The 100-Hour Rule is the theory that to master a topic and get the benefits of greatness doesn’t need to take 10,000 hours. Rather, it can often take approximately 100 hours if you break down skills into rare and valuable micro-skills.
It is an exciting study that seems to have some validity to it. Basically, if we spent just 18 minutes a day (100 hours a year), we could master a skill.
Now industrial safety comprises many “skills” of workers expected to work safely. So I propose the following…
Safety is MORE about finding the SAFE BEHAVIORS and acknowledging and rewarding those behaviors than finding the UNSAFE BEHAVIORS and disciplining those behaviors.
I am not saying that we do away with accountability, but we first need to understand what is driving those “errors”, “mistakes”, and “violations”.
Using the 100-hour rule, if we can spend 18 minutes per shift working safely (behaviors that are verified by observations/audits/inspections), then over that year, we will have mastered the skill of working safely. But like I said, working safely requires a lot of different skills based on the varying obstacles workers have to overcome and the different hazards they are exposed to.
But the concept is the same… spend time recognizing the SAFE behaviors/decisions/efforts and COACH around those at least 18 minutes per shift with each worker, and we should begin to see a change in overall performance.
Can the organization commit to finding 18 minutes daily to coach each at-risk worker around the SAFE BEHAVIORS oberserved and reinforce this?
Call it the “18-minute Committment”?
