Harnessing the Human Factor- Insights from a Global Wind Workers Survey

Understanding Human Factors in the Global Wind Workforce

Background: Global wind energy is experiencing an unprecedented period of expansion. A safe and competent workforce is vital for accelerating growth, meeting climate goals and securing energy needs. Wind technicians work in small teams to conduct critical operations and maintenance tasks on wind turbines often in remote, hazardous environments. Using human factor approaches, that recognise the factors that influence peoples’ performance in the workplace, has been found to be an effective safety management strategy for supporting worker safety, health and productivity in similar environments.

Research Gap: Industry evidence suggests behavioural issues significantly contribute to these incidents, yet the limited HF research in wind typically focuses on physiology. Furthermore, there is a limited understanding of HF in wind from the workers’ perspective as current industry incident data only provides a partial picture of safety in wind. 

Current Study: Having mapped the key human factors in prior studies, this project sought to understand how workers experience these human factors. To gain insight into onshore and offshore wind workers’ perceptions of the HF impacting on their safety, performance and wellbeing, a global online survey was conducted. The survey topics ranged from situation awareness, teamworking, and organisational culture as well as worker health.