A successful serious injury and fatality (SIF) prevention program is a sort of three-legged stool of culture, processes, and technology. All are needed and each individual leg on its own is not enough.
Organizations must combine a strong safety culture that prioritizes SIF prevention, with internal processes that effectively identify SIF precursors and hazards, and use EHS software to bring it all together.
Let’s take a closer look at the individual elements, along with three questions to consider for each.
Culture starts at the top
An effective safety culture sees SIF prevention being deeply embedded in the behaviors, attitudes, and mindsets of all employees.
And it starts with the “tone at the top.” When executives and the C-suite continually raise awareness and actively promote SIF prevention, the entire organization – from safety managers and shift supervisors to frontline workers – is more likely to fall in line because consistent leadership actions demonstrate safety is a priority, not just a policy.
Is your safety culture contributing to effectively prevent SIFs? The answers to these questions may give you the answer:
- Does top management regularly emphasize the need to prevent SIFs and talk about actions taken for SIF prevention? Regularly raising awareness reinforces safety must be everyone’s responsibility. Employees must feel encouraged to take ownership of their actions and their role in maintaining a safe workplace.
- Is there frequent communication around SIF prevention in the form of e-mails, newsletters, toolbox talks, posters at worksites, etc.? Open communication from management ensures employees understand safety protocols, risks, and expectations. This clarity reduces confusion and empowers employees to act appropriately.
- Is there a culture of blaming employees or does your organization also look at systemic and other issues that may have led to an incident? While human error is always possible, it’s also essential to look at other factors that may have set an employee up for failure, such as the work environment, lack of training, or failure to communicate critical safety information.
Processes for managing and investigating incidents must adapt
Processes for incident management and incident investigation should reflect a focus on SIF exposures, not just on recordable injuries. Companies must move beyond a fundamental compliance-based approach.
Near misses must be analyzed to determine their SIF potential, and if so, these should undergo a full incident investigation and root cause analysis. Actual SIFs should be analyzed to identify the responsible hazards, and SIF precursors should be identified by analyzing data on observations and incident investigations of potential and actual SIFs.
Consider these questions to determine whether your organization has the right processes:
- Are there common definitions throughout the company for what constitutes a SIF precursor, a potential SIF, and an actual SIF? Having common definitions ensures all employees share the same SIF prevention understanding. It also reduces the risk of miscommunication or misinterpretation that can lead to mistakes.
- Did you determine the hazards and high-risk activities that have the greatest potential to lead to SIFs? Focus is key. SIF prevention efforts are more likely to be effective if they’re prioritized by hazards and activity types that are most likely to result in serious injuries and fatalities.
- During root cause analyses of potential or actual SIFs, do you look at organizational factors, decisions made, or work processes that may have also contributed to SIFs? As part of an incident investigation, there should be a process to look beyond the immediate and most obvious cause(s) of an incident. All contributing factors should be identified and addressed.
Technology brings everything together
Technology is the vital third element because it brings everything together: people, processes, data, and information. It enables you to reach your SIF prevention goals.
EHS software allows employees to collaborate, provides a single source of truth, automates processes and workflows, and tracks progress through reports and dashboards. It also helps to identify trends, areas of weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement.
Consider these questions to determine whether your organization is using the right technology for SIF prevention:
- Are frontline workers empowered to easily report near misses, hazards, and observations of at-risk behaviors and conditions through mobile devices? Allowing employees to document hazards, unsafe conditions, and near misses increases the likelihood of quickly and effectively identifying trends or problem areas that need attention.
- Do you analyze data on SIFs to categorize them according to the type of hazard and to evaluate the success of your SIF prevention efforts? Analyzing SIF data allows organizations to pinpoint common hazards or systemic issues that lead to severe injuries and fatalities. Categorizing incidents by hazard type provides insights into patterns or recurring problems.
- Do you use action plans in EHS software to launch and track corrective actions associated with actual and potential SIFs? This is vital for creating a proactive and effective safety management system that ensures timely response, data-driven decision-making, and enhanced organizational learning when incidents occur.
Watch the recording of our webinar on how to leverage EHS software to drive SIF prevention. The webinar features speakers from Verdantix, Wilbur-Ellis, and Wolters Kluwer Enablon. You'll learn:
- Why SIF prevention is a top safety priority for organizations
- How EHS software helps to identify high risk activities that can lead to SIFs
- Best practices for SIF prevention from industry
- Artificial Intelligence and the future of SIF prevention
