Reducing human error in a large financial institution

Global Custody, the safekeeping and management of government or institutional assets and funds, is an area of banking where errors can result in significant financial loss and reputation risk. The business, JPMorgan Investor Services, has always focused on reducing errors, and has achieved considerable success to date. However, an operations management team were looking to maintain continuous improvement and for ideas that would support them in this aim. In answer to the question "What can you, an occupational psychologist, offer us?" models and methods were applied that are usually associated with safety-critical industries such as aviation. Discussions over several months led to a recognition among managers of the relevance of, for example, James Reason's work on 'Human and Organisational Error' to working practices within the business at its Bournemouth location. This yielded a number of areas for focus, including culture, job design and training. A workshop was developed and delivered to all employees to increase 'risk' awareness in the department. A new process was designed to assess possibilities for changing long-established work methods. An attitude measure for 'risk awareness' was piloted and is shortly to be implemented. There is now a regular article on this subject in the regional business newsletter, and there are teams working on job design, culture and training on an ongoing basis.

All of this is very much the product of a collaborative effort between an occupational psychologist and a committed team of managers. The proof of the effectiveness of this collaboration is a measurable impact. So, how is success from these activities being measured? Feedback from the department has indicated that errors virtually halved following delivery of the workshop in certain areas. The intention is to use the attitude survey to measure the success of the workshop and to assess 'risk awareness' on an ongoing basis. Quantitatively, we hope to see a drop in financial losses and the number of errors when we compare figures for 2004 against 2003. And with respect to reputation, this work has been communicated to the bank's clients with positive results. The work continues to be well received and requests are now coming in from other businesses within the bank, and from offices in other locations, for similar projects. Perhaps one of the truest 'acid tests' in any live intervention such as this is exemplified by one manager's comment: 'Wow, I didn't know you HR types could do this stuff!'

Kathy De Beer, JPMorganChase