Introduction to Health and Safety at Work

4.4.4 Personal 
factors
Personal factors, which affect health and safety, may be 
defi ned as any condition or characteristic of an individual 
which could cause or infl uence him to act in an unsafe 
manner. They may be physical, mental or psychological 
in nature. Personal factors, therefore, include issues such 
as attitude, motivation, training and human error and 
their interaction with the physical, mental and perceptual 
capability of the individual.
These factors have a signifi cant effect on health and 
safety. Some of them, normally involving the personal-
ity of the individual, are unchangeable but others, involv-
ing skills, attitude, perception and motivation can be 
changed, modifi ed or improved by suitable training or 
other measures. In summary, the person needs to be 
matched to the job.
Studies have shown that the most common personal 
factors which contribute to accidents are low skill and 
competence levels, tiredness, boredom, low morale and 
individual medical problems.
It is diffi cult to separate all the physical, mental or 
psychological factors because they are interlinked. 
However, the three most common factors are psycho-
logical factors – attitude, motivation and perception.
Attitude
is the tendency to behave in a particular way in 
a certain situation. Attitudes are infl uenced by the pre-
vailing health and safety culture within the organization, 
the commitment of the management, the experience of 
the individual and the infl uence of the peer group. Peer 
group pressure is a particularly important factor among 
young people and health and safety training must be 
designed with this in mind by using examples or case 
studies that are relevant to them. Behaviour may be 
changed by training, the formulation and enforcement 
of safety rules and meaningful consultation – attitude 
change often follows.