Ep 9: How certified systems & auditing mask psychosocial issues

We design, implement and certify our safety systems with best intentions. We hope these systems help us to identify and address workplace hazards.

However, is it possible that certified management systems can instead mask particular complex sociotechnical issues, simplifying psychosocial matters into neat, auditable matters, devoid of their depth and nuance?

Can auditing transform functional systems into easily auditable, but less functional, systems?

Today we explore the following paper: Hohnen, P., & Hasle, P. (2011). Making work environment auditable–A ‘critical case’ study of certified occupational health and safety management systems in Denmark. Safety science, 49(7), 1022-1029.

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Intro/Output "Dark Synth Wave" by ElephantGreen(PixaBay.com)

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
Have you ever felt like you're playing a game where the rules
are clear, the score is kept, but the real challenges are
happening off the scoreboard? That could be the case in
workplace safety. We pour resources into certified
safety systems, tracking countless metrics, believing
we're safer. What if these various systems
designed to protect us are creating unhealthy blind spots?

(00:30):
What if, in our pursuit of what's measurable and orbitable,
we're inadvertently turning a blind eye to the more complex,
human and pernicious issues in our organisations?
Think about the invisible, precious, crushing workloads,
the unspoken stresses, the subtle erosion of well being.
These aren't always neat, quantifiable risks, yet they're

(00:52):
happening every single day. This week we're diving into a
paper that argues that our certified safety systems, while
technically compliant to standards and well intentioned,
might be tragically I'll equipped to handle these messy
real world problems. They push us towards auditable
knowledge, reshaping our understanding of safety and
potentially leaving important human issues unaddressed,

(01:14):
festering in the shadows. Good day everyone.
I'm Matt Hutchinson, This is Safe as a podcast dedicated to
the thrifty analysis of safety, risk and performance research.
Visit safetyinsights.org for more research.
Today's paper is making work environment auditable.
A critical case study of certified occupational health

(01:35):
and safety management systems inDenmark by Henry and HASSLE
2011, published in Safety Science.
So this paper investigated and described the impact of
certification on occupational health and safety management
systems or safety management systems and the related audits
including values, the logics of what they were doing and why,

(01:56):
and concerns about the systems for addressing workplace issues
called the environment in this paper.
So if I refer to environment, I mean the work environment.
So what are the methods? They employed a case study
approach focusing on a Danish manufacturing company they
called Metalworks. This company was selected
because it was a high performer implying that any problems found
there would likely exist in other companies very quickly.

(02:19):
The data was gathered through multi methods.
So they used semi structured interviews with diverse
personnel, 10 personnel, they use observations during
meetings, tools and shopful activities.
They use wooden materials like procedures, audit results and
more. Now their analysis, which was
guided by a constructivist perspective, focus on their
certification and external audits transform the sorts of

(02:41):
work that people do and why theydo it.
A constructivist perspective suggests that practises like
auditing aren't neutral or objective tools that simply
measure the world or measure reality or facts.
Instead, they are understood as social processes that actively
shape and produce reality that they are supposed to audit.
Put another way, whereas some perspectives, like positivistic

(03:03):
perspectives, believe that there's a clearly an objective
reality that's observable separate to the observers, you,
me, them constructivists recognise that A a real world
does exist B it's always filtered and interpreted through
the subjective lenses of the observers.
So what did they find? Well, there was a creation of an

(03:25):
audible environment. So certified safety systems
actively create an environment of measurable and audible facts,
driven by external demands for visible standards.
This means the system itself guides what is seen, measured
and reported, often prioritisingwhat could be easily proven.
There was a narrowing knowledge base focus on safety.

(03:47):
The system's knowledge is heavily influenced by
measurability and competitiveness.
This leads to an explicit focus on safety issues, often
discussed first with safety can play with the broader work
environment in the rhetoric, butnot in practise.
In other words, while they talk about the work environment in
practise, they often only deal with the easily quantifiable

(04:08):
safety instance. Furthermore, almost all
performance indicators were safety related, with few
measures measuring long term health hazards or psychosocial
factors. The system converts uncertainty
into easily audible risk management forms.
This shows a clear preference from metrics that fit the audit
criteria over those that reflectwider, more complex risks.

(04:31):
There was a standardisation of conduct and cultural values.
Management promoted order, tardiness, Good Housekeeping as
core safety values, integrating them into tools and discourse.
This also served as a marketing tool for external
accountability, like compulsory PPE was widely enforced,
sometimes overriding professional judgement.

(04:52):
Essentially this means surface level behaviours were
emphasised, even if they didn't always directly address deeper
safety links or worker experience issues.
There was the exclusion of complex psychological and
psychosocial issues. The certified safety system.
Often they collected work environment problems that were
difficult to audit such as job intensity, work pressure, and

(05:15):
employee well being. These complex issues into waving
with production were not easily reduced to visible performance
indicators. This highlights a critical blind
spot where important human factors are simply not captured
by the auditing system, nor are the psychosocial factors well
integrated within the conventional safety management
system approaches. There was a shift from problem

(05:38):
solving to visible accountability.
Certification redirected focus from solving real world
environment problems in the workplace to demonstrating
compliance for external audiences, similar to what Ray
and proven in a safety of work model called Demonstrated Safety
and written systems became validmore for that demonstrable

(05:59):
compliance than for the actual control of issues.
This means the system's purpose often shifts from genuinely
improving safety to merely proving it on paper for external
stakeholders. And finally, there's a
compromise of professional judgement.
The strong emphasis on standardised procedures while
ensuring measurable rules devalued employees professional

(06:22):
judgement and flexibility, potentially contributing to
psychosocial issues. In essence, workers on the
grounds expertise and ability toadapt were undermined by rigid
rules, potentially leading to new problems like workarounds
and silent fixes. So, limitations.
The authors acknowledged that the observed outcomes were not

(06:43):
solely due to the ISO accreditation or auditing
system, but like all resulted from a number of different
factors to do with the organisation, the cultures,
processes and more. Additionally, a study is based
on a single company, so we don'tknow how generalizable the
findings are. Although I should note these
authors have also published later research which both sort

(07:05):
of support some of these findings but also challenges
some of them. Also, I might cover one of them
in the future. So what do we make of the
findings? Well, let's reiterate some of
the key conclusions. First one, certified safety
systems may not address some urgent workplace issues after
excluding complex problems like psychosocial factors and work
intensity. This suggests that relying

(07:28):
solely on certified systems or traditional safety management
system approaches won't automatically solve a company's
biggest human related safety challenges or interpersonal
risks and whatnot. 2 This drive for auditability leads to a
narrow technical understanding of the work environment,
emphasising safety and measurable deviations over
holistic well being. This implies that looking safe

(07:51):
might become more important thanbeing safe in areas that are
hard to quantify. Third, the demand for
standardised solutions while making systems auditable can
compromise professional judgement and flexibility.
Inhibiting work is adaptive abilities on the shop floor or
their risk saving us. So what can we do?

(08:12):
I fear there's no simple silver bullets for these complex
sociotechnical issues. Some might even say wicked
problems. But I think at the least, recent
changes in Australia regarding psychosocial hazards is probably
a great area of focus to make upfor some of these shortfalls in
the SMS approaches. 2 We probably need to resist changing

(08:33):
our systems to accommodate auditors unless there's a clear
reason why we need to change, for instance, goal directed
behaviour. That's it.
On Safe As I'm Ben Hutchinson, please help share, rate and
review and she getsafetyinsights.org for more
research. Finally, feel free to support

(08:54):
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