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  our systems to accommodate auditors unless there's a clear
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  reason why we need to change, for instance, goal directed
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  behaviour. That's it.
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  On Safe As I'm Ben Hutchinson, please help share, rate and
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  review and she getsafetyinsights.org for more
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  research. Finally, feel free to support
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  Safe As by sharing a coffee link in the show notes.