Why Isn't Anyone Talking?!? (Incident Reporting Pitfalls)

Having worked in the Safety and Health field for the past decade, I’m constantly amazed and intrigued by differences in the perspectives of people from different levels of an organization. Speaking as a manager who’s also been a member of the workforce, one subject that rarely sees a bridge between the gap is the topic of incident reporting.

I’ve been asked more than several times to postulate why incident reporting is not what someone believes it should be. More often than not this is due to a perception that safety-related incidents should be reported at some specific, measurable rate. Quite honestly, I wish we could just get over the idea in general, but we have Mr. Herbert William Heinrich and his famous triangle to thank for it. I doubt the notion will be going away any time soon. “Heinrich’s triangle” has been widely discredited in modern safety management models and I’d say at best it’s an intangible theory. The idea that’s always stuck in my head is a snake sitting in the grass that you nearly step on, but never see. One could call that a near miss, but there’s really no value there. What is valuable is to educate people on the hazards related to their jobs and then empower them to talk about them before they cause injuries.

If you’re willing to think outside the box a little, perhaps more of a philosophical discussion revolving around the perspective of the average employee would be effective. The premise of that discussion is a scenario where there is a safety-related event (near miss, first aid, oops, insert any other title, etc.) in which there is potential to learn something or steer someone else in a better direction sometime in the future. The question I would ask is this: If you (or any other manager) were that employee, would you perceive there to be more personal benefit in telling your supervisor about it, or would you feel more secure putting your hands in your pockets and walking away?

In order for that to be a meaningful discussion, I think we have to believe/accept three things:

1. Stuff is happening and we’re not hearing about it.

The idea that things are in fact happening and not being reported seems to be a tough pill to swallow, but if this isn’t an acceptable belief, we miss out on some great opportunities to learn. The reasoning for people not wanting to open up is understandable since no one wants to have their “dirty laundry” aired. The problem (in my opinion) is the belief that incidents are dirty laundry. We lose the ability to learn when our managers are conditioned to believe that. It’s true that the consequences of an incident are quite often negative, but we tend to get hung up on that rather than just taking a deep breath and looking forward.

2. Employees may not perceive any personal value (or may only perceive negative value) in reporting.

Weather perceived or real, culture often leads employees to believe they will be punished in some way if they report incidents. Most of the time the intentions of everyone involved in a discipline event are good, but I think there are always opportunities for improvement. Management is frequently prone to trying to fix an employee before asking how the process could be improved to prevent the employee from making the mistake in the first place. If you can think of a time when an employee reported that a task didn’t go as planned and was then was written up for a “safety violation,” you probably know what I’m talking about.

3. Employees may not recognize that there is something worth reporting.

The last point revolves around recognizing hazards. It’s the idea that if someone walks through a space and notices a trip hazard, they stop and pick it up. Then, that employee casually and freely (without fear of any “negative” consequence) mentions it to a superior who, in turn, communicates it to everyone. When we all feel comfortable operating in that manner, the cascade of safety improvements will be incredible.

Hopefully this hasn’t seemed like two much of a ramble or a soapbox, but I wanted to share my perspective. Here’s to some meaningful discussions…