Understanding ‘habits’ can help industry improve safety in routine tasks

By Linda Hsieh, Editor & Publisher

With all the investments that the industry has made in recent years around technical improvements in safety, like sensors, wearable technologies and advanced robotics, it’s helpful to get a reminder that technology itself – however sophisticated – can’t keep our workers safe if the human element isn’t considered. Especially when crews undertake what is considered routine work – tasks they perform repeatedly in the same manner – the task can become a “habit” in the human brain. This can put workers at increased risk of injury. But understanding how habits work in the human brain can actually help to reduce that risk, said Sharon Lipinski with Habit Mastery Consulting at the 2025 IADC HSE&T Conference in February.

When a person embarks on a task they’ve never done before, their prefrontal cortex will be strongly engaged. This part of the brain handles activities like decision making and planning ahead. The striatum, which handles things like reward processing, also becomes engaged. “We get this communication loop fired up between these two parts of your brain,” Ms Lipinski said. “And because your brain wants you to be successful at this thing that you are about to do, it is going to work really hard.”

Over time, however, once that task is repeated over and over again, the brain stops working as hard because it doesn’t have to. This is not necessarily bad, as this function of the brain helps people be more productive. But it’s also why routine work can be so hazardous. “We always have this constant tension between using our habits, using these neural pathways, to be the most productive and most effective we can be, or to be as aware of everything that is going on around us as we can be,” she said. “We are balancing two equally desirable but conflicting states.”

The goal, then, is to help employees become more intentional about the state in which they need to be, and one way organizations can do this is by designing work so it prompts cognitive engagement at key times. “Forcing functions” is one potential tool. She cited the example of the banking industry reprogramming ATM machines so that users can’t get their cash until they have retrieved their debit cards. “There are lots of opportunities for engineering solutions with forcing functions,” she said.

Introducing more variety is another potential solution. “Our brain is going to engage when we start something and when we end something. So the more starts and ends we have, the more opportunity people have to re-engage.” Amazon for example, moves its warehouse employees among different work stations every three hours so they get more physical and mental variety.

Organizations can also encourage their employees to take “micro breaks” of just 15-30 seconds during routine tasks. “They are a moment for people to pause, breathe and re-engage with the world around them.”  DC