Unsafe Supervision. Supervision is a factor in a mishap if the methods, decisions or policies of the supervisory chain of command directly affect practices, conditions or actions of the individual(s). The DoD Human Factors Working Group has determined that a mishap event can often be traced back to the supervisory chain of command. Unsafe Supervision divided into three major categories as follows: Unsafe Supervision Supervisory Violations (SVxxx) Inadequate Supervision Planned Inappropriate Operations (SPxxx) – SI001 Supervisory / Command Oversight Inadequate – SI002 Improper Role-modeling – SI003 Failed to Provide Proper Training – SI004 Failed to Provide Appropriate Policy / Guidance – SI005 Personality Conflict with Supervisor – SI006 Lack of Supervisory Responses to Critical Information – SF001 Failed to Identify/Correct Risky or Unsafe Practices – SP 005 Selected Individual with Lack of Proficiency – SP001 Directed Task Beyond Personnel Capabilities – SP002 Inappropriate Team Composition – SP003 Selected Individual with Lack of Current or Limited Experience – SP006 Performed Inadequate Risk Assessment – Formal – SP007 Authorized Unnecessary Hazard – SV001 Failure to Enforce Existing Rules – SV002 Allowing Unwritten Policies to Become Standard – SV003 Directed Individual to Violate Existing Regulations – SV004 Authorized Unqualified Individuals for Task Table 3. Categories of Unsafe Supervision Inadequate Supervision: are factors when section / department / platoon level or unit / command level supervision proves inappropriate or improper and/or fails to identify hazards, recognize and control risk, provide guidance, training and/or oversight and results in human error or an unsafe situation. The role of supervisors is to provide their personnel with the opportunity to succeed. To do this, supervisors must provide guidance, training opportunities, leadership, motivation, and the proper role model, regardless of their supervisory level. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. It is easy to imagine a situation where adequate Risk Management training was not provided to an operator or team member. Conceivably, the operator's coordination skills would be compromised, and if put into a non- routine situation (e.g., emergency), would be at risk for errors that might lead to a mishap. Therefore, the category Inadequate Supervision accounts for those times when supervision proves inappropriate, improper, or may not occur at all (see Table 3).
