Human Factors in Practice – Understanding people and interactions

Dr Hannah Godfrey BVetMed MRCVS, Community Lead at VetLed

Now that we’re more familiar with the term Human Factors, let’s take a closer look at Human Factors in veterinary practice. Veterinary practice is a vastly complex system of procedures, equipment, and human interactions. Breaking down our work in this way allows us to start to understand what is going on, and to find opportunities for improvement. In this blog, we’ll focus on the people in a veterinary team, and the role they play in patient outcomes and the overall experience of work.

What are the challenges when working as part of a team?

While we might sometimes feel insecure about our veterinary knowledge and skills, especially when comparing ourselves to others in the team, most of the challenges of working as part of a veterinary team aren’t related to a lack of clinical competence at all. Instead they stem from our diversity – differences in our communication styles, previous experiences, personality types, mental and physical health, and our needs as individuals. Some of the common problems described by veterinary team members are:

Incivility

Perhaps the word ‘incivility’ conjures up quite an extreme scenario in your head – someone raising their voice or criticising a colleague in front of others, or a team member storming off during a difficult situation.

If we perceive incivility simply as overt, intentional rudeness, it might make it seem like a problem affecting a minority of teams, and definitely not yours. However, incivility can be much more subtle…

In fact, it is an issue that is relevant to all veterinary teams. What is crucial to remember with incivility, is that we can speak or behave in a way which we don’t intent to be uncivil, but  the person on the receiving end can still perceive it as incivility.  This means that throwaway comments or behaviour that are ‘just how I am,’ can still have a significant negative impact on the team. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated in research in human healthcare that uncivil words and behaviour can directly impact upon patient outcomes, and even mortality.
(Porath and Pearson (2013) Harvard Business Review, The Price of Incivility.

Therefore, it’s critically important for both parties to try to stay open and curious about the other’s perspective, rather than being defensive or judgmental – something we all have the opportunity to practise and develop.

If you’d like more information, you can find our Civility Saves Lives resources on our website.

Team Psychological Safety

Workplace psychological safety is essential within veterinary teams, not just to ensure patient safety, but to help all team members feel valued and heard, contributing to job satisfaction and contentment. Imagine a team where you felt safe to speak up without fear of retribution, even in an uncomfortable or challenging situation, knowing that you’d be met with curiosity rather than judgement – how powerful would that be? How many adverse events could be averted if any member of the felt “safe to speak up”?

Perhaps psychological safety seems a bit ethereal to you, or unrelated to veterinary medicine? As a profession full of experts with high standards for ourselves, it is worth considering that in a Google study (Project Aristotle) it was demonstrated that the highest performing teams were those with the highest levels of psychological safety, not necessarily those with the most technical knowledge. And in a caregiving profession such as our own, team performance is directly related to patient outcomes, something we all care enormously about!

Poor Workplace Culture

A positive workplace culture doesn’t just improve psychological safety at work, it also improves workplace wellbeing. After all, how often have you seen a colleague working through their lunch break or quickly eating a sandwich at their desk while working through their admin tasks? Within a team it’s so common to become competitive, even if it’s an imaginary competition created within our minds. It’s easy to get sucked into trying to be seen to work the hardest, stay the latest, be the most committed… but there’s often minimal recognition, leading to resentment and exhaustion.

Many teams are thriving in practice and are a working well and supporting one another. But that’s not always the case. Perhaps we can each step back and ask ourselves, “do we have each other’s back here?” “Are we taking joy in the successes of others in the team?” “How can we work even better as a team, united in a common goal?”

Perceived hierarchy can have a positive and negative part to play in individual and team wellbeing. There is the opportunity for leaders to role model behaviours, prioritising meeting their physiological needs and encouraging others in the team to do so too. On the other hand, hierarchy may also be used negatively, if it appears to the team that senior staff are allowed a break while the rest are expected to continue working. Our HALT campaign resources have some great prompts and reminders to maintain a focus on wellbeing at work, and our online veterinary CPD platform includes a short HALT: Take a Break webinar to get you started.

Communication Challenges

The importance of communication skills in veterinary practice is now acknowledged in the undergraduate curriculum, and that doesn’t just mean communicating with clients and colleagues with civility and compassion. It also means communicating effectively within your team so that the full message and context is clear, minimising assumptions from either party. This might feel unnecessary and time-consuming, and it’s easy to think ‘they know what I mean’ especially if you feel like you’re doing something very routine in the way you’ve always done it, but assuming understanding means that there’s a risk of error, which in our context could have serious consequences.

What steps can we take to better understand each other’s needs, preferences, and intentions?

It can be hard to understand other people’s perspectives and reactions if they don’t match what yours would be in a similar situation. But everyone has their own story and experiences that have shaped them and affected how they communicate and behave, and their likes and dislikes. Perhaps take a moment to think what experiences affect who you are and how you think?

Approaching interactions with self-awareness and communicating with compassion and curiosity can avoid conflict, and improve wellbeing and team dynamics, helping everyone feel and work at their best. The second conference stream at the Veterinary Human Factors Conference 2025, “Knowing Me, Knowing You”, is packed full of sessions to encourage helpful and constructive self-reflection, and how to understand others so that we can thrive as one team. The final session, led by Jenny Guyat, provides four practical steps for equipping your team to start having those challenging conversations without causing shame. You can book a ticket here!

Summary

People within the veterinary community have a lot in common – we’re passionate caregivers, conscientious, and hardworking. However, within the community there are also lots of differences (indeed this is to be celebrated!). By acknowledging and even embracing our diversity, strengths, weaknesses, and preferences, and by intentionally developing in some of the areas above, we can deliver our best patient care and have a great time doing it.