If you do fieldwork, you are knowingly often putting yourself into a dangerous situation. When you run a crew, you not only are taking your life in your hands, but you also are taking the lives of your crew in your hands. Being intentional and comprehensive in crafting your field safety plan, informing and preparing your crew for the work before hand, and keeping lines of communication open with your crew are ways we can be as safe and supportive as possible as crew leads.
When you are meeting with potential students or field technicians, you should provide the following explanation:
Realistic expectations for work
Hours they will work and how they will be paid
What resources are provided (room and board? repayment for gas?)
A thorough gear list
A list of skills that are required for the position. Be sure to specify which skills can be learned on the job and which are required at the start
What does the workday usually look like?
Be able to define what a usual workday looks like. Additionally, have a list of tasks you engage in less frequently but may differ from the average workday. Give hours per week you might expect to do hard, difficult, or uncomfortable work.
What skills will I required to be proficient in before I arrive? What skills can I learn on the job? If I fail to learn skills on the job, will I be unable to complete the work?
It is important to not assume that your field tech will know how to do anything. If data input and management is required, you need to mention it in the listing. If they need to know how to drive, mention it. Also, have a plan for if they aren’t able to learn on the job.
What are the resources provided?
It will be best for everyone if you are explicit in this stage. Is housing provided? Is it shared? Is the housing property safe? Does it have cell service? How to technicians usually access essential services? Do you need a car to reach a grocery store? What kind of first aid/safety resources are on site?
What do I need to bring with me?
You should provide your technicians with an adequate equipment/packing list. Also, if essential services are hard to access or not accessible at all, make sure to mention this ahead of time. It may take time for technicians to access enough prescription medication for a field season.
Fieldwork should be something everyone on the team opts-into with full knowledge of the risks they are assuming and the lifestyle they will be living on the project.
Once you have picked your crew, you need to meet with your crew to
Discuss and adapt the safety plan
Determine any personal boundaries or limits that each crew member may have
Decide how to ensure that communication remains honest and safe
When you are making your safety plan, if possible, you should make it with your lab and crew. If your crew are hired after the safety plan has been created, you should provide it to them when you hire them. When you meet in person, you need to go through it completely and allow for the crew to voice concerns and change the safety plan to fit their level of comfort.
To test if you feel adequately prepared to lead a safe field trip, ask yourself:
What if the rules and laws don’t cover it?
What if the supervisor and plans don’t cover it?
What if the other participants aren’t prepared?
What if the environmental conditions are different than originally communicated?
What if responsive emergency actions aren’t ready or close by?
What if it is up to you?
Before heading to the field, you should feel confident in answering these questions.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
Not honoring the work schedule
To avoid this→ keep track of the hours everyone works, allow for a buffer in your work if you need to stop for a hazard, determine ahead of time what work counts towards hours (driving to sites, data input, etc)
Not accurately preparing field technicians for the risks or work expectations
To avoid this→ take time on your safety plan, share the plan with your technicians, consult with researchers who have worked in similar locations / with similar projects, be honest when initially introducing them to the project, remember that everyone will have different skill sets / levels of comfort with certain risks
Not prioritizing the safety plan / Ignoring hard stop line
To avoid this→ inform everyone of the No Go Criteria, decide ahead of time how the criteria will be assessed in the field, keep equipment needed to assess the criteria accessible at all times
Not allowing for open communication
To avoid this→ be transparent in your communication, listen and address feedback, respect boundaries and limits, communicate frequently and casually about safety
Ways that you may normalize risks include
Confirmation bias: tendency to search for, interpret, favor and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs, values, or decisions
Anchoring bias: psychological phenomenon in which an individual's judgments or decisions are influenced by a reference point or "anchor" which can be completely irrelevant
Hindsight bias: tendency for you to perceive past events as having been more predictable than they were in hindsight
Groupthink: when a desire for conformity in a group leads to irrational or dysfunctional decision-making
Status Quo bias: our preference to maintain our current state of affairs by treating that state as the reference point that we judge other things by
Optimism bias: tendency to overestimate the likelihood of positive events and underestimate that of negative ones
Authority bias: tendency to trust the opinion of an authority figure and let that opinion influence you more
Dunning-Kruger effect: when people with a low skill level in a specific area to believe they are better at it than they are (and vice versa for high skill level people)
As crew leads, it is our responsibility to assess risk objectively, not normalize danger, and stick to our field safety plan.
Remember that any fieldwork experience comes with a large power dynamic. It is up to you to make your team comfortable asking questions and raising concerns without fear of retaliation.
If you are providing housing, food, or resources in addition to payment to a crew member, they may feel deeply uncomfortable sharing fears or feelings of unsafety given the fact that you can take away their livelihood, home, and resources in retaliation. There are often limited legal protections for field technicians, and many career technicians have been mistreated by leadership.
Strategies to Create Open Lines of Communication
Be explicit in the expectations for work, living, and communication. Stick to No Go Criteria and working hours. Treat your techncians with respect.
Communicate your thought process when doing risk assessment. Mention when you feel uneasy or uncomfortable so they might feel comfortable doing the same.
Institute frequent, low stakes opportunities for everyone to discuss fears or issues. An example of this would be doing Rose-Bud-Thorn every day on the drive back to your field housing.
Provide anonymous reporting pathways for near misses or complaints through paper and pencil or an online form.
Schedule one-on-one check-ins with technicians. Make it clear to them that you value their feedback.
If you would like to know more about how to prepare to manage a crew of field technicians, consider attending the Crew Management workshop, offered every semester.