Introduction to Human Factors

Introduction

Human factors training teaches people how human behaviour, abilities, and limitations affect performance, especially in safety-critical environments like healthcare, aviation, construction, and manufacturing.

It focuses on understanding how factors such as fatigue, communication problems, stress, teamwork, decision-making, and the design of tools or systems can lead to errors — and how to prevent those errors.

In simple terms, human factors training helps workers:

• Recognise how human mistakes happen.
• Learn strategies to reduce risks.
• Improve communication, teamwork, and problem-solving.
• Create safer systems and working environments.

For example, in healthcare, it can teach doctors and nurses how to better hand over a patient to another team without missing important details. In aviation, it helps pilots and air traffic controllers avoid miscommunication that could lead to accidents.