Many workplaces struggle with one of the most critical elements of any attempt to manage safety and health via a safety management system – Incident Investigations. From the struggles of getting personnel to REPORT incidents (including near misses) to management recognizing these reports are GIFTS handed to us! But what normally happens, is we get employees reporting and we lose a lot of credibility with those employees when the investigation into their reports fall well short of being professional. And once the employees lose TRUST and CREDIBILITY in our ability to professionally and fairly conduct the investigation, it can take years/decades to regain that trust.
With that said, our friends in safety from across the pond have re-issued their outstanding publication on investigating accidents and incidents. It is a FREE publication and I recommend it for beginners and experienced practitioners alike. Much of the publication follows the roots of James Reason’s approach to Human Failure. The incident investigation process is quite simple and follows four (4) basic steps:
Step one: Gathering the information
Step two: Analysing the information
Step three: Identifying risk control measures
Step four: The action plan and its implementation
One of my favorite things about this publication is how they use different language. For example, they use the phrase “adverse event” instead of “incident”, “accident”, etc. Sometimes, changing the language around incidents can help change the mindset around how these events are viewed.
