Paul Davison
PPWD Consulting Ltd
Paul is an ex-RAF officer and helicopter pilot of 17 years’ service. He has experienced operational tours in Kosovo, Northern Ireland and Iraq both as a Puma helicopter pilot and a commander. During a 7-year period at the RAF College, Cranwell, he instructed junior officers, trained trainers and managed squadrons; including command of the Leadership Training Squadron. The development of theoretical and practical leadership training resulted in an ‘outstanding’ OFSTED award, only the second time that this had been given to a military academy.Exposed to a wide range of leadership styles; whilst operating in a safety critical role, the employment of Crew Resource Management, Human Factors and operating in a Safety Culture were an everyday reality. Paul remains in uniform as a volunteer with the Air Training Corps, designing and delivering a broad spectrum of training to young adults. In 2011, he co-founded PPWD Consulting Ltd with Paul White, which is focused on improving the Human Performance of their clients. Areas covered, include: Non-Technical Skills, Human Performance for Investigators and Assessors, and management, leadership, coaching and mentoring programmes. Over the last 5 years the company has built up an impressive client base with whom PPWD enjoy strong long-term working relationships. Within the Rail Industry, PPWD are currently working with Greater Anglia, Southeastern and East Midlands Trains.
This paper mixes theoretical and abstract thoughts with five years’ experience of employing NTS within the UK Rail Industry. I would like the paper to be considered for inclusion in Applied Ergonomics. It is not an academic paper, rather the presentation of human performance measures, ideas and concepts that have been influential in engendering the development of Fair Safety Cultures[1] within a number of UK TOCs.
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the key Human Performance stages required to generate and support Fair Safety Cultures. In particular, a TOCs orientation towards and handling of error, the use of investigations to establish learning to prevent recurrence, and the knowledge, understanding and employment of NTS for staff development.
Post-error blame judgements are incompatible with the establishment of Fair Safety Cultures. Blame sees the human as the problem, and leads to simplistic cause and effect outcomes, it leads to the retraining, re-briefing and removal of the ‘bad apple’ to solve the problem. Fair cultures view the human as the ‘glue’ within systems, a resource operating in sub-optimal conditions, capable of making things work. In turn, errors are seen as markers to an imperfect system.
Investigations are extremely impactful within TOCs, and all too often they establish blame and discipline, which engenders Blame Cultures[2]. An Investigation’s outcomes effect an individual’s livelihood, attitude towards work and send ripples throughout an organisation’s culture. Therefore, Fair Cultures require Investigations to be systemic development tools, to understand what took place and establish learning to prevent future recurrence.
Front-line operators are required: to problem solve, demonstrate agility in thought and action, and make sense of chaotic situations in adaptable manners. NTS are a set of trainable pro-active skills, which hold equal status with an individual’s technical skills within their competency management. NTS help to bring meaning to chaos, to make sense of one’s surroundings and assist in problem solving. NTS are a Human Resilience Toolbox made up of seven-toolkits each containing trainable skill sets. The 26-skill sets provide armour to frontline operators, this makes them robust, capable of handling the physical, emotional and psychological stresses and strains placed on them by the 21st Century Railway, to move trains and passengers safely and on time.
Treating errors as just a normal part of high performing sub-optimal systems and ensuring Investigations remain focused on establishing learning and preventing recurrence, combined with making staff robust by investing in their NTS to handle day-to-day challenges, results in the opening of frontline staff to becoming engaged, leading to the open reporting and discussions of near misses[3]. In turn, unsafe acts reduce, as does the number of near misses and in time minor, serious and fatal incidents decrease, which are the concluding measures to the establishment of a Fair Safety Culture.
[1] RSSB (2016). Supporting a Fair Culture – Good Practice Guide (T1068).
[2] Dekker, S. 2014. The Field Guide to Understanding ‘Human Error’. 3rd Ed. Aldershot, Ashgate.
[3] Reason, J. 1997 Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents. Aldershot, Ashgate.
Team working , Systems safety, risk management and incident reporting , Accident and incident investigation , Safety culture , Human error and human reliability
20171011_-_RSSB_2017_-_NTS_Resilience_Toolbox_-_Final_Edit.pdf 