Human factors management

Responding is Danny Smith, SMP, CIT, senior safety consultant, SafeStart, Belleville, Ontario.

Conducting human factors training is all well and good, but its value is limited if you aren’t taking the extra steps to instill human factors management principles throughout the organization. There are several crucial methods of embedding human factors management in a sustainable way at your organization.

A good human factors training program will give your workforce a common language to talk about human factors and the techniques to deal with them. After the initial training initiative has concluded, safety professionals should take that common language and use it as often as possible. It should be used in toolbox talks and safety meetings, of course. You can also include it in other training because it’s important to discuss fatigue during forklift training and rushing as part of fire safety training.

The second method is to empower frontline leaders to walk and talk human factors every day. This begins by encouraging supervisors to regularly share examples and stories about their experiences related to human factors. This gets everyone thinking about frustration, distraction and other common states that affect people’s safety.

It also establishes a deeper rapport with employees, which makes it easier for supervisors to have potentially difficult one-on-one conversations when workers are at increased risk because of their mental or physical state.

Speaking of conversations, almost every discussion with employees is an opportunity for supervisors to talk abut human factors. For example, while doing a risk analysis that considers frequency and severity, a frontline leader could ask how human factors can act as a multiplier on the risk and then prompt employees to consider how they might mitigate the dangers those human factors present.

The third avenue to embedding human factors at your organization is to look beyond the workplace by encouraging employees to take their newfound human-factors knowledge home to their loved ones. Most injuries happen off the job, and someone who’s injured at home is going to have a tough time working the next day.

The most effective way to encourage employees to take safety home is to give them tools and resources to keep their loved ones safe – especially their kids. People are much more likely to take their training seriously and retain what they’ve learned if they think they can use it to protect their family members from getting hurt. Helping protect employees’ spouses and children will go a long way toward winning hearts and minds, too.

Although there are many ways to include human factors management principles in your organization’s safety program, the three methods outlined here are particularly effective: having frontline leaders talk about human factors throughout the day, leaning on a common language and encouraging employees to take their training home. Think of these tactics as shortcuts to lodging the human factors mitigation techniques deep within your organization. Sustainability takes time and commitment to reinforce the initial training and education. Getting everyone thinking and talking about human factors throughout their shifts, and extending that conversation outside the workplace, is a great place to start.