Using Psychological Testing to Increase the Safety Aspects of Your Business

An interesting development has emerged over the course of 2010 which will have a large impact on the safety aspects of industry in 2011. A number of large organisations, particularly in the mining and power production sectors, have implemented psychological profiling to establish benchmarks to ascertain an individual’s desire to maintain a safe workplace. There has been a whole sub industry spawned by this and there are a number of these psychological/psychometric test producers who have made specific safety oriented tests. These  will give you good information about whether the individual who you are bringing on board holds safety in high regard and will engage in behaviours and actions that lean towards safety consciousness. It also looks in the opposite way -  to ascertain individuals level of risk taking.  So the results from these tests should be able to give you a greater understanding of not only who is likely to engage in safe working practices but who is likely to get injured. They have had considerable success in this and the mining sector generally doesn't engage in practices that doesn't bear fruit!

What does this mean to you? Safety is a huge component of any business nowadays. You obviously have the moral and ethical obligations to your staff but you also have the compliance and legal matters to deal with. If you have a workforce, no matter how big or small that complies with safety regulations (without being paranoid!) you are generally going to have more productive staff hours over the course of the year. A simple test at recruitment time can help you look for attributes of individuals who will be more safety oriented. Thus giving you a workforce who engage in safe practices. That is bound to have a bottom-line result – both socially and financially.  If you would like more information on screening individuals for their safety consciousness, don't hesitate to contact us. This is just one part of the psychological testing processes that we can provide. 

Jamie Smith