A near miss is an unplanned occurrence that did not lead to an injury, damage, or illness but could have caused damage and injuries should the timing and position been different. Most employees deem reporting near misses as time consuming and unnecessary. Usually, every employee has duties and tasks to complete daily. Therefore, tasking the employees with additional tasks such as reporting and documenting near misses is quite tedious.
To ensure your firm reports near misses without the employees feeling burdened, incorporate technology to document the relevant data. Near misses should be reported so that the organization assesses its procedures to determine how to prevent the repetition of near misses or actual damages in the future. Near misses add value to a company if treated proactively.
Companies can avoid injuries and future incidences
Identifying, investigating, and reporting near misses are a significant element in controlling risks before workers are injured or property destroyed. Information gathered during near-miss reporting and investigation is evaluated to determine the leading causes and design hazard mitigation strategies. There is a faulty system, process, or policy that needs to be reported, investigated, and amended to prevent future disasters.
Once near misses are reported, the management should take the necessary precautions to ensure future accidents are avoided. The emphasis should be on the lessons learned and the measures to be put in place. Everyone knows that near miss reporting can be a pain in the neck, especially if you aren’t sure of what to do. There is a possibility of your recording what didn’t actually happen. Luckily for you, with a guide on how to go about with the reporting, you can easily pin down the exact thing that happened.
Promote overall safety
By reporting a near miss, an employee encourages others to work safely. Workers should be trained on how to identify and report potential hazards. However, employees are afraid to report near misses as it would be termed as carelessness, which could lead to job termination. Therefore, to ensure proper data, allow the employees to turn in near misses anonymously. The focus should be on the precaution taken, and potential hazards avoided rather than who reported it.
Employee participation
It is the employees who witness most of the near misses. Workers feel good when they are contributing to a safety management program. People open up more when making a positive contribution to preventing hazards.
The management will rarely come across a near miss. Therefore, it is vital to engage the employees in the safety management program. Instill a mindset of a protector in your workers. Train them to be problem solvers when they encounter a problem. The workers should be encouraged to be open-minded and willing to accept reporting and feedback from other staff members.
Accept responsibility
Reporting near misses makes employees more responsible. When you are not condemned for making a mistake, you will own up for your errors and correct them. Therefore, the organization should create a work environment where workers feel safe to report a mistake and seek an opportunity to correct their mistakes.
From an operational perspective, workers are bound to make mistakes due to staffing inefficiencies, inadequate training, outdated equipment, and other issues beyond their control. The key to achieving a safe workplace is to encourage the workers to report near misses and address the causes of the risk.
Prevent risky behaviors
Reporting near misses ensures people are more careful with their tasks. When someone is bound to report that the electrical engineers left some live wires that nearly electrocuted them, the electrical engineers are bound to do an excellent job protecting their reputation and future contracts with the company. Employees will stop bypassing safety measures at a company with near misses reporting culture.
Value safety
Safety is an integral component of a work environment. It should be automatic and should not change its priorities. Security at the workplace should not be compromised or questioned. Once the employees report near misses, the management should act on the problem. This shows the employees that safety is valued in that company. Responding to near misses encourages the employees to be careful themselves and prioritize workplace safety.
Work safely
As the employees continue to learn about safety, they aim to ensure a safe working environment for themselves and others. When every worker can identify potential hazards, assess them, and manage risk factors before an accident, the organization is safe for operations. Working safely also involves the ability to prepare for emergencies and evacuations. All this may not be possible without near misses reporting.
Mature organizations have developed a culture that tracks near misses, why and how they happened, and then put the necessary measures to minimize or eliminate the risks. As mentioned in this article, these organizations see near misses as a wake-up call that property would have been damaged is adequate measures were not put in place.
