Larry Pearlman

Stop Work Authority has been utilized in industry for over 25 years to authorize employees to cease work if they perceive unsafe behaviors or conditions present. This has undoubtedly led to saving lives and preventing injuries. What would happen if we flipped the concept upside down and asked employees to only start work when the conditions are safe to do so? This session will engage participants to explore a new concept that combines human factors, fatality prevention and barrier thinking into a powerful way to reduce risks. Fundamental to implementing ‘Start Work Authority’ is the need to identify high consequence risks, e.g., fatality potential events and defining how human factors are identified and mitigated before and during work activities. Participants will outline an approach to adapt ‘Start Work Authority’ to their organization as well as define the steps to achieve leadership support for this approach.

Human factors affect all areas of our lives—professionally and personally—and they are influenced by how we respond when faced with stressors. But what is the impact beyond safety? For organizations, other desired outcomes like improved production, less downtime, better retention, increased engagement and communication can be achieved by learning how to better manage human factors both corporately and individually. So it would only make sense if you want to impact the overall culture and produce a happier workforce which in turn improves interpersonal relationships and communications on and off the job, you need to focus on human factors management and 24/7 safety.