Personal factors, unsafe

While we often think of hazardous acts and conditions as the basic causes of accidents, actually they are symptoms of failure on another level. Unsafe acts and unsafe conditions can usually be traced to three basic causes poor management policies and decisions, personal factors, and the physical facility design. 

We said that although unsafe acts and conditions appear to be the basic causes of accidents, they can actually be traced to such things as management safety policies and decisions, and personal factors. These things (managanent policies and decisions, personal and environmental factors) are the basic causes of accidents. 

Energy Source Hazardous Materials Unsafe Acts Unsafe Conditions Inadequate Policy and/or Decisions Environmental and/or Personal Factors... 

Note Heinrich does not dehne man failure. In making the case to support directing efforts toward controlling man failure, he cites personal factors such as unsafe acts, using unsafe tools and willful disregard of instruction. 

Personal factors, which affect health and safety, may be defined as any condition or characteristic of an individual which could cause or influence him to act in an unsafe manner. They may be physical, mental or psychological in nature. Personal factors, therefore, include issues such as attitude, motivation, training and human error and their interaction with the physical, mental and perceptual capability of the individual. 

Energy sources Hazardous materials Unsafe acts Unsafe conditions Inadequate policy and/or decisions Environment and/or personal factors... 

All of these excerpts from Heinrich s text focus on the individual. The proposal is that in 88% of industrial accidents the principal causal factor is an unsafe act committed by an employee, who has faults of persons that derive from his or her ancestry and environment. 

Some of the incident report forms collected direct the person completing the form to select the worker s unsafe act or an unsafe condition as the causal factor, in that order. Having selected an unsafe act as the causal factor, the person completing the report often stops there. 

Variations in the quality of causal factor determination were extreme. Of the 15 forms received, 10 direct the person who completes the form to first identify the unsafe act of the employee. That requires seeking evidence of the man failure, which is foundational in Heintichean premises. 

The persons are selected on a stratified random sampling basis, with stratifications designated according to the type of exposure, quantity of exposure, degree of hazard present, and other criteria considered important to the representativeness of the sample. The objective is to discover causal factors that are critical, that is, that have contributed to an accident or potential accident situation. The unsafe acts and unsafe conditions identified by this method then serve as the basis for the identification of accident potential problem areas and the ultimate development of countermeasures designed to control accidents at the no-loss stage [p. 304],... 

The Bird accident sequence revolutionized Heinrich s thinking in that Bird suggested the first domino, or initiating event, in the accidental loss causation sequence, was poor management control. This poor control, according to Bird, then triggered basic causes in the form of personal and job factors. These basic causes led to the unsafe acts or unsafe conditions. These immediate causes, as the acts and conditions are known, led to the contact with the source of energy and the resultant loss. Bird also included all aspects of accidental loss and not only personal injury. 

The origin of the Domino Theory is credited to Herbert W. Heinrich, circa 1931, who worked for Travelers Insurance. Mr. Heinrich nndertook an analysis of 75,000 accident reports by companies insnred with Travelers. This resulted in the research report titled The Origins of Accidents, which concluded that 88 percent of all accidents are caused by the unsafe acts of persons, 10 percent by unsafe physical conditions, and 2 percent are Acts of God. His analysis of 50,000 accidents showed that, in the average case, an accident resulting in the occurrence of a lost-time work injury was preceded by 329 similar accidents caused by the same unsafe act or mechanical exposure, 300 of which produced no injury and 29 resulted in minor injuries. This is sometimes referred to as Heinrich s Law. Mr. Heinrich then defined the five factors in the accident sequence, which he identified as the Domino Theory. Heinrich s work is the basis for the theory of behavior-based safety, which holds that as many as 95 percent of all workplace incidents are caused by unsafe acts. See also Accident Chain Behavior-Based Safety. 

Fault of person. In the case of this factor, it is assumed that negative traits (i.e., whether acquired or inherited) such as violent temper, recklessness, nervousness, and ignorance of safety practices constitute proximate reasons for committing unsafe acts or for the existence of mechanical or physical hazards. 

Accident or mishap deviation models as used in system safety processes can permit analysis of events in terms of deviations. The value assigned to a system variable becomes a deviation whenever it falls outside an established norm. When measuring system variables, these deviations can assume different values depending on the situation. Hazard control policies and procedures should detail any specified requirements. A deviation from a specified requirement could result in a human error for failure to follow procedures. Therefore, we must consider incidental factors as deviations from an accepted practice. An unsafe act relates to a personal action that violates or deviates from a commonly accepted safe procedure. Time functions as the basic dimension in a system deviation... 

Electrical accidents on construction sites are almost always caused by unsafe equipment and/or installations, unsafe workplaces caused by environmental factors, or rmsafe work practices. Protection from electrical hazards is one way to prevent accidents. According to OSHA, protective methods that may be employed on your jobsite include insulation, electrical protective devices, guarding, grounding, personal protective equipment (PPE), and safe work practices. 

In any accident investigation, consider the aspect of multiple causation. The contributing factors surrounding an accident, as well as the unsafe acts and unsafe conditions, should be considered. If only the unsafe acts and conditions are considered when investigating an accident, little will be accomplished toward any accident prevention effort because the root causes still remain. This leaves the possibility for an accident to recur. The root causes are items such as management policies and decisions, and the personal and environmental factors that could prevent accidents when corrected. 

Accidents are usually complex and are the result of multiple causes. A detailed analysis of an accident will normally reveal three cause levels basic, indirect, and direct. At the lowest level, an accident results only when a person or object receives the release of an amount of energy or exposure to hazardous material that cannot be absorbed safely. This energy or hazardous material is the direct cause of the accident. The second causal areas are usually the result of one or more unsafe acts or unsafe conditions, or both. Unsafe acts and conditions are the indirect causes or symptoms. In turn, indirect causes are usually traceable to poor management policies and decisions, or to personal or environmental factors. These are the basic causes. 

Heinrich professed that among the direct and proximate causes for industrial accidents, 88% are unsafe acts of persons, 10% are unsafe mechanical or physical hazards, and 2% of accidents are unpreventable. For Heinrich, man failure is the problem and the focus of prevention should be on what the worker does. He stressed applying remedies to the first proximate and most easily prevented causal factor and on psychology, as in the following ... 

Variations in the quality of causal factor determination were extreme. Of the 15 forms received, 10 direct the person who completes the form to identify the unsafe act of the employee. It is a prominent practice, whether intended or not, to put the principal responsibility for the incident on something the employee did or did not do. Unfortunately, it has been found that focusing on what the employee did or did not do—the unsafe acts—in determining casual factors is deeply embedded in the minds of many safety practitioners and the management personnel to whom they give advice. Some of the forms also asked that unsafe conditions be recorded. Sometimes, but seldom, they contain references to design and systems shortcomings. 

Focus on certain factors at the time of audit, such as safe behavior, physical hazards, and personal protective equipment. Other concerns are work processes, body mechanics, unsafe acts or procedures, equipment use, and the pace of work. 

Your ability to structure an environment that provides individual needs and adequate stimulus to motivate each person to his or her full capacity is desirable but not usually possible. In fact, you actually have little chance of setting up the perfect environment for every person. Just too many other environments and factors compete with you and what you desire each individual to accomplish. However, do the best you can for each person and then each individual will make a conscious decision as to whether he or she wants to perform safely in the workplace. This is the reason that each worker should know the consequences of any unsafe performance. You should develop mechanisms to assist these individuals to perform safely, but also have disciplinary procedures for those who elect not to comply with the safety and health rules. 

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