At Crawford & Company, we often see signs declaring: ‘target Zero – 187 days since our last reportable accident’. These are frequently displayed at manufacturing sites in particular.
This kind of signage can indicate a problematic safety culture. The questions we ask are whether it demonstrates a positive, proactive safety culture or simply papers over the cracks.
There is always the consideration that sheer good luck can help achieve target zero. And also, sanctions for not hitting target zero can drive behaviours that discourage incident and accident reporting.
Workplace incidents resulting in injury or damage are undesirable, so it’s reasonable to want to reduce them. But through nothing more than bad luck, there is always potential for injury, like tripping over your own feet, or missing a step on a stair.
In reality, target zero is unachievable. What can be achieved however, is the reduction of injury or damage attributable to management failings. To do so, we must promote a culture that encourages near miss and non-conformance reporting.
Near miss or non-conformance reporting is the documentation, investigation and classification of situations that could have given rise to personal injury and/or damage to property, goods and services.
The goal is to learn from these to prevent a more serious accident, or even a fatality. These reports give important insights into working conditions and processes, highlighting areas that need attention before they become a serious problem.
Why near miss reporting is important
Research suggests there are around 300 near misses, or non-conformances, for each serious workplace accident. So, identifying and addressing near misses will provide a much better chance of reducing or eliminating more serious incidents.
But not everyone is quick to report a near miss or non-conformance. Employees may worry they will be punished for filing a report or blamed for the incident. More often, managers and employees are simply unaware that an incident needs to be reported and acted on.
It is vital to make the near miss reporting process straightforward and to encourage discussions aimed at resolving trends.
What should be reported
Any unplanned event that might potentially cause damage or harm is a near miss or non-conformance, and should be reported.
Not wearing a safety helmet in a designated zone is non-conformance; an employee noticing that a ‘wet floor’ sign has not been put out at an area that’s potentially slippery is also a non-conformance. If someone reports they’ve slipped, but not fallen on the wet area, this would be a near miss. The definition is that nobody has actually injured themselves, but the potential for harm is there.
We all know that standing on a chair to reach a high shelf is dangerous, but it’s a risk many people take as it can often be done without injury, while also avoiding the inconvenience of finding a ladder. However, sooner or later a fall will happen. The outcome of that fall is down to various factors (like age, strength and agility) but is also dependent on luck. You could suffer a fracture, but if you only suffered some bruising you’d consider yourself lucky.
Prevention
To prevent a reportable accident, we need to target the actions that lead to it. To achieve zero reportable accidents, we must either rely on luck or eliminate the behaviour giving rise to the risk. In the ‘chair’ example above, the likelihood of a fall may be quite low, but to meet a zero target there can be no tolerance of that risk by anyone in the whole organisation.
Colleagues should be prepared to challenge their peers to prevent these kind of behaviours. Managers and supervisors need to take decisive action to change behaviour, while individuals need to buy in to the benefits of aiming for a zero target by acting against what might be a first instinct.
Organisations should positively encourage the reporting of near misses and non-conformances, while also using the insights that these give to assess whether existing processes are preventing these behaviours.
Consistent near miss and non-conformance reporting can play a big part in reducing the numbers of more serious accidents and incidents in the workplace.
Steps to improvement
Any aspiration of target zero in respect of incidents due to management or systems failings brings with it the need to embed a set of behaviours aimed at achieving the target.
Before management and employees can be expected to make changes to near miss and non-conformance reporting, there’ should be education on why they should change, with recognition that doing so will achieve beneficial results.
Employees at all levels have to believe in and fully embrace the target, and change their behaviours to willingly recognise and report risk, and become more risk aware.
Increasing near miss and non-conformance reporting should not be viewed as a negative reflection on the organisation. It is progressive acceptance that learning from our mistakes means we’re more likely to avoid repeating them, leading to fewer serious incidents and accidents.