Comparative analysis of creative and classic training methods in health,safety and environment (HSE)participation improvementI.Mohammad Fam a ,*,H.Nikoomaram b ,A.Soltanian caDepartment of Occupational Health and Safety,Faculty of Health,Hamadan University of Medical Sciences,Iran bDepartment of HSE,Science and Research Branch,Islamic Azad University,Tehran,Iran cDepartment of Bio Statistics and Epidemiology,Faculty of Health,Hamadan University of Medical Sciences,Irana r t i c l e i n f oArticle history:Received 5June 2011Received in revised form 7November 2011Accepted 7November 2011Keywords:SafetyParticipation Training CreativeInterventiona b s t r a c tThe increasing trend of deaths and injuries in industries has led their authorities to develop accident investigation plans.One of the underlying aspects of such plans is hazard identi fication and incidents reporting which can be met by an appropriate employees ’participation.So far,several studies have con firmed the effect of training in participation improvement.So the main objective of the present study was to compare two training approaches,classic and creative,in improving health,safety and envi-ronment (HSE)supervisors ’participation.The study was carried out in an Iranian petrochemical complex where the safety supervisors had been encouraged to report incidents through the Green Card system.Classic and creative training approaches were applied to increase supervisors ’participation.To do so,the supervisors were divided into Case and Control groups.In order to determine the level of supervisors ’participation,the mean of completed green cards by each person at six month intervals was used.In this way,the level of participation in the two groups was measured before,during and after the intervention.To analyze the results,Student ’s t -test,Longitudinal Data Analysis and Mixed Model were employed.The results showed that both during and after the intervention,the effect of the creative approach was more than that of the classic approach.After twelve months of intervention stop,the participation trend in both groups was downward.However,this decrease was only signi ficant in the control group.To conclude,the creative approach emphasizing on the participatory training could be an effective approach in improving the safety and consequently the health of supervisors in industries.Ó2011Elsevier Ltd.All rights reserved.1.IntroductionWork related accidents are one of the most important problems being faced by industries (Aksorn &Hadikusumo,2008;Cheng,Leu,Lin,&Fan,2010).Researches on occupational accidents con firm the negative impacts these events have on their victims,families,co-workers and the whole society (Azadeh &Mohammad Fam,2009;Chi,Chang,&Ting,2005).Apart from the humanitarian aspect of reducing occupational deaths and injuries in developing countries,a strong case can be made for reducing work related accidents on economic grounds alone,as they consume massive financial resources that the countries can ill afford to lose (Boden &Galizzi,1999;Keller,2001;Koegh,Nuwayhid,Gordon,&Gucer,2000;Ramessur,2009;Weil,2001).The total number of work related accidents each year has grown to an estimated 125million worldwide (Kirschenbaum,Ludmilla,&Goldberg,2000).Workplace deaths comprise 0.9%of all disability adjusted for life years (DALY ’s)in the world (13.1million)and 16%of inadvertent DALY ’s occurs in working group with 15e 69years old.It is noteworthy that more than 11.3million US employees are seriously injured,and nearly 11,000are killed on the job (Hämäläinen,Takala,&Saarela,2006;Salminen,2008).In Iran,there are not accurate statistics of all work related accidents since the accidents are not fully reported and recorded.Moreover,many Iranian workers are not insured against occupa-tional injuries.However,in the year 2000,about 724,000burns,2,810,000falls,425,000violence cases and 2million traf fic acci-dents were reported (DHS,2000,p.10).The number of deaths is estimated to be about 25,365(DHS,2000,p.10).The increasing trends of deaths and injuries in both developed and developing countries have led industries to accurately inves-tigate the accidents in order to maintain preventive mechanisms (Hämäläinen,Saarela,&Takala,2009;Hintikka &Saarela,2010;*Corresponding author.Tel.:þ988118255963;fax:þ988118255301.E-mail addresses:mohammadfam@umsha.ac.ir (I.M.Fam),h.nikoomaram@srbiau.ac.ir (H.Nikoomaram),a_sultanian@ (A.Soltanian).Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirectJournal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industriesjou rn al homepage :/locate/jlp0950-4230/$e see front matter Ó2011Elsevier Ltd.All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.jlp.2011.11.003Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 25(2012)250e 253Ooteghem,2006).To do so,it is required to identify workplace hazards and to report incidents’data including near-misses and accidents(Baybutt,2003;Einarsson&Brynjarsson,2008;Jacinto& Aspinwall,2004;Nouri,Azadeh,Mohammad Fam,&Azadeh,2007). Although it is necessary for all employees at different organiza-tional levels to participate in incidents reporting,evidence from industries suggests that the involvement of supervisors is of a great importance(Barach&Small,2000).Supervisors have comprehen-sive knowledge about their workplace and in many instances they provide applied solutions to accident prevention.Further,involving supervisors in accident prevention decisions builds trust, commitment and good will,which leads to increased job satisfac-tion and ultimately improved health,safety and environmental (HSE)performance(Probst&Estrada,2010;Seppala,1995).One of the basic principles of participation promoting is proved to be appropriate education and training conducted in different methods (Limbo,Peterson,&Pridham,2003;Rooney,1992;Seppala,1995).Although several studies have confirmed the effect of training in participation improvement(Fakhrul Razi,Iyuke,Hassan,&Aini, 2003;Mohammad Fam&Moghimbeigi,2009;Rall,Ev,& Staender,2011),there have not been researches on comparison of different training methods as well as determining their consistency. Assessment of consistency would help HSE managers to plan refresher courses effectively(Hung&Huyen,2011).Therefore,the main objective of the present study is to compare two training approaches,classic and creative,in improving HSE supervisors’participation.Moreover,the study identifies the increase of the level of participation,i.e.the increase in the mean of completed hazards and incidents report cards by each supervisor,in the two approaches and determines the consistency of the trainings.2.Material and methodsThe present study was carried out in an Iranian petrochemical complex where the safety supervisors had been encouraged to report workplace hazards,near-misses and minor accidents through the“Green Card”system.In this system,the supervisors filled in the cards and put them into special boxes.The cards then were submitted to the specialized committee and if approved,the award of5e20US dollars was given to the supervisors to reward them for reporting incidents.To assess the level of supervisors’participation in the green card system,the means of cards completed by supervisors were calculated in thefirst and the second six months of2008.Two training approaches were applied to increase supervisors’participation.To do so,the supervisors were divided into Case and Control groups,containing40and35male individuals,respectively. Table1shows the details of the supervisors under study.Each group was trained12months(4h per month).The training main syllabuses included hazard identification and incidents reporting through the green card system.In this way,supervisors were trained how to identify hazards,near-misses and minor accidents,to report them andfinally to follow up the corrective measures.The Fishbowl and Samoan Circle methods,which are considered as a creative approach,were used to train the case group in the above issues while the classic approach was used for the control group.It is noteworthy that the creative training approach helps trainees to use their ability and imagination to produce new ideas in a participatory environment whereas in the classic approach the trainees have no participation in the training process(Mohammad Fam,Simayee,&Zolnoornia,2009,p.65).Fishbowls involve a small group of people seated in circle and having a conversation(fish).They are surrounded by a larger group of observers,seated in an outer circle(bowl).The facilitator gives a short input of5e10min which sets out the general outline of the discussion and after that the inner circle starts to discuss.The outer circle usually listens and observes.Whenever someone wants to contribute and move to the inner circle,a participant from the fishbowl must free a chair and move to the outer circle.At the end of the session,a debriefing is held in a whole group conversation.The Samoan Circle is a leaderless meeting intended to help negotiations in controversial issues.While there is no‘leader’, a professional facilitator can welcome participants and explain the seating arrangements,rules,timelines and the process.The Samoan Circle has people seated in a circle within a circle,however only those in the inner circle are allowed to speak.The inner circle should represent all the different viewpoints present,and all others must remain silent.The process offers others a chance to speak only if they join the‘inner circle’.Descriptive statistics were used to explain the data.In order to determine the level of supervisors’participation,the mean of completed green cards by each person at six month intervals was used.In this way,the level of participation in the two groups was measured after six and twelve months during the intervention. Furthermore,the measurement was exactly repeated after the intervention was stopped.Table1Details of the supervisors.Case group Control groupNumber of supervisors4035Average age(year)28.15Æ3.0430.62Æ2.45Average work experience(year)7.11Æ2.67.74Æ2.2Average salary(US Dollar)571.37Æ108.21584.61Æ84.35Holding high school Diploma27.1%31.2%Holding BSc/BA50.4%49%Holding MSc/MA and higher22.5%19.8%Table2Comparison of supervisors’participation before,during and after the intervention.Period Year Group Mean Standard deviation P e valueBefore the intervention2008First6months e 2.37 2.470.037a(3.142*,110.506**)Second6months 1.75 1.16During the intervention2009First6months Case 3.29 1.710.021b(2.03*,61.184**)Control 2.58 1.23Second6months Case 3.83 1.29<0.001b(3.56*,73**)Control 3.4 1.49After the intervention2010First6months Case 4.04 1.130.4b(2.581*,72.93**)Control 3.98 2.36Second6months Case 3.69 1.940.001b(3.27*,73**)Control 2.02 1.59*Denotes independent t value;**Denotes degree of freedom.a Denote P-value based on twoÀtailed.b Denote P-value based on oneÀtailed test.I.M.Fam et al./Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries25(2012)250e253251The trend of supervisors ’participation was shown through application of Spline Smoothing method.Student ’s t -test was used to compare the means of supervisors ’participation in case and control groups.Two-tailed hypothesis test was applied to compare the means of participation level and one-tailed hypothesis test was used to determine the increase or decrease in the supervisors ’participation average.To determine the relationship between such variables as salary,educational level etc and supervisors ’partici-pation in the two groups,Longitudinal Data Analysis and Mixed Model were employed and the data gathered was analyzed using R2.12.1software.All statistical tests were performed at the 0.05level of signi ficance.3.ResultsAs mentioned in section 2,the mean of completed green cards by each supervisor at six month intervals was used to measure the level of their participation.Table 2compares the level of supervi-sors ’participation before,during and after the intervention.It is noteworthy that in 2008,there was no intervention,i.e.no case/control group,and the level of supervisors ’participation was only assessed.As Table 2shows,before the intervention,the level of supervi-sors ’participation signi ficantly decreased in the second six months comparing with the first six months (p <0.05).During the inter-vention,the increase of participation in the case group was signi ficantly more than the control group and this happened after both the first and the second six months (p <0.05).However,comparing first 2009with second 2009,the increase of mean values in the control group was more than that of the case group.At first sight,this may look rather strange but the launch of Targeted Subsidies Scheme in Iran in the second six months of 2009and consequently public concerns about increasing of living costs seem to be the main reason.In this way,control group members,who were less-educated and low-paid workers,were trying to submit more green cards,thus to be awarded more.In other words,they found it as a way of income rise.Targeted Subsidies Scheme also resulted in increasing the participation level in the control group comparing with the case group after the first six months of stopping the intervention,although this increase was not signi ficant.After one year of the Scheme implementation (in second 2010)public concerns about its consequences were removed so in this period the level of partici-pation in the case group was signi ficantly more than the control group (p <0.05).Fig.1shows the trend of the case and control participation levels in the three years.Finally,after twelve months of stopping the intervention,the trend of supervisors ’participation in the two groups wasdownward.As the P -values con firm the decrease of participation was only signi ficant in the control group (Table 3).However,more surveys would be needed to strongly con firm more consistency of the creative trainings.Meanwhile,no relationship was observed between the super-visors ’age/work experience and their participation level while the relationship between the amounts of salary/education and the participation mean was signi ficant (p <0.05).4.DiscussionWork related accidents are of a great importance to the public health spectrum around the world (Kirschenbaum et al.,2000;Mohammad Fam &Moghimbeigi,2009).In developing countries such as Iran,the mortality and disability rates resulting from work related accidents are rather high in comparison with developed countries (Hämäläinen,2009;Maghsoudi &Gabraely,2008;McAlinden,Sitoh,&Norman,1997).Facing this fact and realizing the negative effects of occupational accidents on the whole society,Iranian researchers,industries authorities and safety engineers have conducted research and developed measures to evaluate and consequently to improve workplace safety (Azadeh,Keramati,Mohammad Fam,&Jamshidnedjad,2006;McAlinden et al.,1997).So far,guidelines to develop occupational safety measures have classi fied measures into groups based on their oriented objectives (Mohammad Fam,2006).Such systems as 3E (engineering,enforcement and education)are currently being applied to assess and to enhance workplace safety in Iran (Mohammad Fam,2007).As outlined above,education and training are the basic elements focusing on human factors and aiming at employees ’behavior change in line with safety improvement (Lingrad,2002;Swuste &Arnoldy,2003).Thus,training activities which serves to promote employees ’participation,as a sign of behavior change,are considered necessary to both workplace and personnel safety and health protection and improvement (Bell &Grushecky,2006;Lingard &Holmes,2001).The findings of the study revealed that the two trainings resulted in promoting supervisors ’participation in incidents reporting both during and after the intervention.This result is similar to the findings of Inness,Turner,Barling,and Stride (2010)and of Sanaei Nasab,Ghofranipour,Kazemnejad,Khavanin,and Tavakoli (2008).The study also con firmed that both during and after the inter-vention,the effectiveness of the creative approach was more than that of the classic approach.The reason behind this is the emphasis of creative trainings on the participatory approach (Culvenor &Else,1997;Otsuka,Misawa,Noguchi,&Yamaguchi,2010).By partici-pating in the case group,the supervisors increased their ability to improve their work condition and were motivated to participate in the problem solving process.Moreover,after six months of stopping the intervention,the participation increasing trend in the two groups still continued although its pace was slower.After twelve months of intervention stop,the participation trend in both groups was downward.However,this decrease was only signi ficant in the controlgroup.Fig.1.Trend of the case and control participation levels in the three years.Table 3Comparison of supervisors ’participation after 6and 12months of intervention stop.Group6months 12months Meandifference P e value (one-tailed)Mean ÆSDMean ÆSD Case 4.04Æ1.13 3.69Æ1.940.350.712(0.562a ,68b )Control3.98Æ2.262.02Æ1.591.960.023(1.366a ,78b )a Denotes independent t value.bDenotes degree of freedom.I.M.Fam et al./Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 25(2012)250e 253252This implies that the consistency of creative trainings was more than that of the classic ones.The case group awareness and perception of participation necessity through intra-group interac-tions,discussions and team works may be one of its main reasons. However,more surveys would be needed to strongly confirm more consistency of the creative trainings.The result is similar to the findings of Chang and Liao(2009).The study of Edwards(2005) also mentioned that the effects of trainings decreased after a year when they were stopped.Hung and Huyen(2011)suggested managers conduct refresher courses to increase the consistency of trainings.Moreover,the study of Matthews,Gallus,and Henning (2011)confirmed the more consistency of participatory trainings.Thefindings of the study showed there was a significant rela-tionship between employees’salary/education and their partici-pation level.Since the correlation coefficient of the mentioned variables was high(r¼0.86),this can be inferred that highly paid supervisors were more educated,thus more aware of workplace hazards and of their roles in controlling such hazards through participation.Moreover,higher salary may also promote supervi-sors to take responsibility of their role of encouraging safety management activities.This result confirms thefindings of Eklöf, Ingelgård,and Hagberg(2004)and of Rivilis et al.(2008).5.ConclusionsFinally,the present research demonstrated that all steps of the participatory training aim at promoting the supervisors’capacity to self development in safety aspects.As a result,the creative approach emphasizing on the participatory training could be an effective approach in improving the safety and consequently the health of supervisors in developing countries.In other words,this approach would help motivate these groups to voluntarily engage in improving quality of their working life.ReferencesAksorn,T.,&Hadikusumo,B.H.W.(2008).Critical success factors influencing safety program performance in Thai construction projects.Safety Science,46,709e727. Azadeh,A.,Keramati,A.,Mohammad Fam,I.,&Jamshidnedjad,B.(2006).Enhancing the availability and reliability of power plants through macroergonomics approach.Journal Of Scientific&Industrial Research India,65,873e878. Azadeh,A.,&Mohammad Fam,I.(2009).The evaluation of importance of safety behaviors in a steel manufacturer by entropy.Journal of Research in Health Sciences,9,10e18.Barach,P.,&Small,S.D.(2000).Reporting and preventing medical mishaps:lessons from non-medical near miss reporting systems.British Medical Journal,320, 759e763.Baybutt,P.(2003).Major hazards analysis e an improved process hazard analysis method.Process Safety Progress,22,21e26.Bell,J.L.,&Grushecky,S.T.(2006).Evaluating the effectiveness of a logger safety training program.Journal of Safety Research,37,53e61.Boden,L.I.,&Galizzi,M.(1999).Economic consequences of workplace injuries and illnesses:lost earnings and benefit adequacy.American Journal of Industrial Medicine,36,487e503.Chang,Y.H.,&Liao,M.Y.(2009).The effect of aviation safety education on passenger cabin safety awareness.Safety Science,47,1337e1345.Cheng,C.W.,Leu,S.S.,Lin,C.C.,&Fan,C.(2010).Characteristic analysis of occupa-tional accidents at small construction enterprises.Safety Science,48,698e707. Chi, C. F.,Chang,T. C.,&Ting,H.I.(2005).Accident patterns and prevention measures for fatal occupational falls in the construction industry.Applied Ergonomics,36,391e400.Culvenor,J.,&Else,D.(1997).Finding occupational injury solutions:the impact of training in creative thinking.Safety Science,25,187e205.Demographic and Health Survey(DHS).(2000).Population and health in the Islamic Republic of Iran.Tehran:The Ministry of Health and Medical Education and the UNICEF.10e34.Edwards,D.W.(2005).Export inherent safety NOT risk.Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries,18,254e260.Einarsson,S.,&Brynjarsson,B.(2008).Improving human factors,incident and accident reporting and safety management systems in the Seveso industry.Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries,21,550e554.Eklöf,M.,Ingelgård,A.,&Hagberg,M.(2004).Is participative ergonomics associated with better working environment and health?A study among Swedish white-collar VDU users.International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics,34,355e366.Fakhrul Razi,A.,Iyuke,S.E.,Hassan,M.B.,&Aini,M.S.(2003).Who learns when workers are trained?A case of safety training of maintenance contractors’workers for a major petrochemical plant shutdown.Process Safety and Envi-ronmental Protection,81,44e51.Hämäläinen,P.(2009).The effect of globalization on occupational accidents.Safety Science,47,733e742.Hämäläinen,P.,Saarela,K.L.,&Takala,J.(2009).Global trend according to esti-mated number of occupational accidents and fatal work-related diseases at region and country level.Journal of Safety Research,40,125e139.Hämäläinen,P.,Takala,J.,&Saarela,K.L.(2006).Global estimates of occupational accidents.Safety Science,44,137e156.Hintikka,N.,&Saarela,K.L.(2010).Accidents at work related to violence-analysis of Finnish national accident statistics database.Safety Science,48,517e525. Hung,K.V.,&Huyen,L.T.(2011).Education influence in traffic safety:a case study in Vietnam.IATSS Research,34,87e93.Inness,M.,Turner,N.,Barling,J.,&Stride,C.B.(2010).Transformational leadership and employee safety performance:a within-person,between-jobs design.Journal of Occupational Health Psychology,15,279e290.Jacinto,C.,&Aspinwall,E.(2004).A survey on occupational accidents’reporting and registration systems in the European Union.Safety Science,42,933e960. Keller,S.D.(2001).Quantifying social consequences of occupational injuries and illnesses:state of the art and research agenda.American Journal of Industrial Medicine,40,438e451.Kirschenbaum,A.,Ludmilla,O.,&Goldberg,A.I.(2000).Well being,work envi-ronment and work accidents.Social Science&Medicine,50,631e639. Koegh,J.P.,Nuwayhid,I.,Gordon,J.,&Gucer,P.W.(2000).The impact of occupa-tional injury on injured worker and family:outcomes of upper extremity cumulative trauma disorders in Maryland workers.American Journal of Indus-trial Medicine,38,498e506.Limbo,R.,Peterson,W.,&Pridham,K.(2003).Promoting safety of young children with guided participation processes.Journal of Pediatric Health Care,17,245e251. Lingard,H.,&Holmes,N.(2001).Understandings of occupational health and safety risk control in small business constructionfirms:barriers to implementing technological controls.Construction Management and Economics,19,217e226. Lingrad,H.(2002).The effect offirst aid training on Australian construction workers’occupational health and safety motivation and risk control behavior.Journal of Safety Research,33,209e230.Maghsoudi,H.,&Gabraely,N.(2008).Epidemiology and outcome of121cases of chemical burn in east Azarbaijan province,Iran.Injury,39,1042e1046. Matthews,R.A.,Gallus,J.A.,&Henning,R.A.(2011).Participatory ergonomics: development of an employee assessment questionnaire.Accident Analysis& Prevention,43,360e369.McAlinden,L.P.,Sitoh,P.J.,&Norman,P.W.(1997).Integrated information modelling strategies for safe design in the process puters& Chemical Engineering,21,S619e S624.Mohammad Fam,I.(2006).Epidemiological evaluation of fatal occupational accidents and estimation of related human costs in Tehran.Tabib-e-Shargh,4,299e307. Mohammad Fam,I.(2007).Estimation of Fatal occupational accident human costs in Tehran.Faize,1,61e66.Mohammad Fam,I.,&Moghimbeigi, A.(2009).Evaluation of injuries amonga manufacturing industry staff in Iran.Journal of Research in Health Sciences,9,7e12. Mohammad Fam,I.,Simayee,N.,&Zolnoornia,M.(2009).Creativity in health,safety and environment.Tehran:Fan Avaran.65e73.Nouri,J.,Azadeh,A.,Mohammad Fam,I.,&Azadeh,M.A.(2007).Integrated health, safety,environment and ergonomic management systems for industry.Journal of Research in Health Sciences,7,32e42.Ooteghem,P.V.(2006).Work-related injuries and illnesses in Botswana.Interna-tional Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health,12,42e51.Otsuka,Y.,Misawa,R.,Noguchi,H.,&Yamaguchi,H.(2010).A consideration for using workers’heuristics to improve safety rules based on relationships between creative mental sets and rule-violating actions.Safety Science,48,878e884. Probst,T.M.,&Estrada,A.X.(2010).Accident under-reporting among employees: testing the moderating influence of psychological safety climate and supervisor enforcement of safety practices.Accident Analysis&Prevention,42,1438e1444. Rall,M.,Ev,Gessel,&Staender,S.(2011).Education,teaching&training in patient safety.Best Practice&Research Clinical Anaesthesiology,25,251e262. Ramessur,T.S.(2009).Economic cost of occupational accidents:evidence froma small island economy.Safety Science,47,973e979.Rivilis,I.,Eerd,D.V.,Cullen,K.,Cole,D.C.,Irvin,E.,Tyson,J.,et al.(2008).Effec-tiveness of participatory ergonomic interventions on health outcomes:a systematic review.Applied Ergonomics,39,342e358.Rooney,P.M.(1992).Employee ownership and worker participation:effects on health and safety.Economics Letters,39,323e328.Salminen,S.(2008).Two interventions for the prevention of work-related road accidents.Safety Science,46,545e550.Sanaei Nasab,H.,Ghofranipour,F.,Kazemnejad,A.,Khavanin,A.,&Tavakoli,R.(2008).The effect of safety education on promote in petrochemical workers’safe behavior.European Journal of Scientific Research,23,167e176.Seppala,A.(1995).Promoting safety by training supervisors and safety represen-tatives for daily safety work.Safety Science,20,317e322.Swuste,P.,&Arnoldy,F.(2003).The safety adviser/manager as agent of organisa-tional change:a new challenge to expert training.Safety Science,41,15e27. Weil,D.(2001).Valuing the economic consequences of work injury and illness:a comparison of methods andfindings.American Journal of Industrial Medicine,40,418e437.I.M.Fam et al./Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries25(2012)250e253253。
