Balancing Old Safety Thinking and New

Abstract

Balancing the new approach with the old could turn out to be a delicate art. We have some ideas about how these new ideas on safety can be blended with the existing systems. The new emphasis on human and organizational performance, also known as the "New View," has been described as a "Cross between system design and psychology" that relies on the social sciences to better understand how to design resilient systems that prevent severe injury. If high-level leaders embrace and drive the new approach, leaders at all levels will ultimately capitulate and may even find value in it. Jeremy Presnal Many clients choose not to implement the new ideas, relying instead on old-school principles of disciplining rule violators, zero-tolerance policies and measuring safety success in terms of recordable incident rates. While all contractual terms are theoretically negotiable, to successfully run a business, many contractors and subcontractors capitulate to most or all client requirements even if contrary to human and organizational performance ideas and other modern approaches to occupational safety. Travis Livermore Even if customers have moved to an approach based on the New Thinking, they may deem contractors not worth the effort or incapable of implementing the new ideas.