Before the Incident: Human Factors & Workplace Safety

When a workplace incident occurs, attention naturally turns to what happened.

What went wrong?
What procedure wasn’t followed?
What hazard was missed?
What needs to change?

These are important questions.

But there is another question worth asking:

What was happening before the incident?

Long before an incident becomes visible, people may already be working under pressure, navigating competing priorities, making decisions with incomplete information, managing fatigue or choosing whether to raise a concern.

This is where the conversation about human factors and workplace safety becomes important.

Looking upstream can help organisations consider not only the event itself, but also the conditions in which people were working, communicating and making decisions.

What Happens Before an Incident?

Workplace problems do not always begin with one dramatic event.

Often, conditions develop gradually.

Pressure becomes normal.

A difficult conversation gets postponed.

Someone notices a concern but does not raise it.

Communication becomes less effective.

A leader becomes overloaded.

Frustration accumulates.

Trust begins to decline.

Individually, these conditions may seem manageable. Over time, however, they can influence how people communicate, make decisions and respond under pressure.

The challenge for leaders is that many of these conditions are difficult to see on a traditional organisational dashboard.

That is why looking at human factors in workplace safety can add another perspective to existing safety systems and processes.

Human Factors Are About More Than Individual Behaviour

When we talk about human factors, it can be tempting to focus on the individual:

Did the person make the right decision?

Did they follow the process?

Did they communicate clearly?

But people do not make decisions in isolation.

Their judgement can be influenced by the environment around them, including:

workload and competing priorities
time pressure
communication quality
leadership behaviour
trust
fatigue and stress
role clarity
relationships
organisational expectations
whether people feel able to speak up

The question therefore becomes less about simply asking “Who made the mistake?” and more about understanding “What conditions were influencing the decisions being made?”

Judgement Under Pressure Matters

Good processes and systems matter.

But there will always be moments when people need to exercise judgement.

A leader may need to decide whether to stop work.

A team member may need to decide whether to raise a concern.

A manager may need to balance competing operational priorities.

Someone may need to make a decision quickly with incomplete information.

Under pressure, the quality of these decisions becomes particularly important.

Understanding judgement under pressure can therefore provide another lens through which organisations consider workplace capability and risk.

Rather than waiting for poor decisions to become visible through outcomes, organisations can explore the conditions that may influence decision-making earlier.

Psychological Safety Influences What Leaders Get to See

One of the most important workplace conditions is whether people feel able to speak up.

Can someone question a decision?

Can they admit that they do not understand something?

Can they report a concern without fearing an unreasonable response?

Can they challenge an assumption?

Can they say, “Something doesn’t feel right here”?

Psychological safety does not mean removing accountability or avoiding difficult conversations.

It helps create conditions where important information can move through an organisation.

When people stop speaking up, leaders may lose access to information that could otherwise help identify emerging problems.

That makes psychological safety at work relevant not only to culture and engagement, but also to how organisations identify and understand risk.

The Risks That Become Normal

Some organisational risks are difficult to recognise precisely because people see them every day.

Meeting overload becomes normal.

Leadership fatigue becomes normal.

Delayed decisions become normal.

Poor communication becomes normal.

Constant urgency becomes normal.

People keeping concerns to themselves becomes normal.

Over time, familiarity can make these conditions less noticeable.

This is what we describe as Hidden Organisational Risk™: conditions that may remain in plain sight because they have gradually become accepted as part of everyday work.

This raises an important question for leadership teams:

What have we become accustomed to that deserves another look?

From Frustration to More Visible Outcomes

Frustration can also be an important early signal.

A single frustration is unlikely to tell us much. But repeated, unresolved frustration can begin to influence how people experience their work.

The pathway may look something like:

Frustration → Stress → Disengagement → Withdrawal → Burnout → Psychological Harm

Not every experience will follow this sequence, and the pathway should not be treated as a prediction.

Instead, it provides a useful prompt for leaders:

Are we paying attention early enough?

By the time a serious outcome becomes visible, the underlying conditions may have existed for considerably longer.

Looking Upstream at Workplace Safety

Traditional safety measures remain essential.

Incident reporting, risk assessments, consultation, policies, procedures and psychosocial risk management all have important roles.

Looking upstream does not replace these approaches.

It adds another question:

What human and organisational conditions are influencing how our people make decisions, communicate and respond to pressure?

For leaders, that may mean paying greater attention to:

Trust
Are people comfortable raising concerns?

Communication
Is important information reaching the people who need it?

Leadership judgement
How are decisions being made when priorities compete?

Pressure and fatigue
What has become normal that should not be?

Frustration
Where are repeated obstacles going unresolved?

Accountability
Are responsibilities clear and followed through?

Self-awareness
Do leaders understand how their own judgement and behaviour affect others?

These questions can help move the conversation from reacting to outcomes toward understanding the conditions that precede them.

What Was Happening Before It Happened?

The most useful question after an incident may not only be:

What happened?

It may also be:

What was happening before it happened?

What pressures existed?

What conversations were not taking place?

What frustrations had become accepted?

What information was available but not being heard?

What decisions were being made under pressure?

What had leaders stopped noticing?

These questions invite organisations to look beneath visible outcomes and explore the human factors that may be shaping workplace conditions every day.

Download the Free SafeHire Guide

The Conditions Before the Incident™

Building Psychologically Safer Workplaces From First Principles™

We’ve developed a practical executive guide for leaders who want to explore these questions further.

Inside, you’ll explore human factors, psychosocial hazards, Hidden Organisational Risk™, judgement under pressure, psychological safety, frustration pathways and the conditions that can shape workplace outcomes.