I’ve just summarised another paper exploring the impact of a manager walkaround program (not the attached image). You know the types – senior managers take to the floor to observe work, talk with workers, and discuss potential improvements. Interestingly, this paper found that the walkaround programs (compared to controls without the intervention), led to a… Continue reading Management safety walkarounds and worsening performance

This surveyed 108 Swedish investigators (funnily enough) about accident investigation practices and investigator beliefs. Investigators were from a range of industries. There’s a lot of findings, so I won’t cover all of them. Results Investigators detailed the time spent on different stages of an investigation. These were approximately planning at 8%, data collection at 30%,… Continue reading The context and habits of accident investigation practices: A study of 108 Swedish investigators

When is a near miss not a clear sign of potential harm that was narrowly avoided? Interestingly, work from Dillon and Tinsley et al. have explored this question across several studies (See attached image and links below to several of their papers). They highlight across many studies that people can interpret near events as either… Continue reading Influence of outcome biases & near miss biases on risk decisions

This paper explored the paradox of how people who have previously endured an emotionally distressing event may be less compassionate to other people who are also struggling with a similar distressing event. In short, it’s argued that this paradoxical effect results, in part, from how the prior experience of the distressing event leads to a… Continue reading Having “Been There” Doesn’t Mean I Care: When Prior Experience Reduces Compassion for Emotional Distress

This earlier paper investigated how counterfactual thinking influences subsequent judgements of accidents and the role of people. Participants were given scenarios and were asked to judge the causality of an event and then develop some remedies to prevent a repeat of the event. The participants were asked to use if-only counterfactuals to determine the remedies.… Continue reading Choosing remedies after accidents: Counterfactual thoughts and the focus on fixing “human error”

I found this to be an interesting paper from Fariña, Arce and Novo (2003). It explored the effects of cognitive heuristics and biases on judicial decisions. 555 Spanish sentences were evaluated. The authors suggest that rather than legal judgements relying primarily on formal reasoning, the majority were based on informal reasoning (74.95% of cases), e.g.… Continue reading Heuristics and biases in judicial sentencing

Putting the final touches on my second auditing paper, and writing (briefly) about the clear light of hindsight, outcome bias and counterfactual logics. I’ve read a lot about these concepts, but just came across this different way to describe the misleading influence of hindsight – “delusional clarity”. That is, “Progressively working backwards through a causal… Continue reading Hindsight and delusional clarity

This ethnographic study explored the main stress factors, its consequences and possible improvement measures across 3 UK construction companies. Results An important source of stress for all construction workers was coping with ambiguity, which related to lack of time and resources, and poor communication. For example, the number of tasks to be completed in too… Continue reading Framing stress and associated behaviours at work

This study explored the links between safety climate at work as a predictor for the risk of long-term sickness absence (LTSA). They followed 63,500 employees from the general working population in Denmark, without prior LTSA, over four biannual national cohort surveys from 2012-2018. Providing background: Results Over the two-year period, 8.6% of the population who… Continue reading Safety climate at work and risk of long-term sickness absence: Prospective cohort with register follow-up among 63,500 workers

This study explored the effects of schedule pressure on construction performance, with a focus on trade-offs in scheduling. Survey data from 102 construction practitioners from 38 construction sites in Singapore was collected, and development of causal loop diagrams. Providing background: ·      In the shorter term, contractors can avoid delays by accelerating projects via means like adding… Continue reading Effects of Schedule Pressure on Construction Performance