FIND OUT WHERE AND HOW YOUR NEXT ACCIDENT MAY HAPPEN

WITH A LEARNING FROM NORMAL WORK FRAMEWORK

Leverage modern safety science, digital technology & proven Human Performance tools to achieve a breakthrough in safety performance and safety culture.

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See the list of contents below.

And aligned with industry Guidance

WHICH ONE ARE YOU?

SCENARIO 1 – YOU DIDN’T SEE IT COMING

Imagine getting home in the evening having just celebrated 2 years without a Lost Time Injury (LTI) just to receive a call from one of the locations informing you one of your workers has been killed in a work accident.

As you are listening to this shuttering news, your heartbeat goes up, you start sweating, and get slight vertigo. You must get to the location immediately and notify other people.

Your partner sees your pale face and starts worrying about you. The warm dinner on the table does not matter at all. It will be you who will notify the family and the rest of the company.

All the efforts you put into improving safety in the last few years flash before your eyes, you keep asking yourself “How is that possible?”. We were in full control. We haven’t had an LTI for years. What have I missed?…

SCENARIO 2 – YOU ARE CLOSE TO ZERO

Your efforts have paid off. You’ve managed to significantly reduce accidents in recent years. You’ve celebrated. 

You face a new set of challenges now:

1. There are no incidents to learn from,

2. Using near-misses or high-potential incidents is not good enough, i.e. something undesired already happened,

3. With small numbers, the injury rate can no longer be used as an indication of how safe you are,

4. Some of the largest industry disasters occurred with long-time injury-free operations,

5. You see a shift in the industry towards using human factors, human and organisational performance (HOP), Safety 2 but you don’t know how to apply it in practice,

6. You are afraid of a surprise accident that you didn’t see coming.

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY
‘NORMAL WORK’?

In ‘normal work’, people adapt to changing conditions and challenges as part of their job. For example, lifting a load. Every time an operator does it, there may be something different about the situation, for example:

  • Less time available than planned
  • Additional people in the area
  • One person being off work and not available
  • Correct tools (e.g. lifting slings) not available

Overcoming the various challenges is part of what needs to be done to complete the task. It’s ‘normal work’.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LEARN FROM ‘NORMAL WORK’?

It means proactively looking into things that make the work challenging, increase the chances of error, and how dependencies between different groups may contribute to incidents in the future.

Example of How an International Energy Company Eliminated the Risk of a Life-Changing Injury by “Learning From Normal Work”

Problem: Risk of life-changing injury related to moving multi-ton cable spools in a workshop.
Action: A Learning Team technique applied. A facilitator organized a short session with the operators moving the spools and discussed what makes this task difficult and how mistakes could happen.
Learnings: Wired crane control forced the operator to stay close to the load and restricted their movement and visibility. The job required a spotter, and there was potential for miscommunicating directions. In addition, the buttons on the crane control were misaligned with the load movement direction.
Solution: Wireless crane control installed. The crane controls on the remote were aligned with the load movement direction. The need for a spotter and the risk of miscommunication was eliminated. The risk of severe injury was eliminated.
Summary: “Learning From Normal Work” is complementary to other forms of risk control and captures aspects of risk other methods tend to omit, such as confusing design, reasons behind potential miscommunication, or constraining spatial arrangements.
SEE MORE EXAMPLES HERE

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO LEARN FROM NORMAL WORK?

WHAT RESULTS YOU CAN GET?

Learn how to find precursors of your next surprise accident

Knowing the hazards and having controls in place is not enough to prevent your next accident.

Many conditions are not classified as hazards but contribute to accidents. The conditions that will create your next accidents are in place today, just for your people effectively deal with them most of the time. We will show you these conditions and how to find them in your operations.

Overcome the “hiding game” and find out what people are not telling you about what’s really going on

Hiding information or not telling the truth is people’s self-protective behavior when they believe they may be blamed or punished.
When there is no accident or failure, the conversation about what makes the work difficult is much easier.

See examples of how “Learning From Normal Work” reduced risk, saved money, and improved efficiency.

There are many books and papers on human factors, human performance, safety II, safety differently, and many other ideas. But there are very few actual examples available.

We will not only show you examples of how other companies applied “Learning From Normal Work” and the results they got, but we will also show you how you can do it yourself and make it work in the frontline.

Apply Practical Tools to identify where and how your next accident will take place

We provide templates and implementation resources to help your teams.

 

 

Learn how to identify tasks that are likely to result in your next accident and prioritize your resources

“But we have thousands of activities that do not result in accidents! So how do I know where to focus my resources?” asked an HSE executive. Exactly!

We will show you how to identify the critical tasks and activities that are likely to result in your next accident.

Reframe your safety observation and leadership visits to learn about your next accident

Learn how to ask powerful questions that open people up and give you insights into the causes of your next accident.

Find out why people are breaking rules

We will show you why people don’t follow the rules and give you templates and checklists so you can find these reasons in your operations.

Training that opens new horizons

We can find and address the precursors of your next accident before it happens.

Doing so requires:

  1. a new understanding of accident causation combined with
  2. new skills in asking new types of questions.

Our Training programs were designed to build stakeholder awareness and enable companies to be self-sufficient with Proactive Learning:

AWARENESS:

BUILDING A NEW MINDSET AND SKILLSET

Implementation that gets you sustainable results

Knowledge is nothing without action.

Our “Site Enabler” program is designed to build capacity in your operational units in a matter of days to start learning from normal work. The program includes:

  1. Training for leaders
  2. Training for facilitators
  3. Coaching
  4. Risk reduction project and feedback
  5. Executive planning workshop

See the brochure

TESTIMONIALS

For the first time in a long time, I could see a new angle to explore that might just be the key to unlocking some further HSE improvement.

Alistair Cameron

SVP QHSE, ALTUS Intervention

The Course was just amazing! We are now developing the learning from normal work program, and everything has been based on this training course.

Maria del Pilar Argón Farkas

Professional Senior HSE, Ecopetrol

WHO’s BEHIND IT?

Dr. Marcin Nazaruk holds a Ph.D. in the practical application of industrial psychology to safety in high-risk industries and has two decades of hands-on experience with the front line and leaders to improve safety and operational efficiency.

He was the lead author of multiple industry guides on Learning from Normal Work. 

His work attracted the majority of industry awards. 

Marcin now provides training and consultancy services.

See the ABOUT page for a full overview of Dr Marcin’s work. 

 

ARE YOU READY TO LEARN MORE

 

Get our 14-Day Email Course.

Discover the foundations of learning from normal work from the global industry thought leader and cutting-edge practitioner Dr Marcin Nazaruk. You will learn…

👉 Why does learning from failure limit our ability to prevent accidents? 

👉 How we found the causes of accidents before they happen?

👉  What’s the difference between learning from normal work and incident investigations, risk assessment, and behavioral safety?

👉 List of constraints that force people to adapt and find workarounds.

👉  Difference between hazards and constraints.

👉 Why people don’t follow procedures.

👉  The psychology behind workarounds and how to learn from them.

👉  Tools to learn from normal work.

👉  Case study from an international company showing how they started on this journey.

👉 Business case and costs of learning from normal work.

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