March 09 Issue - Employee Monthly Magazine
All aboard the training revolution
Changing perceptions about human performance
Todd Conklin of the ESH Integration Office frequently uses railroad references in his training classes. Photo by LeRoy N. Sanchez
To err is human. Or is it? When accidents occur they often are attributed to human failure, the belief being that the processes or systems are fundamentally safe, except for the people using them. If the human factor is eliminated, the thinking goes, there won't be any accidents. Unfortunately, that kind of thinking gets you nowhere, according to Sidney Dekker of Lund University in Sweden and many other researchers who study human error.
One advocate of Dekker's view is Todd Conklin of the Laboratory's Environment, Safety, and Health Integration Office. Conklin has spent the last two decades helping employees learn to perform at their best, while identifying weaknesses in processes and practices that lead to incidents.
Conklin, whose first job on the hill was working in the human resources office of the Lab's protective force subcontractor, joined Los Alamos as part of the Personnel Security Assurance (PSAP) program.
"I got that job because in the early days the concept of a program like PSAP was a tiny bit contentious. They asked me if I could come over and do the training and not make anyone mad," joked Conklin.
"When I first took over the training, it was presented as a lecture about PSAP," said Conklin. "I tried to turn it into more of a discussion, which allowed participants to become part of the instruction, as well as providing an opportunity for them to interact."
Along the way, Conklin also became an expert on identifying unusual behavior in the workplace. He helped develop an early detection model for identifying unusual behavior and trained employees on how to use it. "People loved that class, and I think they learned a lot," said Conklin.
These days, Conklin stays busy with his human-performance training, something that keeps him in high demand across the Department of Energy complex. "Human performance is the most interesting and enjoyable thing that I've done at the Lab," said Conklin. And, even though he takes his expertise on the road, Conklin still remains loyal to the Lab.
"You look at the other sites, and you quickly realize that we at Los Alamos are doing a pretty good job at learning from our events and experiences," said Conklin.
It feels to him as if there are big changes happening in the way we understand how we do our work. That is espacially true for safety and human performance.
"We have begun to shift from blaming workers to giving them the resources they need to succeed," said Conklin. This is in sharp contrast to the way things were even a few years ago, he said.
"In the work we do, people are going to make mistakes. That is both normal and predictable. What we need to do is mitigate the consequences or outcomes of those mistakes," Conklin continued.
Todd Conklin of the Environment, Safety, and Health Integration Office and Melissa Rachel Zelic of Weapons Facilities Operations engage in a friendly game of Jenga to demonstrate that removing one important step or process can bring down and entire operation. Photo by Dixon Wolf
In mitigating mistakes and their consequences, Conklin teaches employees and managers that they should never be surprised by what may happen in the workplace. Instead they should anticipate that issues may occur and be prepared. Conklin's basic concept is "if you can predict it, you can prevent it." Being on the front end, the predictive end, of these types of events allows us as a laboratory to reduce our event numbers, prevent consequences, and have the ability to do work easier and better.
Conklin also is quick to point out that it is the person doing the work who best knows where potential problems can arise. He said it's his job to educate staff about preventing the next accident.
"I teach people to never be only one step away from failure," said Conklin.
As an example of predicting and preventing failures, Conklin said, "Most people would never drive a car with bald tires, bad brakes, and no seat belts, so why would you take those risks at work, using substandard processes and equipment."
"When we think about things that way, they become really powerful ideas to help us improve our outcomes," said Conklin.
And at the end of the day, with the lessons over, what does Conklin take away with him?
"The coolest thing about this place is that we are so good at learning, especially from our mistakes in safety and security, that we are only going to get better."
--Ed Vigil
Other Headlines
 |
