Whether we like it or not, accidents happen. Whether it’s getting involved in a fender bender, tripping and falling or making an error at work, everyone is prone to accidents.
When it comes to mistakes at work, human error is the main culprit. Human error is responsible for up to 90 percent of accidents in the workplace.
As companies downsize and the work piles up, the chances for accidents happening are greater. More than 80 percent of employees report that their employers expect too much work from too few people. Additionally, up to 51 percent of employees say they’re less productive at work because of stress.
If you’re wondering how to prevent human error in workplace, these 10 helpful tips can ease your stress and make you a better worker:
- Focus On The Task At Hand: if you can multi-task at work, that’s great. But employees can be a lot more productive when they focus on one job at a time and set to completing that task to the best of their ability. Focusing on one task at a time ensures that you’ll be able to keep an eye out for details and eliminate mistakes.
- Ask questions: Up to 46 percent of employees say they’ve never left a workplace meeting knowing what they’re meant to do next. Focusing on one task at a time also means knowing what you’re supposed to be doing. Don’t be afraid to ask questions if you’re having doubts. On the other side of things, don’t be afraid to ask for a second opinion even if you know what to do.
- Make a List: If you know you’ve got a lot to do on a particular work day, make a list. A list helps you keep track of all the things you’ve got to do and ensures you won’t have memory failures.
- Review: Even the most diligent worker can make mistakes. That can be avoid by periodically checking your work. Even though mistakes happen, doing the best job possible should always be the goal and checking your work from time to time will improve its quality.
- Get A Second Opinion: In conjunction with the previous trip, human error can be eliminated if you get a colleague or two to check over your work before its submitted. Doing this will eliminate mistakes, but might also lend some perspective you hadn’t considered before that will help add another element to whatever you’re working on.
- Make Time: Getting work done is essential, but before any work is done it’s important that you make time for that work. Find a schedule that works for you and make sure you give yourself time to review your work.
- Learn and Improve: As has already been noted, mistakes are going to happen. But when they do, it’s important to take responsibility for mistakes if you make them. Mistakes serve as opportunities to improve whether you make the mistake or a co-worker does. Take your mistakes in stride and improve going forward.
- Find The Problem: If mistakes are happening too often, find the root of the problem. A human error investigation of your work habits can help you figure out how to work better and smarter. A human error investigation can also allow for some important self-reflection if you’ve become too comfortable or lax with the way you do things.
- Branch Out: A human error investigation can help weed out ways of making mistakes, but you shouldn’t be afraid to try new things and branch out either. Learning new things shows initiative on your part and gives you more knowledge you can use as you move forward with your work.
- Communicate: The top complaint employees have about their employers is a lack of communication. Everyone is on the same team and communicating often is essential for completing tasks on time. Communication helps eliminate mistakes and puts everyone on the same page.
Mistakes at work will happen whether we want them to or not. The best thing to do is find the root of those mistakes with a human error investigation of your habits and strive to do better going forward, communicating with co-workers and focusing on tasks one at a time. Human error prevention training can be a big help as well.