February 17, 2010

Many companies proudly count their days without a lost time accident. On the surface, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. But if your lost-time accident statistics are your sole way of gauging how safe your workplace is, you may well be missing the boat.

Quite often in safety, there are many "almost" accidents, or near misses, that occur before the big one hits. A near miss is when, but for a fortunate break in the chain of events, you would have had a serious injury or fatality occur (for example, 'another inch to the left and that saw would've taken his hand off').

According to various sources on safety statistics, somewhere between 200 and 300 near misses tend to occur before a workplace accident that results in serious injury or a fatality. When you use lost time accidents as your only data point, you're only counting these big ones — and you're missing an opportunity to prevent a lost-time incident in the first place.

If you think a near miss is a lucky break, you're right. But if you think you don't need to stop and take action when one happens, you're wrong. Join us on March 9 for an in-depth webinar that will help you reduce losses resulting from accidents and injury through the investigation of your near misses.

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If you decide to utilize near-miss reporting as part of your safety evaluation system, here are some important points to remember.

• The same processes, systems, and activities that cause near misses also cause accidents. Do not discount a near miss as a fluke or anomaly without really examining it.
• Even though human error is generally the most visible factor when it comes to the near-miss event, it's often not the sole initiating event. Be sure to stretch beyond the obvious and look at the processes and systems surrounding the near miss to determine if they either allowed or exacerbated it. Generally, this requires that near misses be subjected to root cause analysis.
• Using near misses as learning tools is a lower cost method of learning what's going on with your safety system than using accident analysis. They are more numerous than serious accidents, which gives you more opportunity for analysis and correction, and they haven't resulted in workers' comp or other accident-related costs.
• Good near-miss reporting systems include both mandatory reporting for high-loss-potential and high-severity near misses, as well as voluntary reporting for incidents that don't fall into the high-loss/high-severity category. Focusing only on high-loss/high-severity incidents can often miss the near misses that precede frequent but less severe incidents (where most of your workers' comp costs may be).
• An effective near-miss reporting system should include a systematic means of follow up to ensure that lessons learned from the near-miss evaluation are implemented. If the system merely collects reports of near misses without taking action, then near-miss reporting will add nothing to your workplace safety system.

Near Misses: Why You Should Treat Near Misses as Wake-Up Calls That Can Prevent Serious Accidents

When confronted with a near miss at the workplace, if they learn of it at all, many employers respond with relief--and the matter ends there.

This is a huge mistake. Proactively investigating and analyzing near misses can improve your safety program and prevent catastrophic accidents. It can also save you time and money — it's much easier and cheaper to investigate a near miss than a full-blown incident.

Join us on March 9 for an in-depth webinar that will help you reduce losses resulting from accidents and injury through the investigation of your near misses — and bring your managers along. You'll learn:

• How to define a "near miss" and apply that definition to your workplace and safety program
• Which data is the most important to collect and analyze to avoid accidents and illnesses
• How to investigate near misses — who to interview and what to ask
• How to evaluate possible solutions and decide which would work best for your company
• Tips for encouraging employees to report near misses with no fear of reprisal
• Why your safety incentive program may be discouraging reporting — and how to fix this
• The tools you need to implement an effective near-miss investigation program
• How to measure your program's impact on your company's safety record

Register Now »

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