Avoiding Complacency

Annual training is required for all headquarters SUBSAFE workers, from the apprentice craftsman to the admirals. A periodic refresher is also held at each of the contractor s facilities. At the meetings, a video about the loss of Thresher is shown and an overview of the SUBSAFE program and their responsibilities is provided as well as recent lessons learned and deficiency trends encountered over the previous years. The need to avoid complacency and to proactively correct and prevent problems is reinforced. 

X Avoid safety complacency — Even with the most well-run and efficient safety program, and the most detailed safety policies and procedures, accidents and injuries can still happen. 

Effective Safety Communication—communications maintain a focus on safety Respectful Work Environment— trust and respect permeate the organization and Questioning Attitude—individuals avoid complacency and continuously challenge existing conditions and activities in order to identify discrepancies that might result in error or inappropriate action. ... 

The contents of this book look both forwards and backwards we must remember mistakes from the past but we must also look toward the technologies of the future. From the past, boiler explosions may now be a rarity but we have to be mindful of the lessons of the past to avoid any complacency. At the other extreme, digital control systems are the present and the future, but engineers and scientists must strive to continue to find better ways of making them safe. Also for the future, a relatively new risk, cyber security, became world headline news in 2010 when the world s first industrial cyber weapon, Stuxnet, was discovered. 

Various consequences associated with inappropriate levels of workload can potentially lead to performance decrements. These include inattention, complacency, fatigue, monotony, mental saturation, mental satiation, reduced vigilance, and stress. The Health and Safety Executive stated that for mental workload, conditions of over and under-arousal should be avoided. The duration of tasks that have an associated low or high level of mental workload should be limited. Both these extremes will increase the likelihood of human error affecting the system (HSE, 2008). 

Complacency is a form of mental bias - that if things are going well, they will continue to do so. It is quite understandable that this happens, but it is a real threat to safety. Before transferring more and more responsibility for safety to companies, we should find ways of avoiding the risks which may result from complacency within companies, and even within the regulator. 

Complacency refers to the loss of the fear of injury that typically motivates employees to work safely. When we talk of wanting people to perform their jobs safely for the right reasons, we usually mean they should work safely to avoid the pain, suffering, and lost wages associated with injury. Too often the problem is that... 

The level of pressure how far does the customer place pressure for improvement on the supplier to avoid complacency (e.g. 30 per cent price reduction in the... 

After the construction team has been demobilised, the platform goes into a period of routine operation. It is here important to maintain a high alertness to SHE challenges and to avoid complacency, although the risk is not as high as during the early phase after start-up. 

From Co-operating to Continually Improving develop consistency and avoid complacency. 

Respectful Work Environment Trust and respect are reflected throughout the organization. Questioning Attitude Individuals avoid complacency and continuously question existing environments and activities to identify concerns that may result in an unsafe condition. A subordinate does not hesitate to question a supervisor, and a contractor employee does not hesitate to question an employee of an operating company. 

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