The Safety of Work

The article we reference provides a historical account of the “Swiss Cheese Model”. Since there are many versions of this same diagram, we thought it best to look back through time and see the evolution of this particular safety model.   Topics: Why the model represents the presence of folklore in safety. The methods used in Good and Bad Reasons. The cognitive processes that lead to errors. Whethe...

Every ten episodes or so, we like to indulge ourselves and cover some of our own research. This is one of those episodes. Since it is relevant to our last three episodes, we discuss the final paper that David wrote when pursuing his Ph. D.   Topics: Defining a safety professional and other key terms. Two modes of safety: Centralized control and guided adaptability. Thematic analysis of different s...

We dive into the final chapters of the book and analyze Hollnagel’s intent and offer our commentary on his ideas. Though our ideas don’t necessarily jibe with all of Hollnagel’s, we appreciate our time dissecting this seminal book.  Tune in to hear our thoughts on the final four chapters. Make sure to let us know if you also read the book and your thoughts on the content. We hope you enjoyed our l...

Picking up where we left off, we begin our discussion with chapter three. Over the course of this episode, we talk about Hollnagel’s definition of Safety I, the myths of safety, and causality (among other things). Tune in for part two of our in-depth look at this important book.   Topics: Chapter 3. Habituation. Preoccupation with failure. Work as imagined vs. work as actually performed. A definit...

For this episode, we are breaking away from the standard formula for this show. We thought it best to split this topic into three episodes, as we don’t want to oversimplify our breakdown of this seminal, two-hundred page book.  We encourage all of our listeners to follow along and read the book with us. Join us as we dig into this influential book by Erik Hollnagel.   Topics: Interpretations of ne...

Ultimately, we want to help everyone understand the role of organizations and individuals when it comes to safety regulation.    Topics: Why regulators are often spoken of negatively. The two forms of deregulation. Goal-based and rule-based frameworks. The progressive pulling-back of Government involvement in safety. Why overregulation occurs. What is actually being regulated. Conclusions from our...

The paper we use to frame our discussion is one that has been making the rounds on social media recently. We thought it was important to seize on the opportunity to discuss a work safety issue while it’s top of mind for the public.   Topics: What it means when something isn’t peer-reviewed. Why statistics are ever popular. How many workers hours to decimal places. Using a model that weighs underly...

We dig into how safety promotion is used and its effectiveness within an organization. Often, safety communication is about large-scale behaviors and societal problems. So, we found a paper that focused on workplace safety, which was hard to find. The Effects of an Informational Safety Campaign in the Shipbuilding Industry  helps us frame our conversation about the efficacy of safety communication...

Given that the last two episodes were about theories, we wanted to get back to something more concrete in nature. Hence, the topic of parachutes. We find they are often used in military operations, but are rarely required for civilian aviation. Let’s look at this discrepancy and discuss whether parachutes are actually used to prevent injury or death. Join us for this interesting and somewhat surpr...

We frame our conversation around the paper, Safety Climate and Injuries: An Examination of Theoretical and Empirical Relationships.  Tune in to hear us talk about retrospective studies, the perception of safety vs. actual safety, and the influence of injuries on safety climate.   Topics: Retrospective studies. Organizational and psychological safety climates. Perception of safety and actual safety...

Dr. Neale is a Senior Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute at Deakin University. There, he studies human geography and cultural anthropology. We use his paper, Fuzzy Boundaries: Simulation and Expertise in Bush Fire Management,  to help frame our discussion.  Tune in to hear our insights about the safety community and Dr. Neale’s thoughts on bush fire management.   Topics: Dr. Neale’s Ph...

A huge thank you to our listeners who have made this podcast such a success. We started this show with the hope that we could impact the safety of work in our community and beyond. To all who have shared this podcast, you are helping us reach people and potentially  improve safety culture.    Topics: The struggle to articulate what it means when we say a safety practice “works”. How we titled our...

This topic was a request from one of our listeners. Join us as we dig into this frequently asked question and let you know all about academic journals and what you can take away from findings therein.   Topics: Explaining academic journals. The ease of accessing journals in the Internet age. What makes a reputable journal. The peer-review process. Why some peer-reviews take longer than others. Qua...

This discussion is building off last week’s episode where we focused on blame. We thought we would dig a little deeper into how people learn from incidents.  We use the paper, What is Learning? A Review of the Safety Literature to Define Learning from Incidents, Accidents, and Disasters,  in order to frame our chat.   Topics: Single and double-loop learning. Incident learning models. The least eff...

This is a particularly controversial topic, so we are going to attempt to be as neutral as possible. We refer to the sources, A Review of Literature: Individual Blame vs. Organizational Function logics in Accident Analysis  and Antecedents and Consequences of Organizational Silence  to help frame our discussion.   Topics: Accountability in regards to safety in the workplace. The papers referenced...

We are fortunate to have a few resources we can reference for today’s topic. Please see below for links to the papers we mentioned in our conversation.   Topics: Defining risk compensation. Risk compensation in road traffic. Argument by analogy. What causes people to believe in risk compensation. Why robust data equals a real effect. Practical takeaways.   Quotes: “...I think this is the sort of p...

We use the paper, Analysing Human Factors and Non-Technical Skills in Offshore Drilling Operations Using FRAM,  in order to frame our discussion of this topic. Please let us know if you have any experience with FRAM or similar models. We’d love to hear your feedback.   Topics: Using FRAM. Vulnerable Systems Syndrome. STAMP diagrams. How the researchers collected their data. Functions that are comm...

To frame our discussion, we reference the paper What We Talk About When We Talk About HSE and Culture. Please send us your further questions of safety culture, so we can dig into more specifics in later episodes.   Topics: How “safety culture” came about in the 1970’s. What Chernobyl has to do with safety culture. Safety culture vs. safety climate. What the paper studied and what it concluded. The...

We reference the paper Six Ways of Understanding Leadership Development in order to frame our study. Tune in to hear our discussion and more about this paper.   Topics: Defining leadership development. The idea of taking on the mantle of “leader”. The six different ways of understanding leadership. Developing leaders who further the goals of the organization. Stretching people’s views of leadershi...

We had trouble finding a suitable paper for this topic. Measuring and studying safety leadership often proves difficult. However, we use the paper Examining Attitudes, Norms, and Control Toward Safety Behaviors as Mediators in the Leadership-Safety Motivation Relationship. As an aside, we offer a big “thank you” to those who shared our podcast with others. Our followers and listenership has grown...

We have had a couple of requests for this topic, so even though we couldn’t find a completely suitable paper, we decided to forge ahead anyway.   Topics: Explaining Ethnography. Why safety can be politically motivated. Starting your conversations with a personal connection. Why the setting of your conversation matters. How to keep your subjects talking. Setting boundaries. How to react when the in...

To frame our conversation, we use one of Drew’s papers to discuss this issue. This paper, Forecasts or Fortune-Telling ,was borne out of deep frustration. Tune in to hear our discussion about when or if it is appropriate to listen to experts.   Topics: The two questions the paper sought to answer. What we mean by “expertise”. Forecasting. Determining the value of a given expert. Biases in reportin...

To frame our chat, we reference the papers, Our Current Approach to Root Cause Analysis and What-You-Look-for-is-What-You-Find . Tune in to hear our thoughts on this matter.   Topics: Determining root causes of accidents. Why investigations are social processes.  An explainer on editorials. What “process change” really means. Applying the Swiss Cheese Model. Confirmation bias in research. Only fin...

We use the paper, Observation and Assessment of Crossing Situations Between Pleasure Craft and a Small Passenger Ferry,  in order to frame our discussion.   Topics: The small ferry referenced in the paper and the plans to replace it with an automated craft. Why commercial vessels get priority in the water. Incorporating human factors into the study of boats. What you lose by automating this partic...

To help frame our conversation, we use the paper How Does Audit and Feedback Influence Intentions of Health Professionals to Improve Practice?   Topics: Our feelings about audits. Feedback from the audit process. The format of a cluster-randomized trial. Lab vs. field results. How to act on audit results. Analyzing the study’s results. Final takeaways.   Quotes: “...The two parts of this study tha...