| It is interesting that most health and safety | | | | rather than just the worker behavior. |
| systems blame hazards for accidents in the | | | | When there is an accident there is normally a |
| workplace. They then place the responsibility for | | | | contribution from both the victim and the system. |
| dealing with these hazards on management rather | | | | However, there appears to be in need to |
| than on the workers. This quite clearly holds the | | | | emphasize one or other of these factors so that |
| management of the business responsible and | | | | policies can be designed to protect the worker |
| accountable for workplace hazards. Yet, hazards | | | | against harm. It seems that the choices facing the |
| by themselves don't cause accidents. It is | | | | policy writers, directs them to emphasize the |
| normally human behavior that is involved in a | | | | system factors before the people factors. The |
| workplace accident. So how can we choose | | | | reason for this is that changing systems and then |
| between these contrasting explanations? | | | | enforcing them, will often be a more effective |
| One way of dealing with it is to assume that | | | | and reliable way of preventing injuries rather than |
| whenever there is an accident, one or other of | | | | trying to change worker behavior. The other |
| these factors will be more important in terms of | | | | element is that it is easier to write policy than it is |
| the cause. When numbers of accidents have been | | | | modify the behavior of people in groups. |
| analyzed, the statistics show that in the majority | | | | Writing policy is more reliable because it gets to |
| of cases it is the behavior of the worker that | | | | change the preconditions that allow incidents and |
| causes the injury. This is backed up by accident | | | | injuries to occur. Furthermore, it is more effective |
| investigations we're a very common comment | | | | as a protection measure because it doesn't |
| from the victim is that, "I should have been more | | | | depend on human beings doing the right thing. |
| careful." It has been reported that 85% of | | | | Emphasizing management responsibility provides |
| accidents are due to "lack of training or education, | | | | the best chance of safer workplaces in general. |
| poor work habits or lack of motivation." If this is | | | | But there is a problem. There is a tendency for |
| the case, then the rest of the accidents are the | | | | the management to blame human error and |
| result of management failures, system failures or | | | | human behavior because it is a much cheaper |
| unsafe conditions. | | | | strategy because it eliminates the need to make |
| Unfortunately, this is not a satisfactory method to | | | | expensive changes to systems. This leads to a |
| resolve the issue. Laying the blame for 85% on | | | | conflict of interests in effective injury prevention |
| the worker, fails to recognize that unsafe | | | | in the workplace and is the cause of continued |
| behavior may be the result of systemic causes. It | | | | failure to provide safer working conditions. |
| may be that organizational procedures are at fault | | | | |