OPTIMISING HEALTH AND SAFETY (H&S) MANAGEMENT BY ALIGNING JOB TASK TO RISK BEHAVIOUR PROFILE MATCHING

Abstract

Engineering tasks usually require high competencies of workers who have to make numerous speedy and accurate decisions on their own. Such required actions are more prevalent in a corrective maintenance environment than for planned projects or in a production environment. Correct selection of candidates to best ‘fit’ such tasks are required not only for their competencies, in relation to experience and knowledge, but also their propensity for risk-taking behaviour. Optimal risk-taking behaviour profile to high risk job task matching is critical and should be addressed at the recruitment stage, with adjustments made on a continuous performance appraisal basis, with specific emphasis and input during incident evaluations. This paper highlights the need for H&S management system interventions that will acknowledge the impact of individual risk-taking behaviour on incident statistics. It is important to evaluate the risk related to a specific job task and propose methods for allocating risky job tasks according to risk-taking behaviour profiles of employees. The study recommends the evaluation and classification of individuals to determine their propensity for risk-taking behaviour by psychometric testing and historical risk behaviour analysis. The purpose of such risk profiling should be to match specific job tasks in relation to the risk involved in performance to that of an employee’s risk-taking profile. The findings provide evidence for the need for HR management and engineering interventions to affect H&S management systems by assisting in correct risk-taking behaviour profiling (HR intervention) and job task risk profiling (engineering intervention) with the aim of reducing the number of incidents.