Safety Assessment Part 4: Conducting Incident Investigations
You already know the high cost of accidents in the workplace. They can cost your company thousands of dollars or more and destroy your company culture from the inside out. The National Safety Council announced that fatalities from falls, slips, and trips – a persistent killer in the workplace – jumped 11 percent in 2019 to a total of 880.
What you need is a way to see them coming so you can stop accidents before they happen.
Good news: You already have a way to see accidents coming! Every previous accident is a clue. Each close call and near-miss is an indicator of a problem that can lead to a more significant issue. It’s not enough to take note of these instances. You need to channel your favorite private investigator and put your sleuth hat on and conduct a thorough incident investigation.
Look closely at previous incident reports, whether they were accidents or near misses. What caused the issue? Was the problem fixed? Follow up with the employees who were involved to get a full understanding. Your employees are a great source of information when it comes to hazards in the workplace.
- You want to start by creating a clear plan and defined procedures for conducting incident investigations. By having it all laid out, you’ll be able to begin an investigation immediately should an accident occur.
Consider things like:
- Who will be a part of the investigation team
- How will you communicate efficiently?
- What supplies, materials or equipment will be required?
- Develop templates for reporting forms that you can have on-hand at all times.
- Train your investigative team on incident investigation techniques. Remind them to keep an open mind and not draw any conclusions until they have all the evidence.
- Include both management and non-management employees on your investigative team. They tend to look at things through different lenses. Having a variety of perspectives can help put together a clearer picture of the accident.
- Establish a plan for reporting close calls and near misses. Don’t limit your investigations to incidents resulting in injuries or lost time. Near misses are perfect scenarios to study to find and correct issues before they lead to a more serious incident.
- Don’t stop until you’ve reached the heart of the issue. How accidents occur is frequently more complicated than it seems at first glance. Identify and analyze root causes so you can address safety program shortcomings that allowed the incidents to happen.
- Communicate your results. Share what you find during the investigation to managers, supervisors, and workers to prevent a recurrence.
The National Safety Council has said, “Employers need a systematic approach to safety that includes having policies, training, and risk assessment techniques in place to address major causes of fatalities and injuries.”
Developing a process for conducting incident investigations is a crucial part of that systematic approach.
Every accident is a learning opportunity if you know what to look for. It’s crucial to look beyond the obvious. If a machine malfunctioned and caused an injury, what led to the malfunction? Was it properly maintained? Was the employee adequately trained to use that machine? Getting to the root of the issues makes it possible to fix them and avoid future incidents.
The same rule of thumb applies to human error. If a worker caused an incident by not following procedures, was it simple carelessness or did other factors come into play? Proper training, production pressures or employee fatigue could have been a part of the problem. When conducting the investigation, take the time to talk to those involved to get a full picture of the situation and what led to its occurrence.
Sometimes the clearest path to the future lies in taking a good look at the past. By conducting smart, thorough incident investigations, you can find and eliminate potential problems for your safety program.