In this 10 part series of Reducing Risk Tolerance we will explore each of the ten factors that influence risk rolerance and provide more details about each.  When taken together, this series should provide a more comprehensive review of the factors that influence risk tolerance so action can be taken to reduce risk toerlance and keep people safer. The factors that influence personal risk tolerance are:

• Overestimating one’s own capability and experience (increases risk tolerance)
• Familiarity with the task i.e. complacency (increases risk tolerance)
• Seriousness of the potential safety outcome (decreases risk tolerance)
• Voluntary actions and sense of being in control (increases risk tolerance)
• Personal experience with an outcome (decreases risk tolerance)
• Cost or implications of non-compliance (decreases risk tolerance)
• Confidence in the equipment (increases risk tolerance)
• Confidence in PPE and rescue (increases risk tolerance)
• Potential profit / gain from the action (increases risk tolerance)
• Role models accepting risk (increases risk tolerance)

This episode discusses how personal experience with an outcome tends to decrease risk tolerance when undertaking a job.  In general, as people experience a significant near miss, injury or accident they tend to decrease their risk tolerance going forward because they have first hand knowledge of what can go wrong and the feelings that those incidents produce.  The greater the significance of the outcome, the greater the decrease in risk tolerance.For example, if someone was really scared bacause of a highwy accident because they slid their vehcicle on an icy road and went into the ditch and rolled their vehicle, that incident tends to lower risk tolerance for speeding, or even traveling, the next time the roads are icy.  Obviously, in some cases the fear from their previous incident may prevent them from engagin in the activity altogether but shortof that, the risk tolerance is also substantially reduced.  The same response is seen when the incident happens to a close friend or family member as well, it still counts as personal experience.

Unfortunately as incidents and accidents at a worksite continue to be reduced, the number of people who have first-hand or personal experience with an incident also decreases and the organizational memory of what can go wrong may also decrease.  This is why implementing processes to preserve organizational memeory / knowledge is important and to share historical incidents from the site (and others) for people to learn from what can go wrong. This effort helps to reduce scepticism and maintain a functioning organization memory.