Dirty Dozen: Counteracting Complacency

In order to work out the morale issues, Brown recommends offering incentives whenever possible. Set reasonable deadlines to allow for setbacks and pitfalls. These solutions could greatly reduce complacency in the workplace.

Solutions SKYbrary offers to supervisors include:

• Try to maintain an optimum level of vigilance within your team by continuous observation which will allow you to split or band-box sectors in good time.
• Restrict unnecessary visitors, particularly in high workload or during training.
• Control distractions such as watching television or listening to loud music.
• Make sure that all mechanics receive adequate breaks.
• Ensure that filtered water is available at all times. Hydration has a profound effect on vigilance. Coffee and tea act as dehydrators although they do have a stimulant effect.

SKYbrary’s solutions for aircraft mechanics include:

• Be on your guard against complacency to ensure that you are able to detect and act on any error or malfunction promptly.
• Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by non-essential conversation or by extraneous noise. Speak up if these situations do occur and ask for the sources to be removed.
• Ensure you have adequate sleep and anticipate reduced vigilance brought on by fatigue.
• Request a break if needed.
• Effective teamwork is often the only mitigation for vigilance errors.

This is the sixth in a series of articles on the Dirty Dozen. The Dirty Dozen was developed by Gordon Dupont at Transport Canada. They are critical factors in the area of human factors and safety; they include complacency, lack of knowledge, lack of teamwork, distraction, fatigue, lack of resources, pressure, lack of assertiveness, lack of communication, norms, stress, and lack of awareness.