Organisational Factors, the Last Frontier?

Many high-risk companies often present the incorporation of human and organisational factors (HOF) as the last step in their safety strategy, after having first taken essentially technical then procedural measures.

There is no doubt that this approach has allowed progress to be made in the dissemination of the major concepts illustrating the human contribution to safety. For example, there is a growing acceptance of the difference between work as done and work as imagined. Many companies are considering the importance of managed safety as a complement to rule-based safety and this tends to be reflected in their structuring of human and organisational factors.

However, some practices are struggling to truly evolve:

On closer examination, these limitations seem to be concentrated around organisational factors in the broad sense. Could it be that the term HOF actually hides different realities? It must be acknowledged that the ‘o’ in human and organisational factors often is a small ‘o’. On the one hand there is the progress made by the human factors approach, which focuses closely on workers and the reality in the field. On the other hand, it seems to be more difficult to change the organisation and managerial practices.

We propose to examine this hypothesis in more depth, based on experience of HOF approaches implemented since the 2000s in high-risk companies.¹ We will more specifically explore potential causes of this blockage not on the demand side (resistance of organisations to change their practices), but rather on the HOF supply side. Are the experts’ profiles relevant? Are there difficulties in appropriating fields mostly peopled by general consultants and gurus and considered to be scientifically weak? Is the HOF “coalition” powerful enough to allow an actual consideration of HOF in companies?

One of the main reasons why it is so difficult to fully take organisational issues into account might be the profile of HOF suppliers, who are nearly all psychologists and ergonomists, to the detriment of sociologists and management scientists. We truly owe a lot to this community for raising the profile of human factors in companies. However, consideration of organisational factors seems to be limited by some of their specificities such as the areas they choose to work in, their relationship to management, or even the theoretical framework.

The domains where human factors are considered relevant have changed greatly. The focus has moved from operator protection, to optimizing their work, safety and performance. There seems to be a desire to slowly ‘climb’ from the micro (the work situation) to more macro dimensions related to the organisation of work. This has been most successful in the field of the design (of a workstation or a factory). But it has very rarely been used to address large-scale managerial or organisational change.

An organisational intervention also means changing who HOF specialists talk to. Historically, they have been invited in by departments that are doing quite similar work, such as the medical service or internal ergonomists. They also have interacted a lot with front-line managers, i.e. the production or design team at the factory or project level. Working on the organisation and major strategic decisions involves a shift from the production line to the management line, or even to the level of general management [2]. This represents a jump that is often difficult for HOF specialists to make because they do not want to lose their credibility with workers in the field or to be manipulated due to lack of leeway.

Finally, organisational factors appear to be a domain that is reserved for another category of stakeholders—auditors and management consultants. The business world is, in some ways, implicitly divided in two. Human factors approaches apply to working conditions (workers, safety, design) while auditors or management consultants work on organisational problems, management and strategic decisions. It is apparently difficult to overcome this division because, on the one hand, the human factors community is very critical of the lack of scientific knowledge of management consultants and of some so-called gurus. On the other hand, not many of these experts are interested in safety issues. There do not seem to be many bridges between the two worlds, especially since organisational sociologists—whose work is closer to the ideas of human and organisational factors—have almost disappeared from companies. In the nineties, it was common to find sociologists working at the top level in companies such as Air France, RATP, Danone, Michelin, etc. As an example, during my PhD at France Telecom, I worked with a sociologist who advised the general management to support the reorganisation of one of its departments [4]. Nowadays, the demand from companies for sociological support is so low, it is hardly possible to quote such an example [6, 8]. The lack of development of organisational aspects in HOF approaches is harmful because it risks locking those approaches into an overly-limited view of the problem. Above all, rather like a ‘glass ceiling’, it might block access to the level where solutions can most often be found: organisational, management or strategic decisions.

How is the HOF approach currently structured in at-risk companies in France? Who are the key actors, the members of the coalition that is driving progress? Where are they located in the organisation?

First, we will address the external options the French HOF market has to offer. As already stated in this chapter, the supply is mostly composed of experts with experience in human factors and ergonomics, working in small consulting companies. This community is well-structured; its members are part of an association, the SELF (The Society of French-speaking Ergonomists) and they regularly meet to share their experience. In fact, there are many more of these external consultants than internal experts.

Secondly, what are the current trends within companies? Based on experience with several large industrial groups, some conclusions can be drawn (Fig. 1).

Some at-risk companies have centralised their HOF expertise. It may be the responsibility of a single person, usually a former consultant, or an HSE² employee who has specialized in human and organisational factors. At best, it is a department combining these profiles. In any case, it is a very lightweight structure that aims to promote HOF approaches or to capitalize on local experiments in order to disseminate them. It can also be supported by an R&D department staffed by HOF researchers.

In some leading companies, there might be HOF specialists posted in the field. In some cases, they have organised themselves into a network. For example, at the French national railway company (SNCF³) or in the nuclear sector, there are human factors consultants. But the relationship between headquarters and this decentralised network is not always easy. On-site experts work closely with their colleagues and have more in common with local managers than with a centralised HOF unit. Sometimes, they do not even belong to the same sector. At SNCF, for instance, the human factors network is part of the human resources department and mainly deals with the quality of life at work and occupational safety. Meanwhile, in the same company, the central HOF department is part of the industrial safety division!

In the vast majority of cases, HOF falls within the remit of HSE structures, or those responsible for major risks. For example, at Air France, the HOF unit is part of flight safety. At SNCF it is part of railway safety, and at EDF,⁴ a French electric utility company, of nuclear safety.

Finally, this small internal network, which is often somewhat disconnected, takes its orders from a few decision makers who are convinced that the HOF approach can help them solve their operational problems. However, these managers are still very much in the minority, which generally leads to ad hoc requests. The Institute for an industrial safety culture (Icsi), created in 2003 following the AZF accident in Toulouse (France), promotes a collective dynamic which allowed to launch large safety culture reinforcement programmes based on better consideration of HOF. However, although these approaches are often initiated by top managers, they appear difficult to maintain in the long-term when these managers change positions or leave the company.

To overcome some of the limitations described above and reinforce the HOF coalition so that it can work on organisational issues, here are a few ideas based on our experience working with industrial companies.

It must be recognized, of course, that the different propositions discussed in this chapter are difficult to implement. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to establish a strategy for implementing HOF over a longer timeframe. Like any project that seeks to implement change, a two-step approach is needed: quick wins and long-term structured action.