Table 2 Production risks and corresponding human factors
From: Production risk caused by human factors: a multiple case study of thermal power plants
Human factors | Examples | Impact on efficiency | Sources of the human factor | Management methods | Management level/ companies |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Professional skills | “Besides passing the professional qualification test, a new worker is assigned to an experienced master.” (A-SM-1) | Positive | Experience; knowledge | Training and professional tests | ABCD |
Working attitude | “When you take care of workers’ living, they will have a good working attitude. When they think they are not reasonably paid, they may loaf at work.” (D-FM-12) | Positive | Personality; corporate culture; welfare; salary; dynamic position management; gap between expectations and real work situation | Increasing salaries and benefits | Front-line |
Dynamic position management | Middle level | ||||
Selecting employees with personality | Middle level | ||||
Family-like corporate culture | Senior | ||||
One-to-one meeting on career planning | C | ||||
Moving for other employers | “When people feel that they are treated unfairly, they may leave. And when a key person leaves, he/she may take other colleagues with him/her...It is not easy for us to find another person who is as good at dealing with emergencies as him.” (D-FM-9) | Negative | Working attitude; job satisfaction; family location; family relationships | Improving employees’ working attitude and job satisfaction | Front-line, Middle level |
Recruiting employees from families in regions nearby the plant | C, D | ||||
Helping employees with their family lives | D | ||||
Helping single employees to build families | D | ||||
Creativity | “We need workers to be creative. So they can make technical improvements and benefit production efficiency.” (D-MM-16) | Positive | Knowledge; rewarding; initiatives; opportunities | Awards | D |
Conducting competitions | B | ||||
Requirements | C | ||||
Safety consciousness | “Workers who really care about safety in production are those who believe that production safety is related with their own safety.” (D-FM-12) | Positive | Sense of self-protection; risk attitude; accident experience | Safety training | ABCD |
Offering information about past production accidents | Middle level | ||||
Getting workers to regularly think of production risks related to their own safety | Middle level | ||||
Efficiency of implementing orders | “It is easier to have efficient implementation when the order is passed through fewer persons than through more persons.” (D-MM-13) | Positive | Length of communication chains; working attitude | Having close-circle implementation checks | Front-line |
Not following operation procedures | “Some workers do not obey operation regulations or follow operation instructions because the punishments for doing so are not serious. Another reason is unreasonable regulation. For example, cellphones are forbidden when workers are on duty. But some workers still use their cellphones because they need to cooperate with workers in another unit.” (D-FM-10) | Negative | Habits; unreasonable regulations; insufficient punishments | Accepting workers’ reasonable suggestions about operation regulations and procedures | ABCD |
Psychology and health conditions | “By several signals, you can predict whether a worker’s condition is suitable for working. For example, expression, abnormal behaviors, or being too silent.” (D-MM-18) | Positive | Family issues; work-related issues; physical illness | Checking workers’ appearance (including facial expressions) before starting to work | D |
Sense of environmental conservation | “Some workers do not understand why we need to save resources and protect the environment. They do not have such a sense.” (D-FM-11) | Positive | Environmental policy communication; knowledge of environmental conservation status | Environmental protection training | Front-line |