Remember when “behavioral based safety” was considered revolutionary? We can now say it has been around for quite some time.
BBS originated with the work of Herbert William Heinrich. In the 1930s, Heinrich, who worked for Traveler’s Insurance Company, reviewed thousands of accident reports completed by supervisors and from these drew the conclusion that most accidents, illnesses and injuries in the workplace are directly attributable to “man-failures,” or unsafe actions of workers. Of the reports Heinrich reviewed, 73 percent classified the accidents as “man-failures”; Heinrich himself reclassified another 15 percent into that category, arriving at the still-cited finding that 88 percent of all accidents, injuries and illnesses are caused by worker errors.1