During his concurrent education session at ASSE's Safety 2014 in Orlando, FL, Rick Pollock, ASSE's 2012-13 president and president of ASSE centennial sponsor CLMI, shared some interesting thoughts on human error and myths that that surround it in determining injury causation. He explained that most human mistakes happen based on the way our brains handle information, not because we are careless or stupid. The mistakes we make most often are not choices, Pollock explained. We don't choose to make mistakes, be unsafe or ignore our training. The reason people make mistakes is because we often cannot perceive the outcome or what can potentially occur, he said.
Rick also discussed application of Deming's principles to safety and injury causation and highlighted why we can't punish away error. Another key consideration is hindsight bias, which Rick defined as the illusion of free will. He noted that a focus on human preconditions often blocks investigators efforts to identify actual causation.
To effect change and reduce human error, OSH professionals must address various elements, including behavior-based safety, organizational culture and climate, and systems design. We need to understand the underlying factors such as:
To effect change and reduce human error, OSH professionals must address various elements, including behavior-based safety, organizational culture and climate, and systems design. We need to understand the underlying factors such as:
- complacency not being a choice but a condition that exists when it's felt that the work task has been mastered and known;
- work deviation;
- habit development;
- normalized deviation drift;
- poor design that provokes human error.
We need to counter the factors with systems and risk assessment, prevention through design and sustainability.
