Incident reporting is a vital safety management strategy. If something goes wrong in your workplace, it needs to be reported so it can be investigated and addressed. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time until it happens again.
But supervisors don’t always give incident reporting the attention it deserves, assuming it’s nothing more than box ticking. Workers might feel similarly, skipping reports because it’s easier (and safer) to stay quiet.
If you’re struggling to make incident reporting worthwhile in your workplace, this guide can help. It highlights six common mistakes and how to fix them so you can make sure incidents are consistently reported and resolved.
Key Takeaways
- Setting a low reporting threshold helps catch issues before they lead to serious accidents.
- Simplifying the incident reporting process ensures workers are more likely to engage with it.
- Promoting psychological safety is essential to encourage open reporting without fear of blame.
- Investigations should avoid jumping to conclusions; gather all the facts before making judgments.
- Asking “why” multiple times helps uncover the true root cause of an incident, allowing for effective solutions.
Why It Pays to Get Incident Reporting Right
Successful health and safety management is preventative. Ideally, employers and supervisors identify hazards and implement control measures before anyone is hurt. But this proactive approach isn’t always possible, as incident statistics prove.
Sometimes, risk assessments aren’t true to work as done. They don’t cover every hazard workers face or control measures are impractical.
Incident reporting helps overcome these issues. It flags when safety measures might be insufficient. Reports are also a necessary launching point for successful accident investigations, which are necessary to reveal and resolve underlying problems.
Effective Incident Reporting in Action
Paul O’Neill’s leadership of Alcoa – the “Aluminium Company of America” – is one of the best examples of how successful incident reporting can transform safety and performance.
Alcoa became a world leader in health and safety under O’Neill. He made incident reporting a priority; workers would notify supervisors of every incident and near miss, no matter how minor. And supervisors would follow up accordingly or answer to the CEO himself. (It’s reported O’Neill gave his home phone number to frontline workers, along with instructions to call him directly if supervisors ignored their reports.)
As a result, problems at Alcoa started to get fixed a lot faster, and safety and productivity drastically improved. Over the next 13 years, from O’Neill’s appointment to retirement, Alcoa’s turnover grew five times larger, and its stock market valuation rose by $27 billion.
6 Common Incident Reporting Mistakes
1. Setting the Reporting Threshold Too High
Paul O’Neill made his philosophy on incident reporting clear: every issue is worth reporting, even if it seems insignificant or nobody is injured.
There are three reasons why it pays to set your reporting threshold low:
- Near misses and accidents share underlying causes
- Workers are more conscious of safety if it’s shown to be a workplace priority
- Patterns and trends are easier to spot if you have more data to work with
If you encourage workers to report all adverse events (accidents and near misses), you’ll be better equipped to find and fix underlying issues before anyone else gets hurt.
2. Making Incident Reporting Complicated
If your incident reporting process is confusing or time-consuming, workers will be less likely to engage with it. Exhaustive forms, unclear steps or complicated procedures can make workers feel reporting isn’t worth the effort, especially when they’re busy with their day-to-day tasks.
Simplifying the process is vital. Make sure your incident reporting system is accessible, quick and easy to follow. Whether it’s a digital system or a physical form, the less time it takes to complete, the more likely workers will report incidents consistently.
3. Looking for Blame, Not Solutions
Workers will also avoid making reports if they think it’ll land them in trouble.
We all have a natural aversion to risk. Workers will stay silent if they feel reporting an incident or mistake only leads to blame, unfavourable treatment or disciplinary action.
To overcome this issue, you have to promote psychological safety – the sense that it’s safe to speak up or question authority without fear of punishment.
Make it clear that incident reporting is purely a learning tool for finding safety solutions. Workers will be more likely to report incidents if they know the goal is to improve safety, not find someone to fault.
4. Jumping to Conclusions
It’s easy to make assumptions about the cause of an incident based on incomplete information. But If you immediately jump to conclusions, your investigation will likely be biased and ineffective as a result.
If you offer witnesses your opinions on what happened, they may change their testimonials to suit your preferred narrative. You might also overlook facts that contradict your pet theory.
So, keep an open mind when interviewing people involved in any incident and take the time to gather all the facts before making judgments.
Encourage those involved in the incident to share verifiable details only and listen without comment during any interviews. You can only implement the right solutions with a thorough and unbiased understanding of the incident.
5. Not Asking “Why” Enough Times
The root cause of an incident is rarely obvious at first glance. To truly understand why something went wrong, you need to dig deeper by asking “why” multiple times. Each answer should lead to another “why” until you’ve uncovered the actual underlying cause of the adverse event.
For example, if a worker trips and falls, it’s not enough to say they were careless. Why were they careless? Were they rushing to meet a deadline? Why were they rushing? Maybe because the workload was too high or the task was improperly planned.
Asking “why” until you reach the root cause allows you to fix the problem rather than treat the symptoms.
6. Not Making the Follow-Up Visible
When workers report incidents, they need to see that their concerns are taken seriously. If reports seem to disappear into a black hole, workers will lose faith in the system and stop reporting altogether.
Ensure that every incident report is acknowledged and followed up with action. Communicate what changes have been made or how the issue was resolved. By showing workers that their contributions lead to tangible improvements, you’ll build trust and reinforce the value of incident reporting.
Accident Prevention Training
The most effective safety managers don’t just react to incidents – they actively work to prevent them.
Our online Accident Prevention Training is designed to help you develop a proactive safety strategy. You’ll learn how to follow up on near misses and promote safer choices among workers after an incident. This CPD-certified course equips you with the practical skills needed to prevent accidents before they happen.
About the author(s)
Jonathan Goby
