Putting People First: A Guide to Human-Centric Risk Management 

The performance of an organisation is reliant upon the capability and motivation of its people. A range of factors contribute to their ability to identify threats, hazards and vulnerabilities, and to design and implement mitigations. Through adopting a human-centric approach to risk management, we can increase crisis resilience, capacity and capability.

Human factors, including risk identification and decision-making capabilities, contribute to an organisation’s overall competence in risk management and risk-based decision making.

Enhancements to both capabilities and motivation may improve the effectiveness of organisations’ risks identification and mitigation selection. Through adopting a human-centric approach to risk management by improving both areas, we can increase crisis resilience, capacity and capability. By placing people at the centre of training programmes and corporate messaging, organisations can take steps to encourage people to care about the risks we all share. This cultural change can support organisations to become more effective, more resilient and crucially may provide them with a competitive advantage. This is critical to survival, in the unstable and potentially volatile geopolitical and economic landscapes, we are attempting to navigate.

The human factor is critical

For the purpose of this article, the term ‘human factor’ refers to an interaction between humans and other elements of a system. As such, human factors are equally critical to both the proactive and reactive activities organisations practice and perform, to prepare for and to manage incidents and crises. In particular, human factors are critical to how organisations  manage crises.

A psychologically minded approach to leadership and training may enhance the ability of organisations to identify and manage risks. Similarly, human choices and behaviours can be considered as a critical component of risk management processes and should be developed within organisations.

Selection, training and positioning

Organisations can improve their preparedness and resilience postures through selecting, training and appropriately positioning individuals within an organisation, to maximise on their skills and experiences. Enhancing the perception abilities of individuals will improve the threat identification and risk management capabilities of a workforce. In addition to benefitting from a workforce which displays a heightened level of threat and risk awareness, organisations may also benefit from the presence of people who possess higher levels of self-efficacy and self-awareness. Such human factors have been associated with an increased tendency to persevere during periods of stress and challenge.

The presence of higher levels of self-efficacy, may offer additional protective benefits, in improving an individuals’ resilience to incidents and events. Human factors can further influence an individuals’ perception of risk and the responses adopted, as both of these are to a large extent developed through experience.

Therefore, organisations may benefit from the design and implementation of training programmes, designed to develop incident, risk and crisis management skills.

This suggestion is further supported by the view that individuals with experience of operating during periods of crisis, may display greater risk awareness. These individuals may also demonstrate an ability to maintain higher level of alertness and situational awareness, thereby supporting organisations to effectively anticipate changes and to respond effectively.

Enhancing levels of ‘sense-making’

Developing these particular human factors within a workforce may also increase the level of ‘sense-making’ they exhibit. This may improve the risk management capabilities, which subsequently results in more effective mitigation selection, but the systemic benefits can help to develop a broader risk-aware culture. In a positive feedback loop, a risk-aware culture will define and value the behaviours and traits which are associated with sense making.

Furthermore, the emphasis of particular factors will attract similar individuals to join organisations as colleagues and employees. This offers the potential to provide a strategic advantage, as the effective identification of risks will support the design and implementation of effective systems and management plans.  However, if this proposal is accepted to be true, it may be necessary to consider the absence of such a risk aware culture, to be a risk itself.

A psychologically minded approach

At the root of this, we should recognise that all human actions are fundamentally influenced by the implicit and explicit needs that individuals perceive they have.

To support us to mitigate human risks resulting from an increased likelihood of human error or potentially malicious actions, we can take steps to adopt a psychologically minded approach, identifying what people care about and then develop audience appropriate programmes, designed to encourage them to care enough to display positive behaviours and to make appropriate decisions.

Through displaying that we care for a workforce, individuals are more likely to reciprocate by caring for an organisation.  Through this emotional contract, organisations can influence how people feel, thereby encouraging behavioural change. The development of this bond will encourage openness to information and education, designed to increase the awareness of desired behaviours, why they’re important and how to implement them. The change within an individual will be identified on both conscious and sub conscious levels by the wider workforce, which will help to encourage changes in the behaviours of others. Overtime the social and group expectations of the behaviours will influence cultural change. This social influence can be used as a powerful tool for improving the risk awareness and risk management capabilities of a workforce.

Steps to cultivate positive change

The first step is to provide a workforce with information on what the desired behaviour is, why it’s important, and how to implement it. This can be delivered through a number of mediums, including training courses, videos or handbooks.

Organisations can ensure that they make the target behaviours observable to the wider workforce. This can take the form of facilitated conversations or group exchanges, where best practices and positive success stories are shared. Organisations can further encourage change by presenting members of the workforce with tangible rewards, which indicate that they have presented the desired behaviours. For example, this can take the form of badges or ‘swag’ / merchandise.

It important that appropriate behaviours are guided by policy. Remaining transparent, organisations should outline the consequences of problem behaviours.

The power of story telling

Recognising that appropriate actions and behaviours are a matter of choice, organisations may benefit from encouraging a workforce to care deeply about their mission. We could start by showing what behaviours are required, how to perform them and how they will help.

This requires for appeals to be made on an emotional level. One way to achieve this and which may help encourage people to care, is storytelling. We could start encouraging people to care about the risks an organisation faces by delivering messages which capture their attention, through sharing stories about business incidents and crises, either experienced by the organisation itself or perhaps in environments which are relatable to a workforce. Stories with a beginning, middle, and end, which illustrate the impacts of poor behaviours and the positive differences that good ones can make, could offer a huge return on investment. It is far easier to teach and develop a group of motivated people that care. It offers an opportunity to educate and guide a workforce about what threats, hazards and vulnerabilities to look for and crucially, may encourage them to make better choices. Through doing this, we will encourage a cultural change which will help to mitigate the human risk resulting from a workforce which doesn’t care enough to make better choices.

Dr. Paul Wood

MBA CSyP CiiSCM CIISec FSyl FIoL RSES CISM CPP®