Client Profile: A large, multi-site petrochemical company. The company had a low Lost Time Injury (LTI) rate but was experiencing a high number of minor injuries, property damage incidents, and near misses, indicating a poor underlying safety culture.

The Strategic Challenge: The company’s safety performance had plateaued. Their safety system was procedure-heavy, but incidents were still being caused by at-risk behaviors. A deep-seated “us vs. them” mentality existed between management and the shop floor, and a punitive approach to safety violations meant that near misses and minor incidents were often hidden, preventing organizational learning. The goal was to transition from a compliance-driven culture to a proactive, interdependent safety culture.

VQHSE Approach: Engaged as a long-term consulting partner to design and facilitate a comprehensive culture change program

Phase 1: Diagnostic & Baseline Measurement: Diagnostic phase to understand the existing culture inclusive o

Phase 2: Leadership Alignment & Commitment: We conducted a powerful, two-day “Visible Felt Leadership” workshop for the entire senior leadership team. This was not a standard safety training course; it was an immersive session focused on the psychology of risk, the principles of organizational culture, and the specific leadership behaviors that build trust and psychological safety. Each leader developed a personal, public commitment to safety leadership.

Phase 3: Designing & Implementing a BBS Program: We worked with a “Design Team” of managers, supervisors, and frontline workers to create a bespoke Behavior-Based Safety (BBS) program. This was not an off-the-shelf product.

• The team identified a short list of critical, observable safe (and at-risk) behaviors specific to their operations.
• We trained a cohort of volunteer employees from the shop floor to be peer-to-peer safety observers. The training focused on how to conduct brief, non-confrontational observations and provide immediate, positive or constructive feedback.
• The program was designed to be non-punitive, with all data collected being anonymous and used only for identifying trends and system weaknesses, not for disciplining individuals.

Phase 4: Sustaining & Embedding: We provided ongoing coaching and support. We helped establish a BBS Steering Committee to review the observation data, identify trends (e.g., a high number of at-risk behaviors related to manual handling in a specific department), and address the systemic barriers that were driving those behaviors (e.g., poor workstation design).

Quantifiable Business Benefit: The program had a profound cultural impact. Within the first year, the number of proactive safety conversations logged by the BBS observers exceeded 5,000. The data from these observations allowed the company to focus their improvement efforts with precision. They re-designed two packaging lines based on feedback, eliminating over 60% of the manual handling risks in that area. The trust built through the non-punitive program led to a 400% increase in the reporting of near misses. This wealth of proactive data, combined with engaged leadership, resulted in the company achieving a 75% reduction in their Total Recordable Injury Rate (TRIR) over a three-year period.

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