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Section 7 - Outcome 2 - 4-6pts

Incidents are being reported but this may be inconsistent and they are not always investigated. More could be done to analyse trends and drive continuous improvement.

Your responses indicate that you are aware of the benefits of incident reporting and investigations but that there may be an inconsistent application of your procedures or that your workers do not always report incidents promptly or at all.

What you can do to improve:

Make sure your workers are aware of your incident reporting procedures and how those procedures help to keep them safe

Some workers don’t report what they consider minor incidents because they do not feel as though they are important enough. Other workers may delay reporting because they feel that an incident means they have done something wrong. In order to encourage your workers to report incidents you can:

  • train your workers in your procedures from induction onwards – make sure they are aware of the importance of reporting incidents
  • make sure you emphasise the link between incident reporting and safety – you cannot address an issue you are unaware of and lodging an incident report can help you improve systems and make your workplace safer for your workers
  • reinforce the fact that incident investigation is not about finding someone to blame but rather to find any issues and fix them so no one gets injured.

Monitor your incident reports and investigation outcomes so that you can identify any trends or emerging safety issues

When an incident or injury occurs it may mean that:

  • you do not have a safe work procedure in place for the task
  • the current procedure is insufficient, old or incorrect – it may be that the task or equipment used has changed, that the original procedure did not cover all risks or it has not been reviewed for a long time
  • your workers are not following the procedure properly.

In all of these cases there is a danger of recurrence or more serious incident if nothing is changed. By investigating the incident and identifying root cause you can put preventative actions in place that will keep your workplace safe.

Provide regular reporting to senior management on incidents, injuries and investigation outcomes

Regular management reporting and review will assist the senior management team in ensuring that business resources are directed to the best areas to improve workplace safety. It will also provide managers with the ability to track progress against safety targets and to make sure those with safety responsibilities are held accountable.

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