Page 63 - IGC BOOK

Human Natural Senses are

• Sight.
• Hearing.
• Taste.
• Smell.
• Touch.

Personal safety involves reacting to the signals sent by our human sensory receptors to the
brain. For example, we actually see with our brains rather than with our eyes. Our eyes send
small electrical signals to the brain, where the visual image is constructed and interpreted.

Perception of hazards and risk in the workplace is significant as other factors which may
contribute to accident. Accidents happen in the workplace due to poor perception and
interpretation of risk. e.g. the use of (Personal Protective Equipment), not wearing the helmet or
nor locking the helmet chin strap when riding the bike, or removing the face shields when
operating the pedestal drilling machine to view the job closely, or over reaching and carrying a
window cleaning activity on a high raise building.

Workers needs to understand the importance of perception of risk as this may lead to
misjudgments, increases the risk to health and safety of the worker.

Another example is a worker is poor hearing capability, cannot hear the emergency alarm raised
in the workplace and put him in danger of evacuation. Loud noise or even high level of lux also
create poor perception of risk. For e.g. Stroboscopic effect created on the rotating parts of
machinery due to poor or high level of lux, it makes the machine to appear rotating in a slow
speed.

Routine tasks will reduce the attention level of the worker and leads to accidents. The individual
perception is affected by factors including

• Physical illness
• stress
• alcohol
• fatigue
• familiarity
• training

There are number ways to improve the perception of the people towards hazards.

• Providing hazard and risk information during the induction training,
• Carrying out familiarization tours within the workplace to create more awareness.
• Conducting toolbox talks, sending emails, highlighting hazards with posters.
• Involving and discussing workers in decision making process.
• Increasing the number of trainings and refresher trainings to create awareness of the
potential risks and its severity.

ENSIGN| Unit IG1 – Element 3 – Managing Risks – Understanding People and Processes 18