Web Alert: New guide published to increase awareness of the human element in safety-critical environments

As part of its commitment to understanding and improving safety on board ships, The Standard Club has supported a new guide: 'Being Human in safety-critical organisations'. This follows on from the successful Human Element book and video which used research and insight into the causes of human error to provide guidance on how to mitigate human failings and reduce incidents. It highlighted the importance of the role of people – expertise, understanding, risk mitigation and decision making – over the traditional focus on rules and procedures.

Being Human delves more deeply into why humans make errors despite their training, and what safeguards can be put in place to minimise the risks. It provides a structured approach to understanding how and why things go wrong and how to adjust our thinking at both individual and organisational levels to deal with the many, every present influences on our behaviours at work. Rather than ignoring the underlying drivers of behaviour, and thinking of humans as the weak link in otherwise robustly engineered systems, this book recognises that humans are necessary for success in any system and promotes managing this behaviour. Crews can use this book to understand their motivations and drivers, and increase their own resilience, while companies can adapt their procedures to increase their organisation’s safety.

The book is available for purchase online here.