Marco Vetter - Got ability? The relevance of ability tests in Safety Assessments

12 Feb 2013

Got ability? The relevance of ability tests in Safety Assessments

Increasing safety is a crucial aim of companies and organizations. Human factors play a major role in achieving this goal because people are involved in all aspects of work. On average, about 90% of work accidents are at least partly caused by workers themselves. Investigations of work accidents demonstrated that not only personality factors, such as recklessness or defiance, but also a lack of relevant cognitive abilities strongly contribute to human failure. For instance, the degree of attention ability, reaction speed, eye-hand coordination or logical reasoning can influence the behavior in critical situations. It is therefore important to identify the relevant cognitive abilities for the specific job. Consequently there are two ways for an enterprise to enhance safety: to select or to train. In the selection process ability tests help to identify the best suited applicant for the job. Apart from recruiting the right people, accidents can also be avoided by training employees in the relevant abilities. As a result, assessing and improving cognitive abilities in personnel selection and development provides significant added value to a company’s safety strategy.