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Human Factors Framework

Why Every Company Needs a Safety Framework to Manage Human Factors

The concept of human factors has wide-ranging implications, especially for safety. For anyone in charge of plant operations, safety, or production, it’s incredibly important to understand what human factors are, how they affect worker safety, and how they tie into your company’s structures and processes. There’s lots of research on human error, lots of industry-wide…

Which Change Management Model Is the Best for Your Organization?

There are quite a few change management models out there. The most popular ones differ, sometimes quite significantly, and their success depends on many factors. For example, how does the organizational structure affect change? Is the company very clearly departmentalized with teams working in very separate silos? What motivates people and what discourages them? Are…

3 Overlooked Safety Skills Vital to Supervisor Success

Supervisors can have a dramatic impact on a workplace’s overall level of productivity—and on workplace safety too. But the degree to which shift supervisors and frontline managers influence safety depends on whether they possess some key skills and knowledge.  There are three vital areas that supervisors need to master in order to positively affect safety…

How Do You Avoid Blaming When it Comes to Human Error?

According to Human Factors Investigation and Analysis of Accidents and Incidents, human error accounts for between 60–80% of all accidents and incidents.  That statistic has been the cause of many people falsely believing that behavior-based safety (BBS) programs blame the worker. It has also sparked many human and organizational performance (HOP) supporters to believe that…

To Lead in Safety, You Need a Good Supervisor Program

SafeStart is officially launching SafeLead Skills for Supervisors, a brand-new offering that will transform how supervisors and other team leaders approach safety. Many organizations struggle with frontline leadership who lack effective communication skills, the ability to recognize hazards or the tools to engage employees. SafeLead provides new perspectives on human factors, safety conversations and leading…

How Frontline Supervisors Are Like Professional Jugglers

What do frontline supervisors and professional jugglers have in common? According to Ray Prest’s latest article in Safety Decisions, they have to keep a ton of stuff in the air on a daily basis.  The big difference is that when supervisors let something drop, workers can get hurt or killed. Supervisors play a key role…

6 Qualities That Make a Safety Leader

A strong safety culture depends on dedicated leaders. They are the people who spearhead the fight for a safer work environment. A good safety leader isn’t shy about bringing concerns to the attention of their superiors or about encouraging others to do their part to keep themselves and others safe. Many safety leaders are safety…

One Mistake That Kills a Near-Miss Reporting Program

Near-miss reporting is an essential feature of an advanced safety management system. Examining incidents that almost happened or could have happened can go a long way in preventing them from occurring in the future. In theory, near-miss reporting is a simple but powerful idea that will advance a workplace health and safety program by leaps…

4 Causes of Safety Culture Problems

Nearly every workplace has safety culture problems. And with good reason—workplace cultures grow slowly and can be killed quickly. Four factors can cause particular trouble for safety cultures and lead to negative attitudes towards safety and increased resistance to safety initiatives. Don’t provide resources for success It’s common knowledge that strong workplace cultures are the…

Unexpected Sources of Safety Feedback

OHS leaders know that feedback is worth its weight in gold. It can indicate points of failure within a safety system that are clear to employees but harder for safety managers to see. It can also highlight what’s working well, and generally provide the temperature of a company’s safety climate. That’s why so many safety…

3 Causes of Poor Safety Communication

How people communicate about safety is a major contributor to the success or failure of any safety program. Strong interpersonal communication makes it easy for employees to know what types of safety behavior are expected from them, what management will do to support workplace safety, and what their peers are observing around them. Conversely, when…

How to Tell When Your Organization Is Ready for Human Factors Training

Human factors can confer a number of benefits to an organization, including drastic reductions in injury rates. For example, Strad Energy reduced its TRIF by 87% after implementing training to reduce human error. This type of employee safety training isn’t a magic bullet, however, and in order for organizations to achieve Strad’s level of success…