Safety observations are one of the most widely used tools in workplace safety. They consume significant time, effort, and management attention — and in many organisations, they are treated as a cornerstone of proactive risk control.

Yet in practice, safety observations frequently fail at the one thing they are meant to do: detect the risks that actually lead to serious incidents and accidents.

Instead, they often:

• Collapse into tick-box exercises that create activity, not insight
• Concentrate on visible, low-level behaviours while critical risks remain untouched
• Reassure organisations that “something is being done” — right up until a serious incident proves otherwise
• Become quietly resented and distrusted by both observers and those being observed

The uncomfortable reality is this: many safety observation systems are busy, compliant, and largely ineffective.

They generate data, dashboards, and completion rates — but struggle to surface the conditions, constraints, and trade-offs that shape real work at the point of harm.

So when a serious incident occurs, the question inevitably follows:

Why didn’t our safety observations reveal this risk?

This webinar takes a hard look at why that happens — and, more importantly, how safety observation systems can be redesigned to move beyond compliance, expose critical blind spots, and support genuine improvement where it actually matters.

• Go from observations that generate lots of data with little real insight into critical risk → to a system that clearly distinguishes between trivial risks and critical risks, and prioritises what truly matters
• Move beyond a narrow focus on procedural compliance → to genuinely understanding the challenges, constraints, and trade-offs faced by people working at the point of harm
• Replace stilted observation conversations where workers are reluctant to speak openly → with wider contextual inquiry-based discussions that support psychological safety and reveal how work is being adapted in response to wider system conflicts
• Shift from observers being asked to “do observations” with limited understanding or skill → to observers who know what the process is for, what good looks like, and how to surface meaningful risk-relevant information
• Overcome frustration about how to improve existing observation systems → by identifying high-leverage changes that can be applied quickly to create meaningful improvements in risk detection and learning

This webinar is designed for:

• Safety and health professionals
• Operational and line managers
• Those responsible for safety observations, planned task observations, safety walks, or Gemba walks
• Organisations looking to improve risk detection without introducing yet another safety initiative