HOF: Adjusting the Rule-Based Safety/Managed Safety Balance and Keeping Pace with a Changing Reality

Abstract

It is commonly acknowledged among at-risk industrial sectors that improvement in safety performance requires better consideration of HOF. Tensions and even contradictions exist between work and organisation as theoretically understood, and the reality of the shop floor, with its constraints, its power games and more. HOF specialists are, in some ways, the voice of reality in complex sociotechnical systems such as at-risk organisations. The HOF approach provides, at all levels, ‘adjustment loops’ to promote safe and efficient human activity and contribute to the business whole performance. However, the way HOF are structured varies widely depending on organisations and the expectations in terms of both impact and sustainability are not always met. This final chapter briefly summarizes and discusses some of the axes for improvement previously presented in the book.