Personal factors, safety performance

There are several possible factors leading to undesirable safety performance, including employee background, peer influence, and company environment. Although no two employees will necessarily respond in a like manner to the same stimulus, motivational theories attempt to apply what has been learned about a few to the whole population. What works for one won t necessarily work for another, because each person has different needs therefore, it is important to understand each employee and his or her needs. 

The second category, personal factors, includes motivation, ability, knowledge, training, safety awareness, assignments, performance, physical and mental state, reaction time, and personal care. 

In any health and safety training undertaken, particular attention should be paid to the human factors aspects of safety performance, in particular the potential for human error associated with personal factors such as attitude, motivation, perception and even personality. One of the fundamental objectives of training is to increase awareness of all concerned to hazards and their individual accountabilities and responsibilities for health and safety. 

In this chapter we consider the value of theory in guiding our approaches to safety and health improvement. You will see how a vision for a Total Safety Culture is a necessary guide to achieve safety excellence. A basic principle here is that safety performance results from the dynamic interaction of environment, behavior, and person-based factors. Achieving a Total Safety Culture requires attention to each cf these. I make a case for integrating person-based and behavior-based psychology in order to address most effectively the human dynamics of injury prevention. 

A basic principle introduced in Ws chapter is that the safety performance of an organization results from the d5mamic interaction of environment, behavior, and person factors. The behavior and person dimensions represent the human aspect of industrial safety and reflect two divergent approaches to understanding the psychology of injury prevention. 

Consider the three sides of "The Safety Triad" I introduced in Chapter 2 (see Figure 2.2). One side is for environment, including tools, equipment, engineering design, climate, and housekeeping factors. Another side of this triangle stands for behavior, the actions everyone did or did not perform related to an incident. The third side represents person factors, or the internal feeling states of the people involved in the incident—their attitudes, perceptions, and personality characteristics. 

If you recall, our overall map or guiding principle is represented by the Safety Triad (Figure 2.3). Its reference points are the three primary determinants of safety performance—environment, person, and behavior factors. To achieve a Total Safety Culture, we need to understand and pay attention to each. 

This chapter offered some basic guidelines for diagnosing the human behavior aspects of a safety-related problem. Many situational, social, and personal factors contribute to a behavioral discrepancy—a distinction between the behavior performed and the behavior desired. In safety terms, this is the difference between at-risk and safe behavior. 

The increased popularity of safety perception surveys in industry reflects an increased awareness of how perceptions impact safety performance. These surveys can help pinpoint issues that need attention and activities in need of an intervention. They also can be used to assess the person factors influenced by a particular intervention program. 

Safety and loss performance in the chemical industry is the result of the interaction of plant design, construction and maintenance with production processes, and trained people applying a well-developed operating discipline. An accident leading to personal injury, property damage, or product loss invariably is the result of the failure of one or more of these elements. Each factor involved in chemical production—equipment, process, product, and people—may be subject to a variety of failure modes which may lead to accidents. 

There is considerable variation in how an applicant pool can be generated. For example, a job vacancy can be placed on an online job site, in a newspaper, or posted on a notice board. Irrespective of how a job is advertised, the common element is that a written description of more or less detail is generally produced. A job vacancy advertisement should cover the job title, what the key tasks and roles are, what competencies are required to perform the job, how further information (e.g., job description and person specification) can be acquired, and how to apply for the position. To include a realistic safety preview, safety factors should be noted in the job advertisement. To omit any mention of safety is to miss an opportunity to ensure new employee safety. Furthermore, it is simply wrong for an organization to assume that individuals in the labor pool will already know about a job s safety risks. It is not necessary to provide extensive and detailed statements about safety in a job advertisement. Rather statements, such as There are safety risks associated with undertaking aspects of this job. This job is performed in a hazardous environment. Safety aspects associated with this job require employees to work with extreme causation. Safety compliance is a key performance indicator for this job. In order to maintain safety the successful candidate will have the following competencies. .., are examples of what could be included in order to bring the safety factors associated with the job to the attention of interested individuals. 

What were the contribiitmg hictors What was the woric environment like at the time of this situation What were the personal or team factors affecting human performance in this situation (such as inattention, perceptions, judgments, decisions, communication, coordination) Was there a breakdown in a safety defense Please include what you believe really caused the problem. 

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