Causes of Accidents and Our Behaviour

Whatever system of work is operating, whether it’s in a manufacturing plant, an airplane, a school or a building site, people are usually involved.  They are involved in either a managerial capacity, an operational capacity or a maintenance capacity. 

Even in systems which are highly automated, people will play some role, in terms of using the machinery, setting in train the machinations of the system, keeping it going, monitoring it and closing it off.

Different tasks

There are, obviously, different types of task required of different people at work, each relying to some extent on the other. 

For example, in a control room setting, one person needs to request of a machine that the temperature be raised by 3 degrees.  He or she could do this perfectly, or with an error.  The error may be that he presses the wrong button - a slip type error, or that he makes a mistake - the right button was pressed but he wrongly assumed what that button would result in, or a violation - he intended to press that button (not the correct one)  as it's a quicker but more inaccurate way of taking the temperature down.

Human error

When considering human behaviour and performance, we acknowledge that people are not perfect and we all make mistakes.  At certain times of the day (towards the end of a shift, for instance) we may be more likely to make a mistake as we are tired, or are focused on getting home.  If we have stresses coming from outside the workplace or within it, we are more likely too to make mistakes – our minds are not ‘on’ the job in hand

In order to address and prevent mistakes - as mistakes can sometimes lead to accidents -  the type of error being made needs to be addressed. 

This usually involves coming at the issue from two perspectives:

• The individual and his or her characteristics, age, gender, type of learning style, risk taking tendencies etc, and
• The perspective of the wider, organisational culture, management systems and prevailing climate, training given and reward systems in place

Ask yourself: is safety given priority? Is it a status issue or a lowly add-on?  Does the MD care about safety purely as a way of forestalling litigation or actually as an ethical and life-or-death issue?