Comment on the possible reasons why the behavioural change programme was not successful at PrintUp.

Steering group meetings

Six of the observers do not attend the first steering group meeting, including the supervisor. You learn that each observation is taking approximately $45$ minutes to complete and is done during the observer's morning shifts. Observers who attend say that lots of concerning behaviour has been identified. One example was where a group of workers were not using designated walkways. One of these workers narrowly avoided a collision with a moving FLT$.$ Observers tell you that they tried to correct the behaviour, but one of the workers just said, "the supervisors do it$,$ so why shouldn't I?" Another observer said that they had seen a shopfloor worker being lifted by an FLT to reach some racking. They did not challenge this by giving observation feedback, as they thought that this issue was already being dealt with.

A month later, the second steering group meeting has better attendance. During this meeting you discuss a near miss that was observed. The observer saw an experienced worker attempting to identify and repair an intermittent fault with one of the printing presses. Their hand was almost trapped between the rollers of the printing press while trying to find the fault. The observer quickly pressed the emergency stop button and told the experienced worker that they should switch off the printing press and wait for maintenance to fix the fault. The observer then asked the worker to report the fault and log the near miss. The worker responded by saying "what's the point? The forms take too long to fill in and nothing ever gets done anyway". During the meeting, a disagreement then starts between the supervisor and another observer. The supervisor says that the experienced worker was right in trying to get the machine working again, rather than waiting for maintenance.

The conversation quickly turns to a discussion of the checklist. An observer tells you that they made notes on the checklist where they had observed safe behaviour. Feeling encouraged, you look at the checklist but notice no feedback was given. You ask the observer why, and they tell you that they thought 'good' behaviour did not need attention, only 'bad'. They then say that they had given many workers a stern warning when unsafe behaviour was observed. At the end of this meeting, you collect all of the checklists to see if you can identify any trends in behaviours. The information is limited$,$ as many of the weekly observations over the past month have not been fully completed.

By the sixth month, you notice even fewer observations are being made. Some of the observers tell you that their supervisors had said that there was not enough time to complete them due to other deadlines. Others admitted that they did not like observing other workers, as they were their friends. You decide to do some observations yourself. During these, you find many workers seem to be working at a much slower rate. You notice that all these workers are wearing gloves and other items of personal protective equipment that you know they would not normally wear. A worker approaches you and tells you that they are glad to see you doing the observations, as some other observer had been rude and domineering. The worker says that they have been removed from certain tasks without knowing what they have done wrong.

During your feedback meeting with the CEO, they ask you to suspend the programme as it is affecting production. Discouraged by this, you inform the observers to stop carrying out the observations.