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This study explored whether the prescription and practice of Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS) enhance or hinder the operationalisation of resilience engineering (RE) principles.

Data was via semi-structured interviews across three construction projects.

Providing background, it’s noted that:

·        Despite the requirements of SWMS around high-risk construction work, there’s a paucity of published research on their ability to influence construction safety

·        Similar prescriptive strategies on safety procedures are seen as “a time-frozen reflection of theoretical and practical knowledge at any given moment and were incomplete as models of practice, and gaps existed between how they were prescribed or imagined (work-as-imagined (WAI)) and their used in practice (work as done (WAD))” (p640)

·        It’s argued that given the paucity of research, “it remains questionable whether they achieved safety or created an illusion of safety through paperwork [8, 16] as safety rules and/or procedures” (p640)

·        The author discusses the model 1 and model 2 perspective of procedures. Model 1 is a rationalist, top-down prescriptive approach developed by experts and where operators are expected to follow. Model 2 is a constructivist, dynamic and socially constructed perspective, where procedures are used as resources for action that can be leveraged and adapted where required.

·        Under model 2, procedures act as cognitive artefacts, e.g. “a memory aid that could be used transforming abstract information into practical actions and amplify those applications” (p641)

·        High Reliability Organisations are said to use procedures as a source of redundancy by providing an additional layer of control and in healthcare organisations procedures have been used to enhance system performance by providing an avenue for collaborative cross-cehcking

·        Background is given on the history of RE and background on WAI and WAD. The author notes that “fostering RE involves understanding clearly how work is performed by workers operating at the sharp end of the risk” (p641)

Results

Some key findings from the data is that various views were held on what SWMS were and for. This included:

·        SWMS were seen as a cognitive artefact

·        As a form of control

·        Acted as a process

·        Provided protection as a tool

Based on the interviews, SWMS was seen to enhance basic safety precautions and practices by prompting one to stop and think about the job at hand. In another way, the SWMS was seen to act as a “correct procedure to be followed” (p643).

For some, the SWMS represented a “game plan of how you should attack the job and then if you follow your [SWMS] … everything should be safe” (p643).

For others, following the SWMS wasn’t sufficient to achieve safety. One person observed somebody getting hurt by following the document. For this person and others, the SWMS was more about the social interactions that follow a SWMS that direct attention towards discussion, communications, connections and re-enforcement of precautions.

This finding was consistent with other work on SWMS (e.g. from David Borys), finding that “SWMS initiated whispers and comments used by supervisors to initiate interactions. It is also consistent with Breslin [14] who identified social benefits were achieved from interactions during the development of SWMS” (p644).

In sum, SWMS are used by workers to provide protection against things going wrong, set expectations about right or wrong ways of acting, acting as a tool by enabling hazard identification, and initiating communication and discussions.

In contrast, a critical view of SWMS was for organisational arse-covering. One interviewee noted that “If something goes wrong, the company here…they can say, well, you didn’t fill your SWMS out properly, so it’s your fault” (p644).

The interrelations of SWMS perspectives and RE

SWMS hold different meanings for different stakeholders and achieve multiple objectives. They note:

·        As a cognitive artefact, SWMS may be useful for transforming abstract into practical actions, acting as a prompt, providing guidance and enabling action. In this way, SWMS can enhance resilient practices.

·        As an instrument of control, they assist in transferring risks or liabilities to others, penalising those who didn’t follow the prescribed process. If this view aligns to controlling and managing the “erratic behaviour of people”, then this view and use of SWMS may impede resilient practices.

·        As a process for auditing, communication and reinforcement of safety measures, SWMS enable collaborative cross-checking. Here SWMS may “reveal underlying assumptions, clarify trade-offs, and create opportunities for exploring new solutions” (p645); eventually enhancing different perspectives and meta-knowledge. These perspectives enhance resilient practices.

·        SWMS in this data were often seen as a tool for risk assessment. It’s argued that “If the sole emphasis of risk assessment is to create the paperwork it can create an ‘illusion of safety’ [16] as more efforts are spent on getting the paperwork right, instead of focussing on what exactly the risks are” (p645).

·        Moreover, “risk assessments are not useful for where an agreed good industry practice is already in place [36]. From the point of view of this para and the previous para, it can impede resilient practices.

·        However, if the emphasis is on encouraging workers to voice additional concerns and pursue alternative practices for controlling risks, then it provides more flexibility and additional slack resources; enhancing resilient practices.

Thus, if SWMS are leveraged as cognitive artefacts and tools to help workers interact with problems (via reading, signing, going over, discussing, ID’ing problems), then SWMS involve a process which allow an agreed manner of work but leaves “considerable degrees of freedom” (p646).

A conceptualisation of how the use of SWMS can impede or enhance resilient potentials is shown below:

In sum, it’s argued that:

·        If SWMS are used as strict prescribed procedures, to constrain human behaviour, then some performance variability may be dampened but so too resilient practices. Thus, “SWMS designed to be used in this manner will hinder RE” (p647). This perspective/use of SWMS is more akin to “action rules” (with an if-then logic)

·        SWMS can act as tool for creating awareness about not only normal hazards and controls but also slack resources; enhancing resilient practices.

·        SWMS can act as a process to encourage thinking about hazards and work and for reviewing the task at hand. This view/use of SWMS is more akin to “process rules”

·        Organisations that leverage safety management strategies, including SWMS, as “an instrument for protection and control will struggle to achieve safety, or RE, by acting as a ‘symbolic barrier’[41] and creating an illusion of safety” (p647)

·        Moreover, “focusing on SWMS as the necessary paperwork for construction risk assessment will not assist in achieving safety, or RE, because the focus will largely be on common hazards and risks for which risk control measures are already known” (p648, emphasis added)

·        Therefore by promoting SWMS as a rule to be followed and emphasising known hazards may “restrict the way workers act on hazards and risks, they have not encountered previously” (p648)

As a way of moving forward, the authors suggests the following:

Author: Pillay, M. (2023). V. G. Duffy et al. (eds.), Human-Automation Interaction, Automation, Collaboration, & E-Services 12.

Study link: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10788-7_36

Link to the LinkedIn article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/resilience-engineering-safe-work-method-statements-ben-hutchinson