In recent decades, health and safety has become a top priority for business globally, in construction and beyond.

While this is great news, health and safety managers risk getting lost in risk assessments and legislation, overlooking the biggest risk of all: the human factor.

What is the human factor?

Humans are inherently unpredictable. Though by nature, we generally like routine, it is impossible to predict how anyone might react to a situation, and nowhere is this more obvious than at work.

Human behaviour can impact health and safety in multiple ways, and no matter how many safety measures you put in place, you can’t entirely mitigate risk because of this unpredictability.

Whether it is a worker overlooking or ignoring the rules to get the job done faster, or a manager cutting corners to save a few quid, or simple ignorance, human behaviour is a tricky obstacle to well thought out and comprehensive safety measures.

Most health and safety provisions are often little more than common sense, but this means they rely on employees making use of their own common sense to be effective. When workers ignore common sense and take risks, all your safety measures go out the window.

Why do people take risks?

There are a few triggers of risky behaviour in the workplace.

Immaturity

Every workplace has its own unique type of banter. While there’s nothing wrong with good-natured ribbing, it can sometimes get out of hand without firm boundaries.

Immature behaviour can quickly lead to injuries, especially on modern construction sites where there are plenty of risks to human health, no matter how many provisions you put in place.

People often blame health and safety for ‘killing fun’ in the workplace, but that’s far from the truth. There’s a place for banter and jokes at work, but not to the extent that people are put at risk.

Management should support HSE managers in setting firm boundaries to keep everyone safe, allowing for a lighthearted culture that does not encourage risky behaviour.

Lack of Training or Communication

Often, risky behaviour on-site is just poor training. What seems like unsafe behaviour may come down to the fact that there are gaps in the employee’s training, and they’re filling those gaps as best they can.

When making safety provisions, you should always ensure that employee training is a top priority to minimise the possibility of risky behaviour. No worker should ever be doing a job for which they are not trained and equipped.

Lack of Communication

Risk assessments are all well and good, but no use to employees if the correct course of action is not communicated to them. Workers may seem to be ignoring the provisions put in place when they don’t even know they’re there in reality.

Lines of communication should be open at all times, with employees and contractors kept up to date on safety provisions.

Leadership

As mentioned above, the push for cost and time savings is a big reason people put themselves at risk in the workplace. However, this type of behaviour is often triggered by pressures from above. If upper management encourages employees to put themselves at risk to benefit the company, then the issue runs far deeper than employee behaviour.

Conversely, weak leadership can often be as bad as actively bad leadership. For example, when risky behaviour is ignored, other workers may wonder why they’re bothering. When people are left to get away with ignoring the rules, there’s no incentive to improve.

Safety managers, supervisors, and forepersons need to have the power to step in when they witness poor behaviour. On the other hand, there also needs to be some reinforcement for those following the rules and striving for safety: it’s a balancing act where those in charge need to be prepared to react and respond accordingly.

Safety Approach

Awareness is all well and good, but it very rarely leads to changed behaviour on its own. Awareness campaigns need to be followed up with active behaviour management and achievable goals.

It’s important to look beyond just punishing the bad behaviour and actually set targets which entice everyone to improve. Simply telling your employees to be aware, or be careful, isn’t enough.

Ultimately, your approach to safety should be dynamic and ongoing, encouraging employees to change their behaviour and always strive for better.

The solution

It’s impossible to predict human behaviour at work fully, but this does not mean it’s impossible to improve it with behaviour management.

By working closely with your employees, setting firm boundaries, and implementing ongoing incentives to improve, you can manage this behaviour and minimise risks.

I firmly believe health and safety is just simple common sense. Over the years, I’ve worked with hundreds of businesses to help manage their human factor and maximise safety wherever possible. If you think I might help you, why not get in touch via the contact options below.

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is a vital part of many tasks in construction and beyond. The human body is not naturally equipped for many of the tasks we undertake at work. Using PPE means we can carry out these tasks without exposing ourselves to unnecessary risk.

Though employers should make an effort to minimise and mitigate risks as much as possible, sometimes the use of PPE is unavoidable.

In every developed country globally, including the UK, businesses are legally required to provide the correct PPE, and workers are expected to wear it and make use of it. Despite this, too many workers neglect to use it at all. The question is, why? And what can you do to tackle it?

What does the law say?

The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Act 1994 states: ‘Every employer shall ensure that suitable personal protective equipment is provided to his employees who may be exposed to a risk to their health or safety while at work except where and to the extent that such risk has been adequately controlled by other means which are equally or more effective.’

It’s a quite clear cut that employers have a responsibility to provide that PPE where needed, alongside identifying and mitigating risks with other methods such as safety equipment and risk assessments. But are workers legally required to wear it?

The Health and Safety at Work Act states that workers are required to:

Take reasonable care of their own health and safety, as well as that of others.
Cooperate with employers on health and safety
Correctly use work items provided by their employer.
Not interfere with any equipment provided.

The law is clear then. But well-intentioned legislation very rarely survives contact with the day to day without solid health and safety management. All the world legislation can’t force someone to put a hard hat on if it’s not properly enforced.

Why don’t people wear PPE?

As we all know, humans can be unpredictable. Each person will respond differently to guidelines, and this includes PPE. Some people will do everything they can to avoid wearing them.

Justifications for not wearing PPE can include:

Comfort: hard hats aren’t exactly designed with comfort in mind
Necessity: do they really need to wear it for that job?
It’s restrictive: they’ll get the job done quicker this way…
They haven’t worn it up until now, and they’re fine, look!
They forgot. Whoops.

There are a thousand imaginative excuses for not wearing PPE, but very few wash.

Ultimately, the wearing (or not wearing) of PPE comes down to human behaviour and workplace culture. As a manager, you respond to workers neglecting to wear PPE will have a serious impact.

What can you do about it?

A common response to discovering a worker without PPE is to punish them. You provided the equipment, and they know they’re supposed to be wearing it. You may have a strike system in place, which will lead to eventual dismissal.

Of course, they could legitimately have forgotten to wear it. Assuming this is the first offence, you might be inclined to let it slide.

Conversely, some businesses might have a very relaxed attitude to PPE. An ‘oh well, don’t do it again’ attitude might seem appealing but can quickly lead to a cascade of similar offences. If there’s no consequences, or incentive to wear PPE, why bother?

There are many ways in which to respond, but these are all reactionary, rather than preventative. It might be worth asking yourself: ‘what can I do to encourage my workers to wear their PPE?’

Awareness is all well and good, but in reality, most people know they should be wearing PPE. They have likely been told to wear it in countless newsletters, on signage, and in toolbox talks. If you are still seeing people not wearing PPE, examine why these methods are not affecting the behaviour you want.

It’s a behaviour thing

I firmly believe behaviour management is one of the keys to safer working environments. Investigate further to identify why it made sense at that moment for that particular worker not to wear their PPE. Is it lack of training? Is the equipment unsuitable? Is this a wider issue which can be tackled by adjusting health and safety provisions? By identifying the root cause, you can implement a more effective solution.

This might be better training or rewards for meeting ongoing, dynamic targets. PPE usage will naturally increase as your employees strive to meet these targets and improve their behaviour. The carrot is often more effective than the stick.

Of course, some people can’t be helped and always do things their way no matter what you do, leaving the stick as the only option. But by making all efforts to check whether this is a wider culture issue, you can implement the right provisions to change worker behaviour, and prevent risky attitudes from taking root.

Sometimes, you can be too close to a problem. An outside point of view, such as that of a consultant, can be incredibly beneficial. I have helped hundreds of businesses identify the causes of improper behaviour at work, improve their safety culture, and protect their workers. Can I help you? Get in touch via the contact options below.

The Human Factor – Managing Risky Behaviour at Work