Risk Management: Human Fallibility, 'Just' Culture & Accountability

This essay explores the concept of risk management in the workplace, with a focus on human fallibility and the importance of establishing a 'just' culture. It examines various human errors, such as fatigue and poor training, and proposes recovery approaches like limiting long shifts and providing experienced trainers. The essay contrasts the person approach, which emphasizes individual accountability for unsafe acts, with the system approach, which views errors as consequences of systemic factors. It evaluates both approaches, highlighting the shortcomings of the person approach and the benefits of the system approach in creating safer environments. Furthermore, it analyzes the pros and cons of rule-based behavior, noting its advantages in compliance and improvisation but also its potential to decrease employee motivation. Finally, the essay emphasizes the significance of openness and transparency in managing errors and advocates for the application of a 'just' culture to foster accountability and continuous improvement within the organization. Desklib offers a variety of resources, including past papers and solved assignments, to aid students in their studies.

MANAGING RISK

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY.......................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION...................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Risk is basically the uncontrolled loss of something valuable and thus is the
interaction with wide uncertainties. Risk is predominately the financial, ethical as well as
other that are associated with destructive management. Risk management is involves
various factors which are undertaken to eliminate the risk and causes of risks. The main
purpose of managing risk is to reduce the contingencies within various aspects and thus
improve the overall system. It has the main aim to assess the various errors which leads
to risks and thus overcoming them by following various strategies.
This essay addresses human errors and the recovery approaches, Person
approach and system approach, Evaluation of system approach and person approach,
Pros and cons of rule based behaviour and openness and transparency for managing
errors.
MAIN BODY
Human errors and the recovery approaches
Human fallibility is basically the fall down in the job. It defines the various errors
which are being caused at the workplace and thus the employees are being deceived in
context to these errors. There are a range of errors which are being caused by the
humans at the workplace and thus hinders their operation and compromise the safety of
large number of employees in the organization. The various human errors are
Fatigue
This is one of the significant human error which prevails at the workplace. When
an employee feels too tired in their work and thus is unable to complete their job
functions then the accidents arises. The exhausted and the frustrated employee will
often sleep at their workplace, neglect the basic safety instructions and thus this would
lead to damage to their mental as well as physical abilities. When the workers work on
the heavy machinery then they are not able to focus on their work due to its fatigue and
thus this may lead to the harmful accident.
Poor training
Poor training also becomes the most important human error at the workplace
which can lead to the serious injuries to the employees (Hillson and Murray-Webster,
2017). When an organization gives training to their employees regarding the use of

safety equipment or handling the complex work then the employees remain aware of its
various constraints. But due to the negligence of the management of the company,
when they fail to provide effective training to their employees then it becomes one of the
biggest error as sometimes they leave some essential topics. Due to this, employees
sometimes suffers from the serious injuries as well as accidents. For example in an
organization, the manager in the training session of health and safety left to explain the
use of Graders then it can lead to serious accident when the particular worker will be
called to work on this heavy equipment. Thus, poor training is also one of the significant
human error.
Recovery approaches
In order to overcome these errors at the workplace there are wide variety of
recovery approaches which the organizations can use
Limiting the long shifts
The main cause of the well-known human error fatigue is to work for long hours
in the office. Thus, the most significant strategy to manage this is limiting the long shifts.
The organizations can increase the number of days of working and thus can reduce the
long hours per day (Hillson, 2017). This will help the employees to get some extra time
for relaxing and thus they can have adequate sleep.
Monitoring the signs
The employers should be trained enough to monitor and track the signs of fatigue
like yawning, rubbing eyes etc. Through this monitoring, employers can thus encourage
their employees to rest. When necessary, employers can provide an isolated and
darkroom to their employees where they relax (St Pierre, Hofinger and Simon, 2016).
Experienced employers
Taking of the poor training at the workplace, this can be overcome by proving the
appropriate training to the employees. For the purpose of training, the employers should
be experienced enough who have the ind depth knowledge of the topic and knows all
pros and cons. This will help them to provide effective training regarding the specific
topic.

Proper material
The employers should seek the well-prepared and proper guidance material from
the management that will cover all the topics of the training and thus should divide
training session into definite breaks so that this session would be effective.
Person approach and system approach
The human errors are generally viewed for two ways that is person approach and
system approach.
Person approach
The widespread and one of the significant model of person approach stresses on
the unsafe acts, errors as well as procedural violations of individuals on front line which
can be nurse, physicians etc. It generally focuses on the main cause of the arousal of
the unsafe acts. According to this approach, the unsafe acts arises primarily due to the
aberrant mental processes like poor motivation, carelessness, recklessness, negligence
etc. The different countermeasures are mainly directed at mitigating the unwanted and
useless variability within human behavior (Van Der Vegt and et.al.,2015). The methods
consist of poster campaigns which appeal to the fear of people, disciplinary measures,
retraining, shaming, naming etc. People who primarily follows this approach tend to
view and treat these errors as the moral issues and thus have the perception that bad
things comes to only based people. This approach mainly aims at the breakdown of the
cognitive processes like inattention which eventually leads to tho errors in employees
and the unsafe acts. There has been a breakdown in the mental balance of the
employees due to which they are more likely to engage in the unsafe acts which lead to
their disruption.
System approach
The System approach is based on the premise that humans are generally fallible
as well as errors are common and expected form the humans whether it is small
organization or multinational company. In this model, the errors are mainly viewed as
consequences instead of causes and have their origin not in the nature of humans when
they are born but is the systematic factor which arises with time. This includes recurrent
error tapes at the workplace as well as the organizational processes and systems that
results in these errors. The countermeasures are generally based on the presumption

that the human conditions cannot be changed but the conditions and the environment in
which they work can be altered and modified. The main central idea in this approach is
system defenses. Each and every hazardous technologies consist of the barriers as
well as safeguards (Murray-Webster and Hillson, 2016). This system approach
acknowledge the human fallibility and emphasizes that errors takes place even within
the High reliability organizations(HROs). It takes into account the various interventions
for changing working conditions.
Evaluation of system approach and person approach
Person approach
The person approach been the important approach when talking of the unsafe
acts. blaming the individuals is generally emotionally and physically more satisfying as
compared to targeting the organizations. People are generally seen as free agents that
have the potential to choose between safe as well as unsafe behavioral. This theory
remains within the constraints of traditional and orthodox perception of society that if
something is wrong then that person must be responsible. The unsafe acts which
happens at the workplace are mainly under the responsibility of person who is directly
or indirectly involved in this act. The person approach has some shortcomings and thus
is ill-suited (Amalberti and Vincent, 2019). The continued adherence to this model is
likely to threat the establishment of safer institutions. For example in the construction
company, the operators wrongly violated the plant procedures which led to the switching
off safety systems. In this case, blaming the person for the catastrophic destruction will
be easier for the organization rather than blaming their own system and machinery.
Thus, people who follow this approach does not,look at the cause of problem after
identifying unsafe acts rather they focus on blaming and drawing out the conclusion.
System approach
Within the system approach, defenses, safeguards as well as barriers mainly
occupy the key positions. The system of high-technology have various defensive layers
among which some constitute engineered while some rely on individuals. Besides
these, some depends on procedures as well as administrative controls. The main
function is to protect the victims from local hazards. The system approach is totally
different from the person approach and thus stresses that errors are expected within the

organization and are not the in the human nature since their birth. This concentrates on
the modern view of people which says that instead of improving human condition,
environment in which they work should be improved. It generally involves the active
failures which consist of unsafe acts that are being committed by individuals who form
the direct contact with other system or individuals (Cleden, 2017). The most basic
example of system approach is that when the worker is working on the heavy
equipment and suddenly due to the faults, there results in the breakdown of the process
or leads to serious injury of that worker then the organization will tend to change that
equipment or rectify the mistake within it instead of blaming the worker of their
negligence.
Pros and cons of rule based behaviour
The rule-based behaviour generally encompasses the behaviour and acts which
are under the strict control. In short, it is the behaviour within which the individuals
follow some written or the remembered rules. This is mainly seen in the organizations
whether big or small. The employees are mainly required to function according to the
given rules and regulations and thus are required to work within the constraint. This
rule-based behaviour however enable the employees to work on the strict guidelines
and thus follow the discripted rules to perform their work. This rule-based behaviour
within the organization has some advantages as well as disadvantages which
eventually impact their operations.
Advantages
The main advantage of this rule based behaviour is that it results in the correct
compliance. Correct compliance are basically the proper actions which are being
followed via appropriate interpretation of rules (Paul, Sarker and Essam, 2016). This
type of behaviour helps the organizations to provide the strict path which the employees
have to follow and thus assist in the correct compliance without distracting the goal.
Another advantage of this behaviour is that it leads to the correct improvisation. If there
remains no rules in the organization or industry then the employees tend to work
according to them and there remains the lack of proper action thus this behaviour helps
the organization to implement the correct actions and thus maintain their work by
correctly improvising then various activities in right direction. One more advantage is

that it prevents the employees from violating the law. This eventually reduces the
number of mistakes done by the employees and thus increases their productivity. This
behaviour is primarily seen in aviation industry where the pilots are required to strictly
follow the aircraft operating procedures and thus are highly trained to follow the
regulations stringently.
Disadvantages
The rule-based behaviour often leads to decreases in the motivation level of
employees. Due to the complying to strict rules, the employees are nit able to work
according to their inters and thus they feel demotivated. This ultimately reduces their
productivity level and their performance (Kinsey, 2017). Another disadvantage is that it
generally becomes time-consuming of the organization. Building the complex rules and
thus implementing them at different level of hierarchies often leads to the wastage of
vital time of the organization. This also becomes challenging for the company. For
example when the employees are forced to follow the strict rules regarding increasing
the sale of a product then the employees are bound to follow that and thus they cannot
apply their own ideas which might be fruitful for the company sometimes.
Just culture
Openness and transparency for managing errors
It is the concept which is related the systematic thinking and thus emphasizes on
the fact that mistakes are product of the bad organizational culture instead of the fault of
single individual. The just culture helps to build an environment where the individuals
are free to report any errors and thus assist the organization by learning from their
mistakes. It helps to foster the culture of openness and accountability. Using this
culture, individuals are normally not blamed for the honest errors instead they are held
accountable in case of the willful violation. Through the appreciation of effective
communication, this culture focuses on making the holding the employees accountable
for their own actions and thus this helps the employees to know their mistakes ( Van
Cott, 2018). When the employees remain responsible for their own mistakes then they
become cautions not to repeat same mistake in the near future. This eventually reduces
the amount of errors done by them and also reduces the defects. Apart from this, the
just culture also helps in increasing the openness among the different level of hierarchy.

Through this, the employees are able to manage their work and thus communicate
effectively with their peers as well as top management. This eventually increases the
degree of openness between various level. As this culture fosters communication, thus
the employees feel free to openly communicate with their seniors. This also brings
transparency among the organization.
CONCLUSION
It has been summarized that there are wide variety of human errors which
surrounds the organization and thus leads to serious accidents and injuries. Poor
training, Fatigue etc. are some human errors that leads to hazards within the
organizations. The person approach of the unsafe act generally relies on the fact that
people tend to blame the individual for the various acts instead of the particular
organization and have the belief that bad things comes to bad people. On contrary to
this, System approach addresses the modern views where it focuses on improving the
conditions and environment in which employees work rather than changing the human
conditions. The main advantage of rule based behaviour is that it helps the
organizations to exercise strict control over them through rules and make them to
comply to rules strictly for achieving organizational success. The disadvantage of
behaviour is that it somewhere deceases the morale of employees as employees
remain bound to these rules.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Amalberti, R. and Vincent, C., 2019. Managing risk in hazardous conditions:
improvisation is not enough. BMJ quality & safety, pp.bmjqs-2019.
Cleden, D., 2017. Managing project uncertainty. Routledge.
Hillson, D. and Murray-Webster, R., 2017. Understanding and managing risk attitude.
Routledge.
Hillson, D., 2017. Managing risk in projects. Routledge.
Kinsey, S., 2017. Managing risk. In The International Business Archives Handbook (pp.
356-381). Routledge.
Murray-Webster, R. and Hillson, D., 2016. Managing group risk attitude. Routledge.
Paul, S.K., Sarker, R. and Essam, D., 2016. Managing risk and disruption in production-
inventory and supply chain systems: A review. Journal of Industrial &
Management Optimization.12(3). pp.1009-1029.
St Pierre, M., Hofinger, G. and Simon, R., 2016. Crisis management in acute care
settings: human factors and team psychology in a high-stakes environment.
Springer International Publishing.
Van Cott, H., 2018. Human errors: Their causes and reduction. In Human error in
medicine (pp. 53-65). CRC Press.
Van Der Vegt, G.S and et.al.,2015. Managing risk and resilience.