He had never fallen before, he had never been coached to stop, and no one ever held him accountable — even though his peers saw him do it all the time. As you are well aware, safety is key in the reduction and elimination of more than 90 percent of workplace accidents. For years, employers and design engineers have worked to modify work situations to minimize the strain on humans and maximize productivity. The problem? Few have specifically focused on the characteristics of safe workers, and subsequently used that knowledge to predict future workers behavior and performance.

The modern industrial world knows a lot about accidents and injuries. Billions of dollars are spent annually on workers’ compensation and insurance premiums, not to mention the billions in lost earnings and training dollars that companies endure.

Fearless, self -assured thrill-seekers are a major factor in these costs. One critical way to reduce accidents and safety-related issues is to reduce the risk-taking behavior within your organization. This can be done in several ways, including selecting safer

employee candidates, training and devel­oping existing staff in safer practices, and creating a culture of safety awareness – where everyone holds each other account­able for their workplace behavior.

Regardless of how you’ve optimized your control rooms, modernized your truck cabs, implemented material handling courses and the like, industry has been unable to truly remove the key component in unsafe work­place behaviors – people. More so than faulty machines, cheap parts or environ­mental factors, the human element plays the largest role in workplace safety concerns.

Risk is a recurring theme within orga­nizations. While many people associate high-risk occupations with fishing on the Bering Sea, working atop an oil derrick, or heavy manufacturing work, few con­sider the risks of working in healthcare, retail, and even office environments. Our view is simply that personal characteris­tics (i.e., personality) impact a person’s safety related behaviors regardless of the industry, occupation or workplace setting.

Let’s break down the idea that personal characteristics are key to understanding and reducing workplace accidents. By now, the existence of “personality” is a universal truth. It’s just up to the people around us to say if it’s any good or not.

Researchers over the last two decades have consistently shown that personality characteristics help differentiate the top and bottom employees across organiza­tions. These same researchers have shown that personality impacts an employee’s willingness to follow the rules – hence their compliance with safety poli­cies and procedures (remember Tim?).

Research from Hogan Assessment Sys­tems shows that safety-related personal­ity characteristics can be broken down into six areas that predict specific types of behavior. These characteristics are ap­plicable to a wide range of industries, and focus on an individual’s work style and overall safety orientation, in an attempt to identify high-quality, safety-conscious employees. Once identified, these char­acteristics can be used to both hire the right person as well as develop current employees who may be at risk because of their personal tendencies.

These tendencies can be defined as:

• Defiant – Conforming: Following stan­dard operating procedures (SOPs).

Example: A low-scoring power plant technician might

ignore safety procedures and policies, leaving him/herself open to injury.

• Anxious – Confident: Handling stress­ful conditions when they occur.

Example: A low-scoring air traffic con­troller may lose his/her cool when en­countering an emergency, putting others’ lives at stake.

• Overreaction – Emotional control: Maintaining emotional control when un­der duress.

Example: A low-scoring law enforce­ment agent who loses control of his/her emotions in a stressful situation risks get­ting self and others harmed.

• Distractible – Vigilant: Focusing one’s attention on the task at hand regardless of distractions.

Example: An assembly line worker who is easily bored may lose concentra­tion when working on repetitive tasks, risking injury or mistake.

• Reckless – Careful: Avoiding unneces­sary risks over time.  

Example: A roughneck who is reckless and may play around at work or fail to wear the proper safety equipment, endan­gering himself and others.

• Arrogant – Trainable: Engaging in training and development opportunities.

Example: A welder may not engage in active learning with training programs for new techniques in the field, overestimat­ing his competence.

Now, these characteristics sound good, but how do we know they actually predict anything? How do we know that they will prevent Tim (who is coming to work in a few hours) from becoming just another statistic?

We know that organizations using personality assessments to identify risks in employees are seeing the benefit; they’re experiencing a reduction in ac­cidents and injuries from employee groups. Within a recent safety study, a large mid-western transportation com­pany experienced a 55 percent accident reduction in a “low risk” employee group over a 12-month period, when compared to an “at risk” group during the same period.

Also, organizations are using these characteristics to focus on further train ing and development initiatives. SSA Consultants in Baton Rouge, LA has de­signed safety training programs that align with each of the six dimensions. For ex­ample, working with refinery employees to maintain vigilance and focus, even on tasks an employee may engage in twenty times a day.

These strategies help to modify an employee’s behavior, their response style, and their awareness to the situation. Their research has shown that training programs have positive benefits for organizations; however, targeted, behaviorally specific programs designed for at-risk employees have even more impact.

Organizations are notorious for trying to identify the right “leaders to lead.” It makes sense, then, that they would also put a priority on identifying safe, careful, and diligent employees. Smart risk tak­ers are a pleasure to have on the team; it’s the not-so-smart ones that lead to sad sto­ries like Tim. FSM

Ryan Ross is director of Alliances and Partners for Hogan Assessment Systems, Tulsa, OK.