How to use the Marginal Gains approach to improve Health & Safety.
Marginal Gains is the process of seeking the 1% improvements that over time aggregate to significant and sustainable performance advantage as illustrated below. Whilst initially improvements are not discernible, over time the effect of these compounds. There will be a number of key elements to this commitment, desire, belief, funding, ability, availability of resources, but a critical element of this will be the availability and analysis of performance data. British Cycling and Team Sky have demonstrated just how effective this can be in driving world class performance. As a keen cyclist and MAMIL, I believe the application of Marginal Gains in any area of Risk Management can deliver sustainable improvements!
When it comes to Safety, perhaps there is not the same motivation in terms of excellence and winning that you get in Sport, and that other drivers such as compliance, protection, defensibility and governance will play a bigger part. There is certainly "funding" (perhaps seen as a cost) but where is the performance return.
So if you were to adopt Marginal Gains as part of your Health and Safety Organisation what would it look like?
An absolute critical component will unquestionably be Performance Data. You cannot sustainably improve your performance without it, so where would this come from?
Performance Data can be an instant bi-product of the Health & Safety Management System, particularly if this is an IT platform, but where would it come from? Here’s some examples:
- Pro-active monitoring of Risk Assessments - regularly structured pro-active monitoring and quantifiable reporting on the operation of Risk Assessment Control Measures – the things that actually deliver a safe environment. Why shouldn’t a business owner be able to quantify Health & Safety performance alongside any other business metric?
- Training – particularly E-Learning – this is producing competency metric and if you’re E-Learning also captures risk exposures in the individuals working environment then you are also getting discrete risk sampling
- Safety Sampling – again any checklist will produce a performance score and is identifying failings or otherwise is underlying systems
- Maintenance Checks – are capable of providing a performance score
All of the above will drive better performance if the data is subject to management analysis and as well as providing data and performance, they will by their operation, be driving behaviour (see how quickly someone becomes focused on their daily activity simply by wearing a “Fitbit” or similar device).
So what else would deliver marginal gains?
- Improved accident investigation and reporting – drives learning from “failure”
- Improved control and management of PPE – both in terms of issue, maintenance and inventory control
- Toolbox talks and risk awareness training – builds understanding and awareness
- Safety briefings – creates team awareness
- Improved housekeeping – environmental factors have a significant impact on performance, whether sporting or social (New York – Broken Windows)
- Business unit performance KPI’s – motivating and recognising performance and aligning management with business objectives
All of the above can be layered in over time with a implementation plan to build incrementally on the other improvements, thus driving the Marginal Gains performance improvement.
So what other wider Performance Improvements could be realised than just the Safety Environment? Talk to Businesses who have already achieved this and realised these gains and they will also list many of the following outcomes:
- Improved Operational Performance
- Improved Employee Engagement
- Reduced Risk Transfer Costs
- Reduced Costs of risk management
- Strengthened Existing Commercial Relationships
- Competitive Advantage in New Contracts/Tenders
- Stronger Due Diligence Performance – for Business Sale or Funding
BCarm Cloud-based Health and Safety Management system can provide the functionality described above.
If you'd like to explore "Marginal Gains" in your risk management process and how that might be achieved, feel free to get in touch by emailing info@bcarm.co.uk or calling 0800 879 9981.
Mark Hutchinson, BEng DipSM MIIRSM FRSPH ProfGradIMMM AMBCI
BCarm Senior Risk Engineer