How Human Factors training can help your business
Human Factors defined
Human Factors is a science blending many disciplines. It analyses how we behave in the real world to help us enhance our performance whilst also protecting our well-being.
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Human Factors looks at how we think, how we act, and interact with our environment​
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Our team at Sapien Human Factors Consulting will help you assess the ways you engage with your environment and team for more error-free decision making under pressure
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We’ll uncover what influences the way we act individually or collectively, including experience, biases, heuristics, the influence of others, cultural norms and hierarchy
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Plus, we’ll look at how the design and operation of interfaces in our environment (computer terminals on a bank’s trading floor, for example) can profoundly affect error rates, injuries and efficiency.
Why it’s relevant to your organisation
Take a moment to consider the following questions and whether the answers could improve your business performance:
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Why do highly competent individuals sometimes make seemingly irrational decisions?
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Why do we miss obvious details that could have delivered a different outcome?
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Why do teams make riskier decisions which individually they’d never accept?
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Why are some of the most experienced people most at risk of flawed decision-making?
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How do you create a culture where people admit their errors for others to learn from?
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Why is intervention so difficult and can you make it more effective?
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How do you build an effective team whose performance steadily improves over time?
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Why can experts achieve peak performance in “flow” state and how do you reach it?
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Why does intense pressure or uncertainty offer the greatest risk of error and innovation?
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Can you increase both performance and well-being, or are they opposing forces?
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Why are stress, fatigue and burnout so endemic in business and how can you reduce them?​
On our Leadership courses, our team will guide you through the concept of Just Culture chosen by high-reliability organisations and its inter-relatedness with the three key elements in Human Factors:
All three Human Factors principles are mutually interdependent.
Your teams will need to become proficient in all to achieve the best outcomes.
Leadership & Just Culture defined
Just Culture is an organisational philosophy which balances accountability with learning. While we inevitably make mistakes, a Just Culture recognises that most unsafe acts occur within systems that can be improved.
Instead of simply apportioning blame to individuals, a Just Culture encourages teams to look more deeply to understand why errors occurred in the first place.
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A Just Culture is based on two principles
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First, that an organisation’s policies and procedures be constantly improved to accommodate inevitable human errors
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Second, that people who knowingly violate these policies are held accountable
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The first principle requires a culture which people trust enough to make disclosures
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Trust develops from how an organisation investigates and attributes accountability from staff disclosures1
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Rather than a “no-blame culture”, a Just Culture is fair and proportionate, which understands and embeds understanding of Human Factors into the business
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Similarly, your organisation cannot encourage a grassroots Just Culture without first recognising the importance of effective Human Factors behaviours
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In a fast-moving world, an organisation that embodies Just Culture will learn and adapt
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One that doesn’t will atrophy and ultimately cease to function.
Applying Just Culture in your teams
On our Sapien Human Factors Consulting courses we’ll show you how to:
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Understand the concept of Just Culture
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Grow a Just Culture in your organisation using Human Factors principles
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Recognise the difference between being a leader and a manager
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Learn different leadership skills, and how to switch between them as needed
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Identify your own preferred default leadership style
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Choose the appropriate approach as part of effective team leadership
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Help you boost leadership effectiveness by knowing how to change approach
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Learn from past mistakes and anticipate future threats via effective error reporting
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Build trust as a cornerstone of psychological safety for greater team cohesion and efficacy
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Enable learning and performance improvements while reducing costly errors.
