Human Factors

Human Performance Management

Managing human performance includes how we learn from events, deviations, normal work and manage risks. It is a key area for ensuring good and safe operations in the workplace.

Human Factors

Human Performance Management

Managing human performance includes how we learn from events, deviations, normal work and manage risks. It is a key area for ensuring good and safe operations in the workplace.

Performance Variability

Performance variability in the workplace is part of everyday work. Many instances are normal and unremarkable (e.g. the printer is out of ink), some instances are frustrating (e.g. you cannot print a prescription for a patient), but other instances will be intolerable (e.g. poor print quality means the dosage of a prescription is misread leading to a medication error). 

Where incidents and major deviations are experienced, the organisation should try to learn all it can about the conditions that caused it, so the system can be made more resilient in the future.

Where major risks are identified before anything has gone wrong, the organisation should integrate Human Factors into a proactive risk management programme to ensure adequate controls and conditions are in place to protect the system.

Performance variability can remain hidden in the system, which is why talking to staff and observing them do tasks is so important to reveal these practices which could be considered deviations if they’re bad, or innovations if they’re good.

Performance Variability

Performance variability in the workplace is part of everyday work. Many instances are normal and unremarkable (e.g. the printer is out of ink), some instances are frustrating (e.g. you cannot print a prescription for a patient), but other instances will be intolerable (e.g. poor print quality means the dosage of a prescription is misread leading to a medication error). 

Where incidents and major deviations are experienced, the organisation should try to learn all it can about the conditions that caused it, so the system can be made more resilient in the future.

Where major risks are identified before anything has gone wrong, the organisation should integrate Human Factors into a proactive risk management programme to ensure adequate controls and conditions are in place to protect the system.

Performance variability can remain hidden in the system, which is why talking to staff and observing them do tasks is so important to reveal these practices which could be considered deviations if they’re bad, or innovations if they’re good.

Different areas of topic

Different sectors have their own approaches and concepts for Human Performance Management. We can advise on incident investigation, setting up a risk management programme or the ongoing learnings from normal work. 

CAPA

Corrective And Preventive Action are required when nonconformities and deviations occur. If not managed well lists and lists of CAPAs can overwhelming. We want to move from a firefighting mode to proactively stopping these before they occur. Follow us to find out about our work on organisational learning.

COMAH

The Human Factors COMAH Delivery Guide was developed by the HSE following a need to establish a framework for inspecting Human Factors (HF) at COMAH establishments. Click here for an overview and summary.

SCTA

Safety Critical Task Analysis (SCTA) is a proactive approach to identifying and managing Human Factors risks. It is required by sites that fall under the COMAH regulations in the UK.

Incident Investigation

When an incident occurs we want to understand what has happened and learn as much as possible, exploring active failures and latent conditions, to prevent similar incidents occurring in the future. We’re less interested in blame, and more interested in sustainable system change. Speak to us about our to do Human Factors for incident investigation.

 

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FREE Mini-Course

Human Factors course

This 30min FREE mini-course will introduce you to Human Factors and Critical Task Reviews. This paves the way for our other resources and services for proactive Human Factors risk management.

FREE Download

This short and engaging handbook provides a great overview of human Factors Critical Task Reviews (HFCTR) and how it helps people across sectors reduce error and improve human performance.