SMS Pro Aviation Safety Software Blog 4 Airlines & Airports

Why Identifying the Difference Between Hazards and Risks Matters

One of the biggest problems in aviation risk management is the misuse or misunderstanding of aviation risk management definitions and concepts. The most common mistakes happen when it comes to the idea of a hazard vs risk.

Often, these two items are either:

• Used interchangeably, as if they were the same thing;
• Misidentified, where a safety manager misidentifies a risk occurrence as a hazard occurrence; or
• The terms are used much too broadly.

What Is a Hazard

Hazards are central to the entire process of developing safe operational environments.

A hazard fulfills the following:

• Is a dangerous condition, such as a situation, behavior, object, etc., that poses an unacceptable level of danger;
• Occurs once in the life cycle of safety mishaps – it is the center point of safety mishaps;
• Can lead directly to risk occurrences, such as safety mishaps, if not mitigated; and

Goals for Hazard Reporting

Knowing what issues employees should be reporting in your SMS requires you to always keep the primary goals of hazard reporting in mind:

First, you need to gather data. You use data to:

• Understand your SMS performance;
• Monitor effectiveness of risk controls;
• Mitigate safety concerns; and
• Know which issues are most relevant to your operations.

Human Factors in Aviation SMS: Beyond the “Dirty”

Unfortunately, the concept of Human Factors in aviation safety management systems (SMS) has historically carried an undeniable, negative impression about the role of human in safety issues (as well as other issues).

Just consider the synonymous term associated with Human Factors: "The Dirty Dozen".

Furthermore, the Dirty Dozen focuses exclusively on the negative aspects of human attitudes and behavior in safety incidents. In other words, in practical application, Human Factors are used as a problem to be controlled.

What Does Documenting Aviation SMS Mean

Aviation safety management systems (SMS) documentation is probably the most critical component of aviation SMS design.

Documentation must be clear, accurate, current, and easy to access. Documentation reflects SMS compliance and SMS performance.

Though "documentation" is a simple idea, making sure your documentation is well managed is quite difficult in actual practice. This is because:

What Is Proactive Risk Management

Proactive risk management for safety managers involves risk management activities that are dedicated to recognizing potential concerns before those concerns actualize. Proactive risk management does this by:

• Identifying trends in important safety data; and
• Reviewing risk controls, policies, procedures, and other safety resources for effectiveness.

Hazard Reporting Process Is for More than Just Hazards

The idea of “hazard reporting” is a bit inaccurate because employees should be reporting more than just hazards.

Hazards are just one type of concern that employees should report. When we are talking about hazard reporting, what we are really talking about is “issue reporting.”

Issue reporting includes many levels of concerns, such as:

• Identified root causes in the operational environment;
• Hazardous sources and other potentially dangerous conditions;

Definition of Risk

Risk, in its general form, is what is most often cited when discussing the definition of risk, and the idea of risk.

Risk in general is:

• The composite of severity and likelihood used to rank risk;
• Used in Risk Assessment; and
• Generally spoken in the context of, “The risk of [something bad].”

What Is Reactive Risk Management in Aviation SMS

Reactive risk management in aviation SMS is a technique that, mainly, involves the ability to respond to safety issues (or other types of issues, such as compliance, quality, etc.).

Reactive management is a response based approach to risk.

Practically, this means that anytime managers or front-line employees respond to an active threat in the operational environment (front-line employees) or to a safety issue that has been reported (management) they are practicing reactive risk management.

Building Hazard Reporting Culture Through Convenience

If you want to improve your aviation SMS program’s hazard reporting culture, the first thing you should do is to see if you can make hazard reporting easier.

“Easier” is a tricky word.

Are manual hazard reporting forms easy? The long answer begins with: it depends on the situation. The short answer is: sometimes yes, sometimes no.

It’s the “sometimes no” that you should care about. In your SMS program, in which situation is it not convenient to report issues?