Human Factors in Safety Flashcards
6 cards from real IOSH practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 6 Human Factors in Safety flashcards as text
What is the 'Hawthorne Effect' and how does it relate to safety observations?
Answer: The tendency for people to change their behaviour when they know they are being observed, which can temporarily improve safety performance during observations
The Hawthorne Effect (from studies at the Western Electric Hawthorne Works) describes how people modify their behaviour when they know they are being observed. In safety, this means workers may behave more safely during observations, which can give a misleadingly positive picture. Regular, normalised observations reduce this effect.
What is 'organisational justice' and why does it matter for safety?
Answer: Workers' perception of fairness in how safety decisions, rewards, punishments and procedures are applied, which affects trust, reporting and engagement
Organisational justice has three components: distributive (fairness of outcomes), procedural (fairness of processes), and interactional (fairness of treatment by managers). When workers perceive injustice, they are less likely to report hazards, trust management, follow procedures, or engage with safety initiatives.
How can 'checklists' improve human reliability?
Answer: Checklists reduce reliance on memory, ensure critical steps are not missed, standardise practices, and provide a verification mechanism for safety-critical tasks
Checklists improve reliability by: reducing dependence on memory (especially under stress or fatigue), ensuring critical steps are completed in the correct order, standardising practice across different workers, providing a verification mechanism, and catching errors before they cause harm. They are used in aviation, healthcare and high-hazard industries.
What is 'ergonomics' and how does it contribute to safety?
Answer: The scientific study of the interaction between people and their work, aiming to design work systems that fit human capabilities and limitations
Ergonomics (or human factors engineering) is the science of designing work systems (equipment, tasks, environments, organisations) to fit human capabilities, limitations and needs. Good ergonomic design reduces: musculoskeletal disorders, human error, fatigue, and stress, while improving comfort, efficiency and safety.
What is 'resilience engineering' in health and safety?
Answer: An approach that focuses on the ability of systems to anticipate, monitor, respond to and learn from both successes and failures to maintain safety
Resilience engineering goes beyond traditional safety management (which focuses on preventing failures) to understanding how systems succeed despite variability and unexpected events. It focuses on four abilities: anticipating threats, monitoring for early warning signs, responding effectively to events, and learning from both successes and failures.
How should organisations integrate human factors into their safety management systems?
Answer: Through leadership commitment, human factors training, error-tolerant system design, just culture, learning systems, competence management, and regular review of human performance
Integration involves: leadership commitment to understanding human factors, training managers and workers in human factors principles, designing error-tolerant systems and procedures, establishing a just culture, implementing learning systems (from successes and failures), managing competence, considering human factors in risk assessment, and regularly reviewing human performance data.