Becoming observers BST's first step early last year was to study the Knoxville mill's accident reports since 1994. This helped the mill's safety steering committee learn which critical behaviors led to those accidents. We came up with 26 behaviors that caused accidents. BST put the committee through observer training classes. Then the committee started holding its own classes.
Observers watch workers in the mill do their jobs.
These are further divided. The observer marks the relevant behaviors as being done either safely or at-risk. The name of the employee being observed isn't reported. But if someone performs a task in an unusually dangerous manner, the committee will ask the observer for the name of the person so corrective action can be taken. The anonymity of the results was important to Qualls when he volunteered to be an observer.