Managing the difference between safety documentations and at-risk behaviors in the industry

Safety is in behavior, not in documents. An overemphasis on documentation may underemphasize safety in behaviors. A mismatch of HSE documentation with that of ground behaviors would raise many serious doubts. Of course, there are many reasons as to why the safety documentation and ground realities differ in behaviors among Indian organizations. Probably they do not know how to reduce at-risk behaviors and precisely that is why the incidents do not stop. But there are transformations in the attitudes of management and HSE professionals. This article presents the qualitative and quantitative results, discusses the implications, and provides experiential conclusions of 243 HSE professionals to improve safety culture as discussed in this article, to save people from injuries and fatalities. The conclusions for the difference between safety documentation and behavioral reality include shocking factors such as missing safety messages down the levels, safety documentation to make authorities happy, poor adherence to documentation requirements, compromising risk is a regular practice, no review of unsafe behaviors for corrective action, fast businesses delivering incidents, only behavioral awareness program, not planned intervention, and not focusing on the antecedents of safe/unsafe behaviors. Recommendations are reflected for managing the difference between safety documentation and at-risk behaviors in organizations