The Value and Purpose of Incident Inquiries When injuries, accidents, and near misses happen, it can be stressful, traumatic, and frightening. It can make everyone nervous, and, most of the time, investigating the incident is not what is on the minds of everyone. Many employers need policies for accident investigations that are established procedures, and even those with practices and policies need to be followed by following them in conducting regular, thorough research. This could be due to expectations that must be set, clearly defined, or even understood. You may have heard someone saying, "I thought somebody else was going to take care of it." Sometimes, it is considered an inconvenience or not enough to be worth the time. "Why do I have to do a near-miss report? No one was hurt." Perhaps "It was just a couple of stitches, so no big deal." Beware of letting these arguments and other reasons derail your safety strategy. The purpose of an incident investigation Vehicle accident investigation services are legally required to investigate accidents for all recorded injuries. In addition, insurance companies need documentation of incidents for any incidents that cause or result in a claim. These are only some of the motives for investigating incidents. The primary goal of an investigation into an incident is to prevent the occurrence of future incidents from occurring again. It is not a way to assign a finger to anyone or apply discipline. Instead, investigating an incident helps us collect the relevant details of Who is involved, What is happening, where, when, and how. After this information is obtained, we can examine the incident to determine its Why or the root cause. The root causes are the primary motives or the incident's root cause. For example, if a worker cuts his hand due to not wearing gloves when handling a sharp object, many will say, "this is a clear and closed case of employee inattention to safety and wearing protective equipment. Train the employee and return to standard work." However, further investigation could reveal that the employee hasn't been provided with gloves or the boss doesn't wear his gloves and doesn't want his employees to wear gloves. Therefore, gloves were not provided. The gloves provided don't fit to do the job, and employees are often forced to take them off. This could cause us to review the training we offer. There are a variety of variables that could be at play when determining the leading cause of an incident. In the case of employee negligence, blaming it on improper behavior is the quickest option and will do little to prevent further incidents. The value of incident investigations Each incident has direct costs like medical care, repairs, and replacement for damaged or damaged materials, Workers' compensation, insurance premiums, etc. But, the indirect costs are usually much more expensive due to the loss of person-hours and productivity. At the same time, the job was closed down, training supervisors, employees, and managers time in looking into accidents and processing claim, etc. So, injuries and accidents are far more costly than you imagine. A well-worn saying is, "Don't let a great crisis go unnoticed." Injuries, accidents, and near-misses can be valuable learning opportunities we should take advantage of. But, unfortunately, the incident has already happened, and the damage has already been done. Near misses are unplanned incidents that did not cause injuries, illnesses, or damages. However, it had the potential to cause damage or injury. Therefore, if we can gain knowledge from near misses, we should take advantage of their lessons. The lessons learned are free; however, the lessons may not be the next time. It is also crucial that the injuries are documented to aid in the analysis and enhancement of the safety plan. For example, if, at the midpoint of the year, we've already suffered more than eight injuries to the hands, we could quickly determine that something is unsafe in our safety program, and we must concentrate on hand safety. If these instances aren't documented or reported in any way, we may not be able to identify the problem promptly or even know that there is an issue. Contact us Website - https://www.approvedgroupinternational.com/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/approvedgroupinternational/ Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/company/approvedgroupinternational/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/agifreeyourmind Thank you