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Understanding Human Factors in Workplace Accidents

Explore human factors contributing to accidents, including job design, individual competence, and organization management. Learn about common human failures, violations, and influences on behavior.

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Understanding Human Factors in Workplace Accidents

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  1. Human Factors

  2. Indicators of Human Factors Problems • Accidents where “human error” is a cause • Occupational health reports of mental or physical ill-health • High absenteeism or sickness rates • High staff turnover levels • Low level of compliance with h&s rules • Behaviour issues identified in risk assessments • Complaints from staff about working conditions or job-design

  3. Common Human Failures in Accidents • Job Factors: • Illogical design of equipment & instruments • Constant disturbances or interruptions • Missing or unclear instructions • Poorly maintained equipment • High workload • Noisy & unpleasant working conditions

  4. Common Human Failures in Accidents • Individual Factors: • Low skill & competence levels • Tired staff • Bored or disheartened staff • Individual medical problems

  5. Common Human Failures in Accidents • Organisation & Management Factors: • Poor work planning, leading to high work pressure • Lack of safety systems and barriers • Inadequate responses to previous incidents • Management based on one-way communication • Deficient co-ordination and responsibilities • Poor management of health & safety • Poor health & safety culture

  6. Human Failures • Errors (not intended) • Slips • Lapses • Mistakes • Violations (deliberate) • Routine • Situational • Exceptional

  7. Human Failures

  8. Slips • “Actions-not-as-planned” • Examples: • Performing an action too soon in a procedure • Carrying out an action with too much or too little strength (e.g. over-torquing a bolt) • Switching the wrong switch • Moving switch up rather than down • Carrying out the wrong check on the right item

  9. Lapses • Forgetting to carry out an action • Lose our place in a task • Can be due to interruptions or distractions • Example: • Forgetting to fill switchgear with oil?

  10. Mistakes • Doing the wrong thing, believing it to be right • Consist of: • Rule-based • Knowledge-based

  11. Routine Violations • Breaking the rule has become a normal way of working within the work group. This can be due to: • Desire to cut corners to save time & energy • Perception that rules are too restrictive • Belief that rules no longer apply • Lack of enforcement of the rule • New workers starting a job where routine violations are the norm and not realising that this is not the correct way of working

  12. Situational Violations • Breaking rule is due to pressures from the job such as: • being under time pressure • insufficient staff for the workload • right equipment not being available • extreme weather conditions

  13. Exceptional Violations • Rarely happen and only then when something has gone wrong • To solve a new problem you feel you need to break a rule even though you are aware that you will be taking a risk

  14. Influences on behaviour at Work • Personality • Attitude • Motivation • Experience • Aptitude • Intelligence • Perception

  15. Personality • The study of what makes each of us a distinct person • Some characteristics are shared by all human beings • Each person is different in some respects

  16. Attitude • A person’s point of view, or their way of looking at something • Influences the way a person reacts in a certain situation • Both good and bad attitudes are contagious

  17. Attitude Formation • Attitudes are primarily dependant on: • Early childhood • Schooling • Intelligence • Experiences • Progress (or the reverse) • Economics

  18. Aptitude • A person’s talent for doing something • Education should give knowledge and help to form correct attitudes, while training and practice are necessary for aptitude

  19. Motivation • That which makes an individual act as they do - their reason for doing something • A drive can be either: • Appetitive - towards something we want • Aversive - avoiding something unpleasant • An event that is followed with reward is likely to recur (positive reinforcement) • An event that is followed with punishment is likely to desist (negative reinforcement)

  20. Experience • With increasing experience we expect more competence and an increase in ability to cope with situations • However, there is a tendency to cut corners, as shown in the graph: Accident Frequency Age Experience Time

  21. Intelligence • There needs to be enough mental stimulation, but not too much • A person with low intelligence may find even a routine, mundane job very taxing • If a person of high intelligence is set a mundane task, he will probably employ himself in finding new and less arduous, but not necessarily safer, ways of completing a task

  22. Sensory Defects & Screening • Sensory defects increase with age and failing health • We screen out things we are not interested in or consider not worth listening to • We can go into “auto-pilot” mode, which saves effort and allows us to concentrate on other things, or think ahead. This is useful, but causes many accidents

  23. Perception of Danger • Factors involved in perception: • Signals from sensory receptors • Expected information from memory • Signals from sensory receptors and memory can be misleading, particularly if we are affected by stress, alcohol, drugs, fatigue or just familiarity

  24. Perceptual Set • Also called a “mind set” • When we have a problem, immediately we perceive not only the problem, but the answer • Further evidence may become available which sows our original perception to be faulty, but we are so busy congratulating ourselves on our intelligent solution that we fail to see alternative causes & solutions

  25. Perceptual Distortion • Perceptions get distorted • Things which are to our advantage always tend to be more right than those which are to our disadvantage

  26. Errors in Perception Caused by Physical Stressors • Consider effects of: • fatigue • overwork • overtime • stress from work and home • Shift work is a major factor • Our bodies operate best when we have a regular routine

  27. Perception and the Assessment of Risk • In assessing a risk, there is safety in numbers • One persons faulty perception of a risk could be corrected by another persons clearer perception • Perception also depends upon knowledge & experience - a group will have more to contribute

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