Human Factors in Safety Flashcards

What are 'human factors' in health and safety?

Answer: The environmental, organisational and job factors, and human and individual characteristics that influence behaviour at work in ways that can affect health and safety

Human factors encompass the full range of elements that influence how people interact with their work environment: the organisation (culture, leadership, resources), the job (task design, workload, procedures), and the individual (competence, personality, fatigue, health). Understanding human factors helps design safer workplaces.

What are the main types of human error?

Answer: Slips (attention failures), lapses (memory failures), mistakes (decision errors), and violations (deliberate deviations)

Human errors are categorised as: Slips (performing an action incorrectly — attention failure), Lapses (forgetting to do something — memory failure), Mistakes (doing the wrong thing believing it to be right — decision/planning error), and Violations (intentionally deviating from rules — can be routine, situational or exceptional).

What is 'behavioural safety'?

Answer: An approach that focuses on understanding, observing and positively influencing safety-related behaviours through feedback and reinforcement

Behavioural safety programmes focus on: observing actual work behaviours (safe and unsafe), understanding why people behave the way they do, providing constructive feedback, reinforcing safe behaviours, identifying barriers to safe behaviour, and tracking behaviour trends to drive improvement.

What is 'safety culture' and how does it differ from 'safety climate'?

Answer: Safety culture is the deep-rooted values, beliefs and attitudes about safety; safety climate is how these are perceived by workers at a particular point in time

Safety culture refers to the deep-rooted shared values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours regarding safety — it develops over time and is resistant to change. Safety climate is a snapshot of workers' perceptions of safety at a given time — it can be measured through surveys and changes more rapidly.

How does fatigue affect workplace safety?

Answer: Fatigue impairs judgement, slows reaction times, reduces concentration, increases error rates, and diminishes physical capability

Fatigue significantly impairs: cognitive function (decision-making, problem-solving), reaction times, attention and concentration, memory, mood and motivation, and physical coordination. Fatigued workers have a significantly higher accident rate. Causes include long hours, shift work, poor sleep, and high workload.

What is 'situational awareness' and why is it important for safety?

Answer: The perception and understanding of what is happening in the work environment and the ability to anticipate what will happen next

Situational awareness involves: perceiving relevant information in the environment (Level 1), understanding what it means (Level 2), and anticipating what will happen next (Level 3). Loss of situational awareness — through distraction, fatigue, tunnel vision, or overload — is a common factor in serious incidents.