By Lisa Meiman
A new program
at Western will look at how human error can be prevented, detected and
corrected. Commonly called
HP, Human Performance is a process-improvement methodology and best business
practice that investigates how the people side of processes and procedures
affect an organization’s work.
HP will complement
the process improvement programs already in place and help Western progress
along the Roadmap’s first Critical Pathway of Business, Technology and Organizational
Excellence. “While Change Management helps us adapt to and accept change and
Lean Six Sigma evaluates our processes and procedures, Human Performance
focuses on our individuals, our groups and our culture to examine how our
personal and organizational identity can help improve the way we do business,”
said Administrator and CEO Mark Gabriel.
HP goes beyond
assuming human nature is at fault for all mistakes, and instead looks at how
other factors may lead to human error. “HP asks ‘are we setting people up to
make mistakes through unrealistic expectations, weak processes and unclear
manager direction?’” said Sierra Nevada Safety Specialist Matt Monroe. “It
looks for root causes of issues that may affect an individual’s performance.”
Monroe and four other
employees led by Rocky Mountain Senior Power Operations Specialist Steve
Johnson are developing a proposal for senior managers on how to implement an HP
program at Western. Their first step is to develop a trio of employee surveys
this spring and summer that will identify what practices are already in place,
Western’s current culture and areas of improvement. All employees are
encouraged to take the surveys when they receive them later this month.
“Your input and
assistance is valuable and will be used to help design and develop our formal
Human Performance Program,” said Gabriel. “Please help make Western a safer and
more rewarding place to work.”
Creating
program, Just Culture from existing practices
Offices around
Western already use human performance activities in their day-to-day work
without realizing it. Three-way checks, near miss reporting and job hazard
briefings are all examples of regular practices that help prevent mistakes.
Peer reviews are another common example of human performance; for instance,
this article was reviewed by two employees before being published.
“We have been doing
Human Performance forever; we just haven’t been calling it Human
Performance,” said SN Engineering Systems Manager Will Slinkard. “In SCADA, if
there is an outage, we do an investigation to make sure it doesn’t happen
again. We didn’t have an established systematic approach in which we did it.
The systematic approach offered by Human Performance makes it easier to
complete the investigation.”
HP was identified as
an area of improvement during Sierra Nevada’s North American Transmission Forum
Peer Review in July 2014, even though SN received high marks in several HP
areas.
Following NATF’s
recommendations, the HP program proposes to formalize these practices, create
new ones and develop what is referred to as a Just Culture. “We want a Western
where knowledge is shared, performance expectations are established and
objectively enforced, and where people can bring up issues without fear of reprisal,”
said Gabriel.
Monroe added,
“Western cannot expect to stand up a program that relies on its employees’
participation and have an inconsistent disciplinary culture. Just culture
recognizes human error is inevitable. In a Just Culture, the outcome shouldn’t
matter. If someone shows an at-risk behavior, we coach them regardless of the
outcome of their behavior—not only when it leads to an accident or error.”
Monroe
continued, “We can’t do Human Performance without Just Culture. When people
make a mistake, they need to feel free to share the information without fear of
repercussion. If people don’t report, we can’t get better.”