At Samarth Safety, when we address human factors in relation to health and safety, we’re aiming to optimize human performance and reduce human failures. We take a proportionate approach to human factors in risk assessment based on their hazard and risk profile.

Our approach to risk assessment is presented in the ‘Controlling the risks in the workplace.’ The evaluation of human failures is implicit in that process. We make it more explicit where the hazard warrants it, i.e., where there is a major hazard or significant occupational health and safety hazard. In either case, you need an adequate understanding of the human role in the relevant task or activity.

We promote certain key principles for your industry that helps in integrating Human Factors in Risk Assessment:

• Through our critical risk assessment, we help you identify the tasks which are very critical or expose people to certain occupational health hazards.
• We shall ensure that you have an understanding of how these tasks are carried out and the environment in which they are performed. This includes walking and talking through the job by our experts where it is carried out.
• Involve the workforce in carrying out the assessment and the identification of appropriate controls.
• The people who are involved in the assessment should have an understanding of the different types of failure and the factors that make them more or less likely to be prone to such dangers.
• Together we can identify the human failures that could be made in the task which might lead to an accident or incident and the performance influencing factors that drive those failures more or less likely to occur.
• We identify appropriate control measures that prevent or mitigate human failures.
• Check that your control measures regularly work, reviewing your risk assessment to see if any further improvements can be made.
• The approach you take to human factors in risk assessment should be proportionate to the hazards you face.