• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

SafetyRisk.net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE
    • Slogans
      • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
      • When Slogans Don’t Work
      • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
      • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
      • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
      • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
      • Safety Acronyms
      • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
      • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
      • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
      • Safety Slogans List
      • Road Safety Slogans 2023
      • How to write your own safety slogans
      • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
      • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
      • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
      • Safety Slogans for Work
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • Free Hotel and Resort Risk Management Checklist
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Social Psychology Of Risk
    • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Dr Long Posts
    • ALL POSTS
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no Hierarchy of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • THEMES
    • Psychosocial Safety
    • Resiliencing
    • Risk Myths
    • Safety Myths
    • Safety Culture Silences
    • Safety Culture
    • Psychological Health and Safety
    • Zero Harm
    • Due Diligence
  • Free Learning
    • Introduction to SPoR – Free
    • FREE RISK and SAFETY EBOOKS
    • FREE ebook – Guidance for the beginning OHS professional
    • Free EBook – Effective Safety Management Systems
    • Free EBook – Lessons I Have Learnt
  • Psychosocial Safety
    • What is Psychosocial Safety
    • Psychological Safety
      • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
      • Managing psychosocial hazards at work
      • Psychological Safety – has it become the next Maslow’s hammer?
      • What is Psychosocial Safety
      • Psychological Safety Slogans and Quotes
      • What is Psychological Safety?
      • Understanding Psychological Terminology
      • Psycho-Social and Socio-Psychological, What’s the Difference?
      • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
      • It’s not weird – it’s a psychological safety initiative!
You are here: Home / Risk Assessment / Risk is About People, not just Objects

Risk is About People, not just Objects

June 11, 2015 by Rob Sams Leave a Comment

Risk is About People, not just Objects

Article by Robert Sams republished following a request from a reader – See all of his brilliant articles here

Team of climbers on the summit.The focus of so much of our attention today in health and safety is on ‘risk assessment’. Walk into any workplace and talk about health and safety and it is likely that someone will pull out a JSA, a SWMS, a JSEA or some other similar document that people will invariably refer to as their ‘risk assessment’.

‘Risk assessment’ is a daily routine for many health and safety professionals. We lead risk assessment teams, write up risk assessment processes, ‘teach’ people how to do risk assessments or report on the outcomes of risk assessments. As I have written about previously (https://safetyrisk.net/i-wish-i-had-thought-of-that/), ‘Risk assessment’ is also a cornerstone of modern health and safety legislation in Australia, it is enshrined in so much of what we do in health and safety.

But I wonder if our approach to ‘risk assessment’ works? There have been times in the past where our approach to ‘risk assessment’ in health and safety has troubled me, and I wonder if other health and safety professionals have felt the same?

For example, I remember working manufacturing and having well established and detailed processes in place for commissioning new equipment. We considered hazards and risks at all different stages; during plant design, manufacture, install, commissioning, and we continued to consider ‘risk’ as equipment became operational. We used checklists to help remind us of all sorts of hazards and risks; machine guarding, electrical and chemical (for cleaning), plus many others. Of course we did all this while consulting with our team.

This process seemed textbook perfect at the time, and compliant with Regulator guidelines. So why did I feel troubled? What was it about the process that caused such dissonance?

It has only recently become clear that the main cause for my concern was that we considered risk primarily in an objective way. That is, we were concerned with risks associated with objects; plant, equipment and the like. Sure, we had columns in our checklist that looks at ‘human factors’, things like fatigue, heat stress and anthropometric data, but we had no appreciation about the subjectivity of risk. I could pick a hole where a guard need to go without a problem, what I couldn’t pick though was; who, when and why a person may put their hand in that hole. That’s what caused most of my dissonance.

To really understand how this ‘object’ could cause an injury, requires us to understand how people make decisions and judgements about risk, and about how people feel about the risk including their own experiences and values. I’ve learnt that risk is not, and can’t be only objective, risk must be considered in the context of the environment and social setting in which it appears.

‘Risk Assessment’ can’t be as simple as choosing a likelihood and consequence from a risk matrix. How can this be valid when we don’t all share the same thoughts, experiences, values and importantly feelings about risk?

This reminds me of a recent conversation I had with an experienced health and safety professional (“John”) who did not agree with me about this point. John was adamant that ‘risk assessment’ is a valid scientific process. He told me, “consequence is usually pretty obvious, and you can either cut your arm off or not.” He went on to say “Likelihood on the other hand is a little more difficult. Likelihood is a little more subjective, but the key to overcoming this is to make sure that the group work together and come to ‘consensus’.” I asked him how he did this, and he gave some great examples of how he helps teams work together and no matter how long it takes, they eventually come to an agreement about the likelihood. He told me his organisation strongly supported safety and as part of their commitment, if teams needed extra time to complete a risk assessment, i.e. come to a ‘consensus’, then that was ok.

This conversation is typical of many discussions I have with health and safety professionals. For so long we have considered safety and the assessment of risk as a science. The problem with this approach is that it does not consider how humans make decisions about risk. This requires an understanding of key social psychological factors, two of which are:

‘Group Think’ (You Tube video – Group Think) the approach that John takes when a conducting risk assessment, in terms of consensus, is not wrong. In fact, if you read through most health and safety textbooks and literature published on the Safe Work Australia website (Safe Work Australia Material) it encourages this approach. Consultation with all ‘workers’ is a key focus of legislation. Most health and safety literature and training however does not consider ‘group think’. Have you ever considered this when you have been part of a risk assessment team? When we consider ‘group think’ we know that the ‘consensus’ of the group is not likely to be a ‘consensus’ at all. As stated in the video, “social penalties dished out to those that disagree by confirming perpetuate majorities that may not really exist”. Have you been part of a risk assessment when people just conformed in order to get things done?

‘Sunk Cost’ (Dave McRaney Website) – John also told me that it was important to make sure the right people are on the team. You need to bring together engineers, operators, cleaners and anyone else who will be involved in the task. Once all of these people agree on the risk score, then we know we have done a thorough job. What John didn’t know was the effect that ‘sunk cost’ would have on some of the individuals in the group. As David McRaney explains so well on his website; “The Misconception: You make rational decisions based on the future value of objects, investments and experiences. The Truth: Your decisions are tainted by the emotional investments you accumulate, and the more you invest in something the harder it becomes to abandon it.” Do you have ‘sunk cost’ as one of the items on your risk assessment checklist?

In a world that is crying out for simple answers and solutions (did someone say three word slogans…) to often complicated and even unsolvable problems, it takes a brave person to contest the current paradigm in risk assessment. The challenge for health and safety professionals is to consider whether their current processes for risk assessment are focused mainly on objects, and if they are, is this the most effective way to deal with risk?

 

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
  • More about Rob
Rob Sams

Rob Sams

Owner at Dolphyn
Rob Sams

Latest posts by Rob Sams (see all)

  • What Can ‘Safety’ Learn From a Rock? - March 14, 2023
  • Do we Need a Different Way of Being in Safety? - February 21, 2023
  • The Challenges for Organisations in Dealing with Mental Health - February 21, 2023
  • What Safety and Risk Could Learn From Patch Adams - February 15, 2023
  • Am I stupid? I didn’t think of that… - January 13, 2023
Rob Sams
Rob is an experienced safety and people professional, having worked in a broad range of industries and work environments, including manufacturing, professional services (building and facilities maintenance), healthcare, transport, automotive, sales and marketing. He is a passionate leader who enjoys supporting people and organizations through periods of change. Rob specializes in making the challenges of risk and safety more understandable in the workplace. He uses his substantial skills and formal training in leadership, social psychology of risk and coaching to help organizations understand how to better manage people, risk and performance. Rob builds relationships and "scaffolds" people development and change so that organizations can achieve the meaningful goals they set for themselves. While Rob has specialist knowledge in systems, his passion is in making systems useable for people and organizations. In many ways, Rob is a translator; he interprets the complex language of processes, regulations and legislation into meaningful and practical tasks. Rob uses his knowledge of social psychology to help people and organizations filter the many pressures they are made anxious about by regulators and various media. He is able to bring the many complexities of systems demands down to earth to a relevant and practical level.

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Risk Assessment, Rob Sams Tagged With: JSA, people, risk assessment, swms

Reader Interactions

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Search and Discover More on this Site

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,516 other subscribers

Recent Comments

  • Leon Lindley on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Rob Long on Entertainment, Suckers and Making Money From Safety
  • Rob Long on Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline
  • Gregg Ancel on Entertainment, Suckers and Making Money From Safety
  • Rob Sams on Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline
  • Rob long on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Rob Long on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Rob Long on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Rob Long on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Admin on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Leon Lindley on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Admin on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Mariaa Sussan on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Brian Darlington on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Leon Lindley on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Narelle Stoll on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Narelle Stoll on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Brian Edwin Darlington on SPoR Workshops Vienna 26-30 June
  • Rob Long on How to Manage Psychosocial Risks in your organisation
  • Brian Edwin Darlington on Jingoism is NOT Culture, but it is for Safety

RECOMMENDED READING

viral post – iso 45003 and what it cannot do

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

Psychosocial Safety and Mental Health Series

Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline

Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness

Duty of Care is NOT Duty to Care (for persons)

Safety, Ethics, SPoR and How to Foster the Abuse of Power

Psychosocial Spin – Naming Bad as Good, Good Work Safety!

How to Manage Psychosocial Risks in your organisation

The Delusions of AI, Risk and Safety

Health, the Poor Cousin of Safety

Psychosocial Health Conversations – Three

Conversations About Psychosocial Risk – Greg Smith, Dr Craig Ashhurst and Dr Rob Long

More Posts from this Category

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Footer

VIRAL POST – The Risk Matrix Myth

Top Posts & Pages. Sad that most are so dumb but this is what safety luves

  • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
  • Safety Acronyms
  • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
  • Free Risk Assessment Template in Excel Format

Recent Posts

  • Culture and Risk Workshop – Feedback
  • Practical Case Studies in SPoR Presented at Vienna Workshops
  • Risk iCue Video
  • Rethinking Leadership in Risk
  • ‘Can’t Means Won’t Try’ – The Challenge of Being Challenged
  • Gesture and Symbol in Safety, the Force of Culture
  • Human Factors is Never About Humans
  • Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline
  • Smart Phone Addiction, FOMO and Safety at Work
  • Entertainment, Suckers and Making Money From Safety
  • Breaking the Safety Code
  • The Futility of the Centralised Safety Management System?
  • Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Risk iCue Video Two – Demonstration
  • Radical Uncertainty
  • The Safety Love Affair with AI
  • Safety is not a Person, Safety as an Archetype
  • Duty of Care is NOT Duty to Care (for persons)
  • What Can ‘Safety’ Learn From a Rock?
  • Safety, Ethics, SPoR and How to Foster the Abuse of Power
  • Psychosocial Spin – Naming Bad as Good, Good Work Safety!
  • SPoR Workshops Vienna 26-30 June
  • What Theory of Learning is Embedded in Your Investigation Methodology?
  • How to Manage Psychosocial Risks in your organisation
  • Risk You Can Eat
  • Triarachic Thinking in SPoR
  • CLLR NEWSLETTER–March 2023
  • Hoarding as a Psychosis Against Uncertainty
  • The Delusions of AI, Risk and Safety
  • Health, the Poor Cousin of Safety
  • Safety in The Land of Norom from the Book of Nil
  • Psychosocial Health Conversations – Three
  • Conversations About Psychosocial Risk – Greg Smith, Dr Craig Ashhurst and Dr Rob Long
  • Jingoism is NOT Culture, but it is for Safety
  • CLLR Special Edition Newsletter – Giveaways Update
  • The Disembodied Human and Persons in Safety
  • 200,000 SPoR Book Downloads
  • What SPoR Network is.
  • Trinket Safety
  • How to Know if Safety ‘Works’
  • Due Diligence is NOT Quantitative
  • SPoR Community Network
  • Conversations About Psychosocial Risk Session 2 – Greg Smith, Dr Craig Ashhurst and Dr Rob Long
  • The Psychology of Blaming in Safety
  • By What Measure? Safety?
  • Safe Work Australia a Vision for No Vision
  • Do we Need a Different Way of Being in Safety?
  • Non Common Sense Mythology
  • Language Shapes Culture in Risk
  • What Does Your Risk and Safety Icon Say?

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

How is the unconscious in communication critical for understanding and managing risk?

Second Group Completes Graduate Certificate in Psychology of Risk

Reflections of a ‘Doer’

Safety in Design as if Humans Matter

What are Your Secret Messages in Safety?

How Risky is Your Safety Spin?

The Sully Effect

An Ethical Psychology of Risk

The Risk Aversion Delusion

Free Books – 66 Downloads for Tackling Risk

Safety as Ritual Performance

Zero Suicide and the Discourse of Denial

Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk

Selling Out Safety

SEEK is not a Method

OnLine Learning Modules with CLLR

Post Graduate Studies in the Social Psychology of Risk

SPoR Body of Knowledge – A Video

Words Can Change Your Brain

Making the World fit the Safety Worldview

Trinket Safety

Talking Risk Video–The Unconscious In Communication

Why Myths in Safety Work

The Human Safety Newsletter is Out

The Heart of Wisdom at Covid Time

What Does Misinformation Do in Safety?

Lemmings for Lemmings in Leadership and Risk

Tackling Risk, A Field Guide to Risk and Learning

Subliminal and Subconscious Influence

The Deficit Focus and Safety Balance

What Can Safety Learn From Desire Paths?

Looking Forward, Looking Back

non-Leadership in Risk

Celebrating 1000 Blogs on Risk

Utopian Language and the Quest for Perfection in Safety

Second Student Group Social Psychology of Risk

Body Memory and Safety

The Hero Myth in Modern Management

Symbols Matter

Safety Investigation – Whodunit?

More Posts from this Category

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,516 other subscribers

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY?

What is Psychological Safety at Work?


WHAT IS PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY