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Drawing on insights from a Solutions Review Solution Spotlight with Intelex<\/a>, the Solutions Review editorial team explains why pitting Safety I and Safety II programs against each other is the wrong strategy. The better option is to use both.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The safety profession has a tribalism problem. On one side, practitioners defend the rigor and structure of traditional compliance-based safety management. On the other hand, advocates for newer, learning-oriented approaches argue that rules and audits alone cannot produce truly safe organizations. Both sides have compelling arguments. Both sides are also, in important ways, right.<\/p>\n That was the starting point for a recent Solutions Review Solution Spotlight<\/a> conversation featuring Scott Gaddis<\/a>, VP and Global Practice Leader at Intelex, and James Pomeroy,<\/a> a global health, safety, and environment leader. The discussion explained why framing Safety I and Safety II as competing choices is the wrong question, and that organizations still asking which side to pick are missing the real work.<\/p>\n The language of Safety I and Safety II doesn’t help the conversation. Calling one framework the “old view” and the other the “new view” is, as Pomeroy noted, a marketing move. It creates the impression of a clean generational break when the practical reality is far messier. Organizations cannot simply drop one model and adopt the other. Those who have tried to move too quickly toward Safety II without adequate groundwork have often found themselves ahead of both their leadership and their regulators<\/a>.<\/p>\n Safety I is the foundation on which most organizations are built. It focuses on identifying and managing hazards, enforcing standards through compliance, conducting root cause analysis after incidents, and using hierarchical controls to eliminate or reduce risk. Done well, it produces structured, disciplined programs with genuine accountability. Most regulatory frameworks, including OSHA requirements, ISO 45001, and ANSI Z10, are rooted in Safety I principles.<\/p>\n The limitations are also real. A program that measures success exclusively through lagging indicators, injury counts, audit scores, and corrective action completion rates will tend to underreport near-misses, over-focus on minor compliance issues, and miss the systemic conditions that create serious harm. There is also a risk of what practitioners call the normalization of deviance, in which small deviations from standards accumulate quietly over time until a significant failure occurs. Compliance-based programs, by design, are better at catching visible violations than surfacing the invisible drift that precedes most major incidents.<\/p>\n The workforce dimension adds further pressure. Younger workers entering the trades and manufacturing environments expect participation, not just instruction. They are less receptive to top-down rule delivery and more likely to disengage from programs that treat them as subjects rather than contributors. A purely Safety I environment can struggle to build the trust and engagement that frontline safety actually requires.<\/p>\n Safety II emerged from a recognition that most work, most of the time, goes right. Rather than focusing exclusively on what failed, Safety II asks why things succeed. Learning teams, frontline participation, and the study of normal work become tools for surfacing the adaptations, informal practices, and contextual expertise that experienced workers develop over time but are rarely asked about.<\/p>\n The benefits are substantial. Frontline workers often possess genuine expertise that safety professionals sitting in corporate offices cannot replicate. When that expertise is invited into the safety process, programs gain insight they would otherwise miss entirely. Safety I views variance from procedure as a deviation to be corrected, whereas Safety II examines it as potential information. Sometimes, the deviation reveals a better way. Sometimes, it reveals a procedural gap. Either way, the conversation is more productive than a disciplinary response.<\/p>\n The practical challenges are equally real. Safety II requires trust before it produces results, and trust takes time to build. Learning teams require facilitation, time, and a genuine willingness to hear uncomfortable feedback. Metrics are harder to define because engagement and learning are less countable than injury rates. And leadership alignment is genuinely difficult, particularly for senior leaders who are distant from frontline operations and accustomed to managing safety through dashboards.<\/p>\n Staying entirely in Safety I produces programs that are structurally sound but culturally brittle. They can achieve compliance goals while failing to address the conditions that lead to serious incidents.\u00a0Staying entirely in Safety II creates different risks. Without sufficient structure, programs can drift. Consistency becomes harder to maintain, regulatory alignment weakens, and the absence of clear accountability can allow standards to erode, becoming visible only after something goes wrong.<\/p>\n
\nA Blended Approach: What Mature Programs Actually Look Like<\/strong><\/h3>\n
What Safety I Gets Right and Where It Falls Short<\/strong><\/h4>\n
What Safety II Adds and Why It Is Harder Than It Looks<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Why Choosing One Approach Creates New Problems<\/strong><\/h3>\n