Introduction to Fire Safety Management

Minimising human error
Organisations can only reduce the incidence of human 
error by addressing the entire relevant job, organisa-
tional and individual factors. This will require effective 
systems for consultation, training, supervision and active 
monitoring.
Figure 4.15
Types of human failure
Slips of
action
Lapses of
memory
Rule-based
mistakes
Knowledge-
based
mistakes
Routine
Exceptional
Skill-based
errors
Errors
Violations
Human
failures
Situational
Mistakes

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Introduction to Fire Safety Management
80
4.9.2 Violations
In contrast to human errors that are made unconsciously 
there are many occasions when humans will deliberately 
breach safety rules. On some occasions the breach will 
be of a rule that is not physically possible to follow or 
may just be inconvenient, for instance the removal of 
machinery guards to speed production and achieve 
enhanced productivity payments. On other occasions 
the deliberate breaching of safety rules will be as a result 
of personal antipathy for the work or the organisation.
Violations will only occur when the individual 
is motivated to ignore them. This decision will be 
infl uenced by factors relating to the job, the organisation 
or the individual. In general deliberate breaches of safety 
rules occur in three distinct circumstances; routine, 
situational and exceptional.
➤
Routine
– routine violations of safety rules are made 
when the job becomes part of day-to-day practice 
in a workplace. Examples include when fi re doors 
are routinely wedged open with fi re extinguishers or 
when PPE is routinely not worn. It will only continue 
if managers fail to challenge the non-compliance 
early. The longer a safety rule is routinely breached 
the more diffi cult it is for individuals to be persuaded 
of the need to comply
➤
Situational
– situational violations occur when 
the design of the job make it diffi cult to comply 
with safety rules. For example, there may be occa-
sions when an individual will need to access high 
level storage but is not provided with convenient 
access equipment such as a step ladder. In this situ-
ation access may be gained by standing on chairs 
or other offi ce equipment. In an organisation with a 
positive health and safety culture the occasions when 
there is inadequate provision of work equipment will 
be bought to the attention of a commitment manage-
ment who would resolve the situation and positively 
recognise those individuals who bought the issue to 
their attention
➤
Exceptional
– exceptional violations rarely occur 
in part because they are only made when a new 
or unusual task is required to be undertaken or an 
emergency is required to be responded to. This type 
of violation is more likely to occur in organisations 
that have a high tolerance of routine and situational 
violations in the place. Typically with exceptional 
violations, only achieving the desired outcome of 
the task is considered and any other issues are 
excluded, such as cost or safety.