One of the most important workplace safety tools you can implement is reporting near misses and correcting the factors that lead to them.
A near miss is an event that could have led to a workplace injury, illness or death. While you are not required to report near misses to your insurer, you should take note of them because they can help identify deficiencies in your safety protocols.
You should use near misses as a starting point for inspections that can help prevent actual workplace injuries. But you can’t investigate what you don’t know, so it’s crucial that your staff report such events.
What is and isn’t a near miss
An OSHA fact sheet defines a near miss — or close call — as an incident in which no property was damaged and no workers were injured, but given a slight shift in time or position, damage or injury could have occurred.
Resist the urge to chalk a near miss up to luck. The factsheet stresses that although near misses cause no immediate harm, they mayprecede events in which a loss or injury could occur.
Typically, near misses are the result of a faulty process ormanagement system. Your goal should be to investigate where the breakdownoccurred and how it can be improved.
A near-miss program
Near-miss reporting is vitally important to preventing serious, fatal and catastrophic incidents that are less frequent but far more harmful than other incidents.
The National Safety Council recommends that the following be included in your safety program:
Clearly define “near miss.
Establish a reporting system that reinforces that every opportunity to identify and control hazards must be acted on.
Investigate to identify system weaknesses or employee actions that led to the near miss.
Use investigation results to address the failure that led to the near miss and to improve safety systems.
Use the lessons learned and new protocols in employee safety training.
Reporting system
Encourage your workers to report such incidents because they may occur out of sight of a supervisor or manager.
Provide clear instructions for all personnel on how to report near misses, including who to report to. Create forms that detail what happened and why it constituted a near miss.
Do not retaliate against any employee for raising a near miss or other safety concerns. Instead of trying to assign blame when investigating a near miss, focus on what precipitated it.
Case studies
A chemical manufacturer tracks lower-level claims and near misses to identify areas where more significant injuries are likely to occur.The company encourages employees to resolve issues on a temporary basis until permanent controls can be implemented.
Another manufacturer uses near-miss analysis to head off future incidents. It uses an event system that records near misses, including detailed information on what led to them and the lessons learned. These lessons are shared throughout the organization.
