ABSTRACT
The scientific domain of Human Factors has formed an important element of improving safety in high-risk industries. Across all human endeavours, the safety of day-to-day operations resides to a large degree in the hands of skilled operators. Non-technical skills are the cognitive and social skills that complement workers' technical skills. Many frameworks have been developed that identify the basic domains of non-technical skills, but there is no one definitive list of all the non-technical skills required to ensure safe and efficient operations. Beyond the role non-technical skills have in effective execution of day-to-day work, they also play a critical role in responding to situations where the messy complexities of the real world present challenges to the operators at the sharp end. Across a range of workplace settings, the division between closed and open skills has been used to differentiate the types of skills to be developed and the types of training interventions that can be used to support skill development.
