WILLIAM PESSEMIER
Firefighter deaths and injuries continue to be a problem for the US fire service. Over the last 20 years, the fire service has seen significant improvements in safety standards, equipment, and practices. Despite these changes, firefighter death rates are actually on the increase. From 1995 to 2004, the firefighter death rate increased from 4.94 firefighters per 100,000 fires to 6.64 firefighters per 100,000 fires. This is an increase of 34% in the firefighter death rate over the last ten years, which represents a decrease in the safety performance of the US fire service.
Other high risk occupations have been able to make significant improvements in safety performance by utilizing the concept of safety culture. Safety culture is defined as the ability of individuals or organizations to deal effectively with risk so as to avoid loss and yet still achieve organizational goals. Applied to the fire service, this means that a fire department with a strong safety culture would be able to get the fire out without any firefighter injuries or deaths.
As with organizational culture, safety culture consists of three levels: behaviors, value and beliefs, and underlying assumptions. Behaviors are the practices and actions that firefighters take which are directly related to safety. Examples include the use of seat belts and SCBA, as well as vehicle response practices. Values are the generalized, enduring beliefs about the personal and social desirability of different modes of behavior and different organizational practices. For example, safe practices may not have value for individuals because they do not lead to socially or personally desirable outcomes. In the case of seat belt use, putting a seat belt on may be viewed as getting in the way of operational performance, leading to undesirable personal outcomes.
Underlying assumptions are the unconscious, taken for granted perceptions about what should be done and why. Basic assumptions tell members of the organization how they should perceive, think, and feel about issues and problems. Some of the basicassumptions that may be held in the fire service, for example, include the inability to control risks and hazards on the fireground, the acceptance that firefighting is a hazardous profession that will inevitably lead to some deaths and injuries among firefighters, that the public expects firefighters to take whatever risk is necessary to save fire victims, and that high levels of risk taking result in high levels of operational performance and organizational value.
Various models of safety culture have been used as the basis for analyzing safety performance within high risk occupations. One of these models is called the Reciprocal Determinism Model of safety culture. This model consists of three elements: safety management systems, safety related behaviors, and organizational safety climate. Safety management systems include the policies, structure, process and practices that are used to manage critical safety related behaviors. Safety related behaviors are those practices and actions that are considered to be critical for the safety of organizational members during the course of their work. Organizational safety climate is a reflection of the values and beliefs that members of the organization hold with regard to safety.
In this model, safety performance is improved by developing a strong safety management system and identifying critical safety behaviors. These critical safety behaviors are managed, monitored and reviewed through the safety management system on a regular basis, using the same principles, practices, and techniques employed in quality management. Safety management them becomes a continuous process of improvement, with the principle focus on the prevention of unsafe behaviors that would otherwise lead to accident, incidents, injury or death.
In order to improve the safety performance of the US fire service, it may be useful to examine the potential of the RDM model and how it can be developed for implementation within fire departments. However, it is important to recognize that significant obstacles may limit the use of this model for improving safety performance. Changes in safety performance will require a change in the safety culture of the fire service, a change that may not be compatible with the current identity of the fire service. Typically, when an attempt is made to implement a change that is not consistent with or not congruent with the existing identity of members of an organization, resistance to the change is significant, and can prevent the successful implementation of the change.
Organizational identity consists of two essential components: culture and image. Culture is the internal element of identity and consists of the assumptions, values and practices shared by members of the organization. Culture results in an internal self-definition of the organization. It provides a sense of who we are, what we do, why we are important. Image is the external element of identity and consists of a set of beliefs about the organization held by the people outside of the organization, such as the public, elected officials, and other fire service organizations. Image results in an external definition of the organization or a sense of what other think and feel about us as individual members of the organization and about the organization as a whole.
Attempting to change the safety culture in a fire department has the potential to have a high level of inconsistency with the current identity of the organization. Making a change in safety culture means that some longstanding assumptions will be challenged, that significant values and beliefs will be examined, and that certain behaviors and practices will be modified. As a result, a certain level of resistance can be expected.
Changes that challenge the identity of an organization can result in resistance in the form of defensive behaviors. These defensive behaviors include denial, rationalization, attributional egoism, and self aggrandizement. Denial is used as a way of coping with conflict, anxiety and distress that would otherwise be extremely difficult if not impossible to deal with. Research has suggested that people who engage in denial do so in order to conceal disagreeable truths from themselves and others as an unconscious attempt to maintain individual and collective self-esteem. Rationalization involves the development of justifications for actions that are consistent with the current self-concept. This may include what has been called retrospective sense making, which occurs when individuals provide explanations of their past actions in order to preserve their self-esteem.
Rationalization may sometimes be used along with the concept of attributional egotism, which occurs when people provide self-serving explanations for incidents. These explanations may be self-serving in that unfavorable outcomes are attributed to external factors, while favorable outcomes are attributed to the efforts of the members of the organization. If attributional egotism is present, then self-aggrandizement may not be far behind. This refers to the propensity for people to overstate their accomplishments. Self-aggrandizement can also be accompanied by self-absorption, claims to uniqueness, and feelings of invulnerability.
Several other obstacles must be dealt with if the safety culture of an organization is to be transformed so that safety performance can be improved. These include what has been termed "melioration bias", "rare-event bias", and the cost of safety behaviors. Melioration bias refers to the tendency to assign greater weight to short-term results when making a choice between safe and unsafe action alternatives. The rare event bias concerns the tendency to under-estimate the likelihood of being injured or killed by rare and uncontrollable events. As a result, the short term benefit of unsafe behaviors has greater value than the low probability and long term benefit of safe behaviors, resulting in unsafe acts. In other words, the value of the unsafe acts exceeds the value of safe acts, and is reinforced by the fact that the unsafe acts result in immediate benefits. The long term effect of repeated experience in making the choice to engage in unsafe practices is reinforced learning and development of the shared belief that unsafe practices provide immediate benefits and are the accepted and expected practice within the organization. Unsafe practices then become the norm.
Changing the safety culture within the US fire service begins with one fire department at a time. In order to make that kind of change, fire departments need to understand the concept of safety culture and how changes in safety culture can conflict with existing ideas about identity. It is also important to understand the potential reaction in terms of the defensive behaviors that may result from efforts to change the assumptions, values and behaviors of the organization as part of the development of a more effective safety culture.
In addition, fire departments need to be able to put effective safety management systems in place. Critical safety related behaviors will need to be identified and targeted for monitoring, measurement and review. Departments will also need effective tools and techniques for managing critical safety behaviors, such as Risk Control Systems, Preventive Action Plans, and Corrective Action Plans. Measuring and reviewing safety performance will require the development of active measures of performance so that unsafe practices and behaviors can be reduced or eliminated before they result in injury or death.
Developing a more effective safety culture in the fire service requires the commitment of fire administers to the development and implementation of more effective systems for managing critical safety behaviors. It will also require a commitment of resources in order to sustain a continuous process of safety improvement. Most importantly, it will require the active participation and involvement of the members of the department. Each member of the fire service must be willing to challenge ineffective assumptions; to reprioritize their values; and to support new and more effective safety practices. The end result will be a fire service that provides not only a higher level of safety for the firefighters, but also a higher level of reliability in terms of the services provided to the public. Most importantly, a fire service with a strong safety culture benefits individual firefighters who live longer more productive lives.
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