Toolbox Talk: Basic Elements of Safe Behavior
Education is an essential element in changing safety behavior. Knowledge, skill, and attitude are three key ingredients of the learning process. When expressed as a triangular model, with the balance between each ingredient, safe behavior is the result. Let’s take a closer look at each of the three key ingredients in safety behavior:
Knowledge
The understanding of how to complete a task or operate a process or machine properly.
Skill
The ability to complete a task or operate a process.
Attitude
The desire to safely complete a task or operate a process or machine properly.
For example, would you want a forklift operator who has an excellent attitude, and has obtained knowledge about the equipment by reading the operating manual but lacks the skill to run the machine properly due to lack of experience, placing 2,000 pounds of bricks on a scaffold you are working on?
Another example would be a painter applying solvent-based paint with a sprayer. The worker knows how to operate the sprayer properly, and the skill to choose the correct paint and apply it properly, but does he have the attitude to inform others on the site of the hazards of the paint he is using? Is his poor attitude exposing other workers to hazards without their knowledge and demonstrating unbalanced safety behavior?
In both examples, one of the three key elements is missing, which results in unbalanced safety behavior. To help maintain balanced safety behavior, be sure you have all three ingredients covered.
Knowledge: Read the owner’s manual, instruction manuals, and applicable standards, and ask questions.
Skill: Don’t take on more than you can handle. Skill is acquired through hands-on demonstrations, on-the-job training, and by knowing your limits.
Attitude: If you are not motivated to work safely to protect yourself and other workers, you should not be on the job site. Attitude is a state of mind that can be affected by many outside sources. Positive attitudes produce positive results.
