Bouncing Back: Resilient Human Factor Management

Due to the fourth industrial revolution employees in high-risk environments are confronted with increasing complexity and thus, the need to make ever greater and faster adaptations. As a consequence, the importance of efficient and safe human-machine interactions – in other words, human factors – is constantly growing. In this context, one skill is becoming increasingly relevant: resilience. This ability to react appropriately in difficult situations, recognize mistakes and ‘bounce back’ from adverse or altering circumstances, increasing challenges and possible setbacks is of enormous value, especially for employees in high-risk environments. The basic prerequisite of resilience is considered to be balance of a person’s life energy among the various areas of life – a basic principle of Positive Psychotherapy. In addition, there are several personality traits, competencies and psychosocial factors that have been shown to help improve resilience. Both aspects will be examined in the following article. Also, the article invites self-reflection on one’s own life balance, personality traits and competencies central to resilience. For the encouraging and interesting message is: Resilience can be developed and promoted – and can thereby contribute to increasing safety in high-risk environments as well as to promoting the employees’ health.

Development of a Business Assessment and Diagnosis Tool That Considers the Impact of the Human Factor during Industrial Revolutions

Over time, the satisfaction of needs and the ability to meet them have consistently increased. However, the world of the 21st century is one in which the basic needs of millions of human beings are still not satisfied. Why? To an extent, nonprofit organizations such as charities play essential roles in the needed improvement of this situation. In this regard, the human factor within an organization is key influence in organizational performance and societal impact. Human beings within organizations make decisions based on their own motives, so the ethical values of each person are significantly important. Therefore, it is necessary to use analyze the potential of the human factor in the fourth industrial revolution and to analyze its influence in the previous industrial revolutions. This research was aimed to conduct such analyses for a nonprofit charity. Moreover, the authors of this paper also analyzed the industrial revolution potentials of the charity case study using system dynamics. The relevance of the presented paper was ensured by the aforementioned combination of topics. The results showed how greater impacts, higher expenses, and higher stocks were not necessarily able to quantitatively satisfy food needs in a timely manner if the human factor and global effectiveness and efficiency were not optimized. When these aspects were optimized, our hypothesis was proven, as the models set for further industrial revolutions were shown to provide better results in the satisfaction, efficiency, and economic indicators with a lower financial need; therefore, this model can be used to satisfy other needs of Maslow’s pyramid. In conclusion, this proposed approach empowers welfare organizations to increase their CSR consideration, thus enabling them to use internal mechanisms to secure viability in the pursuit of a high-performance CSR approach.

Methodology of fire risk analysis in electrical installations of a production facility

This article lists the principles of fire risk assessment and management of electrical installations, provides the main terms used in this subject area, and their meanings. The article also talks about factors affecting the magnitude of fire risk (risk-forming factors). Special attention is paid to the human factor. Formulas for probabilistic assessment of fire risks of electrical installations and an algorithm for assessing the fire hazard of electrical installations, as well as a scheme of the algorithm for calculating individual fire risk are given.

A METHODOLOGY FOR CYBER HYGIENE IN SMART GRIDS

Although smart grids offer multiple advantages over traditional grids, there are still challenges to overcome to ensure the quality of service and grid security. In particular, cybersecurity plays an essential role in ensuring grid operation reliability and resilience to external threats. The traditional approach to address cybersecurity issues generally does not consider the human factor as the main component. Recently, the concept of cyber hygiene has emerged, where social and human aspects are fundamental to reduce vulnerabilities and the risk of attacks and breaches. In a similar manner to personal hygiene, which greatly influences people’s health, considering the human factor (i.e., human behaviour, awareness, and training) as a critical cybersecurity component, can significantly improve human operator cybersecurity practices that in turn can result in improved cybersecurity performance. In this paper, the authors propose and test a methodology for implementing cyber hygiene practices in the context of Smart Grid systems, focused on smart metering systems. The results suggest that implementing cyber hygiene practices can improve smart meter cybersecurity and be suitable for implementing other sensitive Smart Grid components. Key Words: Cybersecurity, Cyber Hygiene, Internet of Things, Smart Grid, Smart Meters.

Cybersecurity and Privacy in the Age of the Pandemic

The unprecedented acceleration of digital transformation in response to the pandemic migrated businesses and people to the always connected world of the internet. The reliance on digital technologies introduced novel cyber threats that increasingly targeted the human factor. As people had to face technology-mediated information overload, navigate health concerns and anxiety regarding the virus, and balance life and work in their hybrid offices, arguably cybersecurity and privacy concerns may have been overlooked.

Digital human factor management

Now culture of manage safety, health and wellbeing in the mining industry needs a scientifically sound new approach to the training process for professionals at all levels. Insufficient qualification of employees and managers in occupational safety, health and wellbeing has a negative impact on the occupational injury rate, and the current occupational safety, health and wellbeing management system does not allow to instill in employees compliance with the requirements for their own safety. To improve the quality of employees training in safe work practices and to ensure their health, safety and wellbeing in processes, a new training process has been developed and implemented based on a video-based continuous learning system. The innovation will make it possible to manage the human factor by improving employees competence, increasing the efficiency of the system OSH management, taking prompt corrective action, reducing injury rates and retaining human resources.

Toward a holistic understanding of performance in Lean Manufacturing: a discussion on the relevance of its indicators

Purpose This study aims to propose a novel approach to select and prioritize performance indicators in Lean Manufacturing depending on whether they are influencing or being influenced by others, thereby assisting in the decision-making process for improving overall performance. Design/methodology/approach The methodology comprises two stages. First, a literature review was conducted to identify the performance indicators, and then their interrelationships were analyzed by means of the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method. Findings The results provide a comprehensive visualization of the performance indicators in Lean Manufacturing, with a total of 50 identified indicators. Among these, 29 were categorized as causal, meaning that their results mainly influence the others, and 21 as influenced, with their results mostly being influenced by others. Among the causal indicators, those related to the human factor (eight indicators) were the most predominant. However, the most-cited performance families in the literature do not stand out as being causal, but rather as mostly influenced. Practical implications This study can help managers improve and analyze performance more effectively, while focusing on the importance of choosing causal over influenced indicators. Originality/value Performance measurement plays a crucial role for organizations, but because of the increasing number of metrics, there lacks an established framework. This exploratory study thus opens the discussion on relevance to determine a group of coherent and connected indicators that could help measure performance in a more comprehensive manner, rather than in several isolated parts.

The Role of Phishing Victims’ Neuroticism: Reasons Behind the Lack of Consensus

The growing use of electronic devices along with the anxiety resulting from the COVID19 pandemic set the ground for cybercriminals to take advantage of a larger number of victims and undertake their massive phishing campaigns. Technical measures are widely developed, and the human factor is still the weakest link in the chain. Whilst existing literature suggests that the effect of neuroticism, as one of the Big-Five personality traits, might play an important role in human behaviour in the phishing context, results do not provide uniform outcomes with regards to the influence of this trait in phishing victimisation. With the aim to analyse those results, this article provides a synthesis of the studies aimed at improving the understanding of this trait, and collects evidence that the small samples size used in most of the studies along with their lack of uniformity are behind the contradictory conclusions found on the role of neuroticism and human susceptibility to phishing attacks.