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  • safety

Competency and Moral Dilemmas: “What Would You Do?”

  • by Steven Shorrock
  • Posted on 30/03/202304/04/2023

Sometimes in our working lives, we have to make decisions that involve a kind of…

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  • Human Factors/Ergonomics

Surprises in Healthcare

  • by Steven Shorrock
  • Posted on 21/02/202331/03/2023

Surprises in healthcare are common and can have lasting effects on clinicians. Steven Shorrock asked clinicians to reveal aspects of their experience with implications for learning.

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  • Human Factors/Ergonomics

Surprises, Fast and Slow: Preparing for the Limits of Work-as-Imagined

  • by Steven Shorrock
  • Posted on 30/01/202331/03/2023

This article is a reproduction of the Editorial published in HindSight magazine issue 34 in…

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  • safety

We Need to Talk About Engineering

  • by Steven Shorrock
  • Posted on 09/02/202230/10/2025

When it comes to human performance, most efforts to understand work are dedicated to operational roles such as air traffic controllers and professional pilots. In this article, I outline five challenges for engineers in the drive for digitalisation.

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  • Culture

Learning About Aviation Work in a Pandemic

  • by Steven Shorrock
  • Posted on 27/09/202010/12/2024

Everyday work in aviation COVID-19 pandemic has been affected almost beyond recognition, and with it how we feel about work and the future. So what might we learn about work from the perspectives of two front-line professions: air traffic controllers and professional pilots?

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  • Human Factors/Ergonomics

Learning About Healthcare Work in a Pandemic

  • by Steven Shorrock
  • Posted on 17/09/202010/12/2024

The COVID-19 pandemic has had one of the biggest effects on work-as-done in healthcare in living memory. So what might we learn about work from the perspectives of frontline workers? I asked a variety of practitioners to give a short answer.

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  • Human Factors/Ergonomics

The Reality of Goal Conflicts and Trade-offs

  • by Steven Shorrock
  • Posted on 30/10/201930/10/2025

“Safety is our number 1 priority!” But is it really?

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  • Human Factors/Ergonomics

Vive la Compétence !

  • by Steven Shorrock
  • Posted on 16/08/201831/03/2023

This summer, we have been entertained by the world’s best footballers – experts in the game. And it just so happens that Competency and Expertise is theme of this Issue of HindSight. What might we learn from World Cup 2018? Here are five observations.

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  • Human Factors/Ergonomics

Alarm Design: From Nuclear Power to WebOps

  • by Steven Shorrock
  • Posted on 16/10/201531/03/2023

Me, myself and TMI Imagine you are an operator in a nuclear power control room.…

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  • safety

Toad’s Checklist

  • by Steven Shorrock
  • Posted on 01/10/201530/03/2023

Sometimes lessons about work come about from the most wonderful places. Arnold Lobel’s ‘Frog and…

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About the Author

Steven Shorrock is an interdisciplinary humanistic, systems and design practitioner interested in understanding and improving work and life.

Chartered Psychologist (CPsychol) | Chartered Ergonomist and Human Factors Specialist (CErgHF) | BSc (Hons) MSc (Eng) PhD

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Categories

  • safety (122)
  • Human Factors/Ergonomics (95)
  • Systems Thinking (84)
  • Culture (30)
  • Humanistic Psychology (21)

Tags

  • safety (75)
  • human factors (64)
  • Systems Thinking (59)
  • safety-II (51)
  • work-as-done (51)

Year

  • 2026 (142)
  • 2025 (30)
  • 2024 (36)
  • 2023 (107)
  • 2022 (52)

Human Factors & Ergonomics in Practice

'Human Factors & Ergonomics in Practice' concerns the real practice of human factors and ergonomics (HF/E), conveying the perspectives and experiences of practitioners and other stakeholders in a variety of industrial sectors, organisational settings and working contexts. Buy direct from Routledge.

Tags

ABCD accidents album1 album2 album3 album4 album5 album6 album7 album8 album9 album10 album11 album12 art ATC aviation blame change communication community competency context culture decision making deformation professionelle design empathy ep4 ergonomics expertise fatigue featured healthcare human error human factors Humanistic psychology human performance just culture justice language learning local rationality management mental health methods normal work organisational culture organisations practice profession professionalism psychology ptsd research safety safety-I safety-II safety culture safety management systems safety Systems Thinking targets teams teamwork technology theatre training wellbeing work work-as-disclosed work-as-done work-as-imagined work-as-judged work-as-prescribed

Top Posts

  • Invisible Worlds: Celtic Folklore for Living with Chronic Conditions and Dynamic Disability
  • Reflections on the Autistic Spectrum: A Critical Response to Uta Frith's Views
  • I Crash: Texts from M.E.
  • The Varieties of Human Work
  • Mind your Mindset: Safety-I and Safety-II
  • Four Kinds of ‘Human Factors’: 2. Factors of Humans
  • A Desk Is a Dangerous Place From Which to Watch the World
  • 'Human Factors' and 'Human Performance': What's the Difference?
  • Proxies for Work-as-Done: 1. Work-as-Imagined
  • Why Is It Just So Difficult? Barriers to ‘Just Culture’ in the Real World

Archives

    Work-as-done is the work that people actually do, cognitive, verbal and manually. Work-as-judged is the judgement, evaluation or appraisal of work, via other proxies for work-as-done. Work-as-simulated is the work that is imitated or recreated in some way for the purposes of learning, testing, design, research, assessment, or exploration. Work-as-instructed is the explanation and demonstration describing how work is to be conducted or performed; the work that people are taught to do. Work-as-analysed is the process and product of examination, decomposition, categorisation, modelling and representation of work. Work-as-measured is the quantification of aspects of work: the work that is represented through numbers, metrics, indicators, scores, targets, dashboards, and other forms of quantification. Work-as-observed is the observation of the work of others, formally or informally - directly, remotely, live, or recorded - and the interpretation of what is observed by the observer. Work-as-disclosed is the work that people say that they (or others) do or did, either in formal or informal accounts. Work-as-prescribed is the formalisation, specification and design of work. It is the work that people ‘should do’, especially according to policies, procedures, rules, and so on.

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