OSHA says all accidents and near misses should be investigated to determine the underlying causes and to prevent a recurrence. Now there is a special webinar to help you elevate your accident investigations to the lifesaving level.
Yesterday’s Advisor explored workplace near misses, which OSHA defines as “incidents where no property was damaged and no personal injury sustained, but where, given a slight shift in time or position, damage and/or injury easily could have occurred.”
We recommended that near misses be viewed as opportunities for instructive and preventive action—warnings that can be used to encourage safety awareness on everyone’s part.
A related preventive measure is job safety/hazard analysis (JSA), which breaks a job into its component steps, and then examines each step to determine what hazards or at-risk behaviors exist or might occur.
OSHA recommends that JSA be prioritized, first for jobs with the highest rates of accidents and disabling injuries, and then jobs where near misses have occurred.
Learn the “steps” of how an accident occurs, and how the human factor can evolve into an unplanned event. Join us August 22 for a BLR webinar on Workplace Accident Investigations That Save Lives: What to Investigate, Why, and How. Can’t attend? Preorder the CD. Satisfaction assured! Read more.
Yet even with the most meticulous planning and precautions, workplace accidents are going to happen. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that there were 4.2 million occupational injuries and illnesses in 2006 alone, of which 3.9 million were injuries.
Approximately 2.1 million of those injuries and illnesses required recuperation away from work, transfer to another job, restricted duties at work, or a combination of those actions. That works out to an incident rate of 2.3 cases per 100 workers. How many employees are in your workplace?
OSHA says that all incidents, whether actual injury-related events or near misses, should be investigated. (Near miss investigation allows you to identify and control hazards before they cause a more serious incident.)
When investigating these incidents, it is important that your primary objective be to identify root causes, not to set blame. Keep in mind that it is the failure of people, equipment, supplies, or surroundings to behave or react as expected that causes most accidents. Accident investigations determine how and why these failures occur.
Workplace accident investigations aren’t effective unless you know what, why, and how to investigate. Join our safety expert on August 22 for a 90-minute webinar. Can’t attend? Preorder the CD. Satisfaction assured! Read more.
By using the information gained, a similar, or perhaps more disastrous, accident may be prevented. That makes it paramount to conduct accident investigations with prevention in mind.
Knowing what to investigate, why to investigate, and how to investigate an accident or incident will ensure the credibility of your findings and their value for preventing similar incidents from occurring again. An added bonus is that it demonstrates to employees that your management team really does value a safe work environment and safe work practices.
To help you get the most out of your accident investigations, BLR has asked safety expert Gary Gagliardi to conduct a webinar titled Workplace Accident Investigations That Save Lives: What to Investigate, Why, and How.
Gagliardi is corporate safety director for Midwest Mole, Inc., the nation’s leading innovator in trenchless technology. He has more than 15 years of experience in the safety field, retiring from the Air Force after 20 years in civil engineering. An authorized OSHA General Industry outreach instructor, Gagliardi has numerous OSHA and NFPA certifications, and has certification as a Slip and Fall Prevention Specialist. He has worked with companies nationwide in developing safety programs and safe work practices.
We invite you to gather all of your key personnel around a computer or phone and join us on August 22 for this 90-minute interactive program, during which Gagliardi will cover such topics as:
- The “steps” of how an accident occurs
- How the human factor evolves into an unplanned event
- Effective strategies for conducting investigations
- What types of accidents and incidents should be investigated
- How an accident report can help you or hurt you—and how to do it right