We design, implement and ISO-certify our safety systems with best intentions. We hope these systems help us to identify and address workplace hazards.
However, is it possible that certified management systems can instead mask particular complex sociotechnical issues, simplifying psychosocial matters into neat, auditable matters, devoid of their depth and nuance?
Can auditing transform functional systems into easily auditable, but less functional, systems?
Today we explore the following paper: Hohnen, P., & Hasle, P. (2011). Making work environment auditable–A ‘critical case’ study of certified occupational health and safety management systems in Denmark. Safety science, 49(7), 1022-1029.
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Transcription:
Have you ever felt like you’re playing a game where the rules are clear, the score is kept, but the real challenges are happening off the scoreboard? That could very well be the case in workplace safety. We pour resources into certified safety systems, tracking countless metrics, believing we’re safer. But what if these very systems, designed to protect us, are creating unhealthy blind spots?
What if, in pursuit of what’s measurable and auditable, we’re inadvertently turning a blind eye to the more complex, human, and pernicious issues in our organizations? Think about the invisible pressures, crushing workloads, the unspoken stresses, the subtle erosion of well-being. These aren’t always neat, quantifiable risks, yet they’re happening every single day.
This week, we’re diving into a paper that argues our certified safety systems, while technically compliant to standards and well-intentioned, might be tragically ill-equipped to handle these messy, real-world problems. They push us towards auditable knowledge, reshaping our understanding of safety and potentially leaving important human issues unaddressed, festering in the shadows.
G’day everyone, I’m Ben Hutchinson. This is Safe As, a podcast dedicated to the thrifty analysis of safety, risk, and performance research. Visit safetyinsights.org for more research.
Today’s paper is “Making Work Environment Auditable: A Critical Case Study of Certified Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems in Denmark” by Honu and Hassel, 2011, published in Safety Science.
So, this paper investigated and described the impact of certification on occupational health and safety management systems (or safety management systems) and the related audits. This included values, the logics of what they were doing and why, and concerns about the systems for addressing workplace issues – what they called the “environment” in this paper. So, if I refer to “environment,” I mean the work environment.
So, what were the methods? They employed a case study approach, focusing on a Danish manufacturing company they called Metalworks. This company was selected because it was a high performer, implying that any problems found there would likely exist in other companies.
The data was gathered through multi-methods. They used semi-structured interviews with diverse personnel (10 personnel). They used observations during meetings, tours, and shop floor activities. They also utilized written materials like procedures and audit results.
Now, their analysis, which was guided by a constructivist perspective, focused on how certification and external audits transform the sorts of work that people do and why they do it. A constructivist perspective suggests that practices like auditing aren’t neutral or objective tools that simply measure the world, or measure reality or facts. Instead, they are understood as social processes that actively shape and produce the reality that they are supposed to audit.
Put another way, whereas some perspectives, like positivistic perspectives, believe that there is clearly an objective reality that’s observable, separate from the observers (you, me, them), constructivists recognize that, A, a real world does exist, but B, it’s always filtered and interpreted through the subjective lenses of the observers.
So, what did they find?
Well, there was a creation of an auditable environment. Certified safety systems actively create an environment of measurable and auditable facts, driven by external demands for visible standards. This means the system itself guides what is seen, measured, and reported, often prioritizing what can be easily proven.
There was a narrowing of knowledge-based focus on safety. The system’s knowledge is heavily influenced by measurability and competitiveness. This leads to an explicit focus on safety issues, often discussed first with safety conflated with the broader work environment in the rhetoric, but not in practice. In other words, while they talk about the work environment, in practice, they often only deal with the easily quantifiable safety incidents.
Furthermore, almost all auditable performance indicators were safety-related, with few measures addressing long-term health hazards or psychosocial factors. The system converts uncertainty into easily auditable risk management forms. This shows a clear preference for metrics that fit the audit criteria, rather than those that reflect wider, more complex risks.
There was a standardization of conduct and cultural values. Management promoted order, tidiness, and good housekeeping as core safety values, integrating them into tools and discourse. This also served as a marketing tool for external accountability. For example, compulsory PPE was widely enforced, sometimes overriding professional judgment. Essentially, surface-level behaviors were emphasized, even if they didn’t always directly address deeper safety links or worker experience issues.
There was the exclusion of complex psychological and psychosocial issues. The certified safety system often neglected work environment problems that were difficult to audit, such as job intensity, work pressure, and employee well-being. These complex issues, interwoven with production, were not easily reduced to visible performance indicators. This highlights a critical blind spot where important human factors are simply not captured by the auditing system, nor are the psychosocial factors well-integrated within conventional safety management system approaches.
There was a shift from problem-solving to visible accountability. Certification redirected focus from solving real-world environment problems in the workplace to demonstrating compliance for external audiences, similar to what Drew Rae and David Provan describe in their “Safety of Work” model called ‘demonstrate safety.’ Management systems became valued more for their demonstrable compliance than for the actual control of issues. This means the system’s purpose often shifts from genuinely improving safety to merely proving it on paper for external stakeholders.
And finally, there was a compromise of professional judgment. The strong emphasis on standardized procedures, while ensuring measurable rules, devalued employees’ professional judgment and flexibility, potentially contributing to psychosocial issues. In essence, workers on the ground’s expertise and ability to adapt were undermined by rigid rules, potentially leading to new problems like workarounds and silent fixes.
So, what were the limitations of this study? The authors acknowledged that the observed outcomes were not solely due to the ISO accreditation or auditing system, but likely resulted from a number of different factors to do with the organization, its cultures, processes, and more. Additionally, the study is based on a single company, so we don’t know how generalizable the findings are. Although I should note, these authors have also published later research which both supports some of these findings but also challenges some of them also. I might cover one of them in the future.
So, what do we need to take from the findings? Well, let’s reiterate some of the key conclusions first:
- Certified safety systems may not address some urgent workplace issues, often excluding complex problems like psychosocial factors and work intensity. This suggests that relying solely on certified systems or traditional safety measurement system approaches won’t automatically solve a company’s biggest human-related safety challenges or interpersonal risks and whatnot.
- This drive for auditability leads to a narrow technical understanding of the work environment, emphasizing safety and measurable deviations over holistic well-being. This implies that looking safe might become more important than being safe in areas that are hard to quantify.
- The demand for standardized solutions, while making systems auditable, can compromise professional judgment and flexibility, inhibiting workers’ adaptive abilities on the shop floor or their risk-saviness.
So, what can we do? I fear there are no simple silver bullets for these complex socio-technical issues. Some might even say they are “wicked problems.” But, I think at the least, recent changes in Australia regarding psychosocial hazards is probably a great area of focus to make up for some of these shortfalls in the safety management system approaches.
Secondly, we’d probably need to resist changing our systems to accommodate auditors, unless there’s a clear reason why we need to change. For instance, goal-directed behavior.
That’s it on Safe As. I’m Ben Hutchinson. Please help share, rate, and review, and check out safetyinsights.org for more research. Finally, feel free to support Safe As by shouting a coffee – link in the show notes.
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