Behavioural-Based Safety (BBS)

Behavioural-Based Safety is a five-day practical course delivered by Mars Training Centre UK in London, Dubai, Jeddah and Kuala Lumpur — for HSE professionals, line managers and supervisors responsible for designing and running behaviour-based safety programmes in industrial and commercial settings.

Behavioural-based safety has been used and misused for forty years. Done well, it sharpens hazard awareness, gives front-line workers a structured way to look out for each other, and feeds the wider HSE management system with real-time data. Done badly, it becomes a paperwork exercise that blames the worker, irritates worker representatives, and adds nothing to the safety record. This course is built around what separates the two — and how to make sure your programme falls firmly in the first category.

Across five focused days you examine the behavioural science behind workplace safety, design an observation programme appropriate to your operation, practise the conversation skills that make observations useful, and leave with a personal action plan to apply on return to your role.

What You Will Learn

• Explain the behavioural science principles that underpin credible BBS programmes.
• Diagnose where behaviour-based safety fits — and where it does not — in your HSE system.
• Design a behavioural observation programme appropriate to your operational context.
• Build observation checklists that focus on critical behaviours rather than trivial compliance.
• Train and coach observers to hold useful conversations, not paperwork interactions.
• Use BBS data alongside other HSE data to drive system-level improvements.
• Recognise and avoid the common failure modes of BBS programmes.
• Manage the legitimate concerns of front-line workers and worker representatives.
• Communicate the programme purpose, results and changes to leadership.
• Build a personal action plan for designing or improving a BBS programme.

How You Will Benefit

You will leave with a designed BBS programme tailored to your operation, the conversation skills to lead useful observations, and a Mars Certificate of Completion.

Your organisation will gain a more disciplined BBS programme that produces real data and behaviour change, better integration with the wider HSE system, and more credible engagement with the workforce on safety.

Who This Programme Is For

The course is designed for HSE managers, coordinators and advisers; safety officers and supervisors; operations and site managers responsible for safety performance; line managers and front-line supervisors; human resources business partners supporting safety culture; internal trainers and learning and development specialists; and BBS programme owners and coordinators in industrial sectors. The seniority floor is supervisor or HSE adviser level and above.

The week opens with the science behind behaviour at work, moves into designing a credible observation programme, dedicates a day to the observation conversation itself, then turns observation data into system change, and closes with sustaining the programme beyond its launch enthusiasm.