Diversity, Equity, Including, and Belonging: an Additional Pillar in a Flight Training Safety Management System

Abstract

Verbatim from Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons. Not paraphrased, not summarized.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB), critical to creating an academic environment supportive and welcoming to all students, have additional value to the safe and effective operations of flight training organizations. An effective flight training DEIB program has structural similarities to a Safety Management System (SMS), and It can facilitate the data collection, safety promotion, and collaboration necessary for an effective SMS. This presentation will describe possible, safety, security, and student mental health risks present in diverse high-hazard organizations that do not prioritize DEIB, including examples from the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) database and research on pilots’ mental health. It will offer two analyses of the risks: one that views the participants as small components introducing hazards to an organization, and another that views the participants as significant individuals fighting organizational barriers to manage threats. We will also discuss how other high-risk industries, specifically medicine and construction, have included DEIB initiatives into their safety culture. DEIB research has identified and quantified specific organizational barriers, some visible and some hidden, that inhibit safety reporting, safety promotion, and safety communication. We will show how flight training managers may find what cultural barriers are affecting their SMS, where those barriers inhibit communication and reporting, and how DEIB initiatives can break down those barriers. These tools and strategies will help attendees strengthen their SMS programs and run more effective flight training organizations.

Authors

• Scalese, Daniel Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
• Anthony, Thomas Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
• Nguyen, Michael Vinh, PhD Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Keywords

• Human Factors Psychology
• Industrial and Organizational Psychology
• Multicultural Psychology