Human factors are environmental, organisational and job factors as well as human and individual characteristics which influence behaviour at work and can affect health and safety. 

• Detailed introduction to human factors [300KB]

Human factors has been "operationalised" as a list of key topics. Each of the topics below link to a topic-specific page where you can download briefing sheets, extracts from an inspectors toolkit and other useful resources.

These are not in priority order but they do reflect key topics for industry currently. The topics have proven to be the key issues based on research, consultation with industry and intermediaries, and inspection experience. These topics will be highly relevant for "major hazard industries", such as chemical processing, refineries, offshore, nuclear and rail. Many of these topics and the guidance provided will also be relevant to non-major hazard industries, such as manufacturing and healthcare.

• Human and organisational factors in recent incidents

Complete sets of briefing notes or the complete human factors toolkit are also available.

Contacts

For general enquiries the first point of contact should be HSEinfoline

For any further queries please contact the Human Factors Team: 
john.wilkinson@hse.gsi.gov.uk or martin.anderson@hse.gsi.gov.uk