Evaluating human performance and licensee safety culture

Human performance issues have been recognised as a critical factor in the safe and reliable operation of nuclear power plants. However, human performance is largely shaped by the prevailing safety culture within an organisation. While operating utilities are primarily responsible for ensuring the safety performance of their staff, regulatory bodies still need to verify that human performance and safety culture standards are met within these utilities. Therefore, regulators must have a thorough understanding of effective methods for assessing human performance and safety culture.

Main training topics

1. Human performance and what drives people and organisations to succeed or fail
2. What regulators needs to know, do and say related to human performance
3. The top five error drivers in technical and administrative procedures
4. Human performance enhancement through event investigation and cause analysis
5. The leadership attributes, language and behaviours that drive an effective safety culture
6. The importance of safety culture in a nuclear power plant and key characteristics
7. Measuring safety culture in an operating environment and how can an unhealthy safety culture be changed
8. Challenges in regulating safety culture and qualitative methods for its assessment
9. IAEA safety standards and tools on safety culture

Organisation

The webinar is organised within the European Clearinghouse project administered by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission in Petten, the Netherlands. It will be delivered by Enconet Consulting, Vienna, Austria. 

The maximum number of places for the course is 50 on a first come, first served basis. Participation in the training is free of charge. 

At the end of the training, participants will receive a certificate of attendance.

Dates and venue

The training will be delivered as an online webinar using the Cisco Webex platform. The webinar will take place from 9 to 13 December 2024. The lessons will be held daily from 12.30 to 17.00 (CET) with a 30-minute coffee break. The detailed agenda is attached.

Lecturers
 

Dorian S. Conger

Dorian S. Conger is an internationally recognised expert in incident investigation, root cause analysis and safety culture. During his 40 years in business, he has participated in projects or training for clients on all seven continents, including major investigations at commercial and government facilities including nuclear, manufacturing, aerospace, chemical, and petroleum. He published his first paper on the impact of safety culture on organisations in 1974 and has published several papers on this topic since then. Dorian was responsible for integrating the evaluation of safety culture into the USNRC inspector training programs.

Maria Josefa Esteban Fernandez

Maria Esteban Fernandez is a senior nuclear expert working on international projects for nuclear regulators and power utilities. She worked with Tecnatom for more than 30 years, where she developed training courses on Root Cause Analysis, Operating Experience, the Spanish Database of incident and component, and In-service inspections. She has participated in international projects in Europe, Asia, and Latin America with regulatory bodies and operating utilities to improve Operating Experience programmes, developing databases and websites.