November 2021 Virtual Chapter Meeting – Human Factors: More Than Physical Safety

The Northwest Chapter continues the 2021 – 2022 monthly meeting season with a discussion on:

Human factors: More than physical safety

A trend of concern is that serious injury and fatality rates have plateaued over the last 20 years. Traditional safety, that focuses only on physical hazards, is not enough if we want to impact this trend. The session presents the latest research of four human factors: impairment, cognitive distractions, fatigue, and perception of risk. Participants will learn about these four human factors that impact safe performance and strategies to mitigate these psychosocial risks. When organizations start seeing the workers as a person, then safety programs become more effective. (Intermediate: 5 to 10 years)

Attendees will gain an understanding of impairment as a well-being issue and how fatigue, cognitive distractions, and perception of risk impacts safe work performance. Attendees can bring this knowledge back to begin having conversation about integrating human factor controls into their existing safety programs and humanize the workplace.

Learning outcomes
• Gain an understanding of substance use challenges as a wellbeing issue and its connection with physically demanding work.
• Gain an understanding of how cognitive distractions, fatigue, and perception of risk impact safe work performance and mitigation strategies.
• Gain an understanding of controls for the risks presented by human factors.

Topic relevance
Understanding the science of human factors is vital to the safety profession. It will provide safety professionals with an understanding of the risk presented by human factors and mitigation techniques. This presentation aligns with the total worker health approach and incorporates the latest data on the opioid epidemic, fatigue, cognitive distractions, and perception of risk.

Biographical information

Kirk Wulf has served as a safety professional for over 20 years in the trucking and electric utility industries. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Mankato State University, a master’s degree in Occupational Safety & Health from East Carolina University, a graduate certificate in organizational psychology from Purdue Global. He is a certified safety professional and a certified mental health first aid instructor. Kirk is currently a safety administrator within the safety and human performance department at Great River Energy.

In light of our continued caution on meeting in person, we will be meeting via Zoom.  Sorry!

Date and time: Tuesday, November 9, 2021 from 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM.

Login to the meeting starting at 11:15 am.  Meeting will start at 11:30 am.

Seating is limited.

The Zoom Link will be sent out automatically upon registration.

If you do not receive the email link within 30 minutes, please contact John Breskey ASAP.

Last year, we registered all of our available seats with many unable to attend.  Unfortunately, A LOT of people signed up for the event and failed to show up.  That left a number of Chapter members unable to participate.

What we found out with virtual events that people paid for, we had almost 100% attendance.

So…

We are charging a small fee for this event to encourage people to commit to filling the seats.  As always, the proceeds will be used for our scholarship funds.  None of the funds will be used to compensate any of our fine speakers.