In his recent series, safety director Dan Scoles explained how his organization has succeeded in getting employees to report near misses. We asked SafetyXChange members how you handle this challenge at your own organizations. The response was overwhelming. We received literally dozens of notes, more than we could possibly use. Please don't be discouraged if we didn't print your response or had to pare it down.

Catherine Jones
Managing Editor
SafetyXChange

Don't Punish

I agree with your comments on reporting incidents. Unfortunately, many times management tries to use discipline to solve the problem; but this just dries up the pipeline. Once we get to that form of safety awareness, the program suffers.

David R. Schultz

Expand the Definition of Near Miss

At Columbian Chemicals Company, we have expanded the definition of near miss to include anything that could improve S&H performance if corrected. Near misses now include hazardous conditions, unsafe acts, observations, inspection results, etc. We have also regularly educated our employees about what near misses are, how they are to be communicated, tracked, and corrected. Tips:

• Ensure that employees are provided feedback on their near miss submissions. Too often employees submit a near miss, but do not know if anyone received it, let alone corrected it.
• Encourage General Managers to communicate the importance of near misses as well as the fact that there will never be any punishment due to a near miss. It is much more important that lines of communication remain open and that employees continue to identify opportunities for improvement (i.e. near misses).
• Track near misses as you would injuries and illnesses. We have even gone so far as to "challenge" our sites to increase the number of near misses reported every year.

Rick Gruca
Manager, Global Safety
Columbian Chemicals Company

Rename Them Altogether

What we do is not call them "near misses." How near does something have to be before it's considered a near miss? A brick falls from height and misses someone by 2 inches, 2 feet, 20 feet, 2 minutes or 2 hours. What looks like 2 inches from your point of view could actually be 20 feet from mine. It's all subjective and what a secretary would call a near miss, a lumberjack would not.

So we take the subjective element away and say that ALL safety incidents should be reported. A safety incident - in my eyes - is an event whereby someone could possibly have been hurt, or property damaged which under other circumstances - there but for the grace of God - would have resulted in an accident.

Eric P Cain

Put It in Video

We are rolling out a near miss reporting program next month with a in-house produced video to educate staff, a new policy, a reporting form and an incentive program. Especially the video, with our own employees acting out near miss situations and showing how to take responsibility for their own and others' safety immediately after the near miss, could be very effective.

Berry Kruijning, PHR
Benefits and Safety Specialist
Multnomah Athletic Club
Portland, OR

Put It Online

I'm a semi-retired electric utility lineman. I went back to work for a utility contractor as a safety and training coordinator. I'm teaching apprentice lineman classes. Our lineman do a great job on reporting near misses because they know that in our line of work a near miss could vary well become a fatality.

We have our own web-site for near misses, which covers the entire electric utility industry in the United States and is spreading to other countries. www.powerline.com. Look at near misses.

Doug Ketzenberg

Check the First Aid Kit for Evidence of Near Misses

I discovered as a result of a first aid box analysis of first aid supply use that 70% of bandage use was the result of minor cuts at work. Therefore, we have just started through the Safety Committee members a logging process in the work area of any (what the employee considers) minor injuries that they normally would not report (even though we have asked them to report any injury). The logging process is meant to be extremely brief, simply recording the date, the cause, and a checklist of minor results. We then analyze those logs and determine if we have near miss issues that could become something more serious.

Name and company withheld

Encourage Open Communication

Some suggestions:

• Prompt contact to reporter
• Reporter and incident participants take part on investigations and corrective and preventive actions
• Spread the responsibility and participation in investigations and preventive actions as wide as you dare
• Provide some fair budget for preventive actions and allow some independence for groups to make preventive efforts

Tapani Huovinen
Finland

Spy on Workers

We have been practicing a historic technique to get near misses reported. We secretly nominate one inquisitive worker of each group as a Safety Steward. The first aid box will be in his custody in the shop floor. So anyone who is in need of first aid item, even pills for headaches should get it through the steward only. This guy is motivated to report all the incidents that happened and will be rewarded with a small gift in token of appreciation of his service.

This is working very well and even before the supervisor report the incident in official forms the area safety Engineer will have all relevant details. Of course this is like spying the employees but with a good intention to help in relieving them from fear of being punished/disciplined for occupational accidents. This is also helping us to eliminate the unsafe conditions and unsafe acts of people.

Name and company withheld

Entice Workers

We are a large (410 Employees) Contract Manufacturing Machine/Fab Shop. To get our employees to report near misses we redid our incentive program by placing forms on each bulletin board. If you are involved in or witness a near miss or have a Safety Related Suggestion, you fill out one of the forms and turn it in to a member of the Safety Committee or to myself the Safety Coordinator.

Each quarter the Safety Committee along with the Production Manager, Human Resources, and the Safety Director review all Near Miss Forms and if accepted each employee's name is placed in a drawing for 15 - $40.00 cash payouts. They can enter as many times as they would like but are only eligible for one cash drawing per quarter.

We get results by employees who are willing to turn in near misses this way. They have all been told that no matter what is turned in there will be no type of disciplinary action taken on anything reported relating to this.

LaVern Schroeder
Safety/Environmental Coordinator
Innovance, Inc.
Albert Lea, MN

Thank Workers

We use a card to fill in if it is a near miss or if they observe some very good behavior. These are gone over once a month at safety mtg. and discussed with the crew. Once in a while we will give out stuff to the whole crew as a thank-you for filling the cards out. No disciplinary action has ever been taken against an employee for reporting a near miss. We view them as a learning experience and get to the root cause of the incident with the employee's help. It seems to be working well.

Name and company withheld

Reward Workers

Employees who report a near-miss get points towards our gift certificate incentive program. They can fill the near-miss forms out themselves call me and I'll fill them out for the employee. They still get credit no matter which way they go.

Name and company withheld

Feed Workers

I am a Regional EH&S Manager. We have had a Near Miss Program in place for several years and it has been very beneficial in giving employees a voice in addressing safety issues at our facility. All Near Misses reported are reviewed by the GM and the Senior Management Team. The individuals who submit a Near Miss receive a direct response from the GM with 24-hours thanking the employee for taking the time to report and that their voice is very important in driving our safety program to world class status. For 2005 we improved the program by having the Safety Steering Committee select the "best" Near Miss for the reporting month and rewarding that employee with a $25 gift card from a local restaurant such as Friday's or Applebee's and presenting this at our monthly "All Hands Meeting". This new wrinkle in our program has increased reporting of Near Misses by an average of 40% per month.

Name and company withheld

Turn Reporting into a Competition

I work in Saudi Arabia. My company, SPC, has a very good motivational program in place to encourage near miss reporting. Every one who raises a valuable, meaningful near miss is awarded with a safety token gift and there are special awards for reporting maximum number of near misses (in the form of incident reports) in a month. The system really works as seen by the increased number of near miss reports. The remedial actions are taken immediately before the same incident happens again.

Hanif Poorkar
Operation Supervisor

Make Reporting Mandatory

We do just what was mentioned in this article. All incidents will be reported, including those perceived as minor and insignificant. We teach people that each near miss would have been an injury had things occurred slightly different. If we find an unreported scratch on a lift truck we investigate to determine responsibility and push the fact that reporting is a must and a job requirement.

Victor M. Woody
The Mundy Company
Moncks Corner, SC

Make Reporting a Daily Event

We are a manufacturing plant working with fabricated metal. We have a pre-shift at the beginning of each shift to review the daily schedule and line assignments and ask if there were any near misses the day before. These are written on a dry erase board with the date and Production Line number:

1. For the other shifts to review.
2. For Maintenance to review and see about any corrective action.
3. Are recorded before being erased after 1 week.

Jon Pennington
Friendly Neighborhood Electronic Technician
WAVE Las Vegas

Talk about Reporting on a Frequent Basis

I am a firm believer in the importance of reporting a near miss. I advise companies to include the reporting of a near miss as part of their "Injury Reporting System" and to make it a part of the Employees' orientation. As well it is the responsibility of the managers or supervisors to include the reporting of a near miss as an ongoing agenda item for their regular OH&S/ staff monthly meetings. Furthermore I recommend to the Employers that they place a form on their Occupational Health and Safety board that can be used by employees to report near misses and any hazardous conditions. It is then the responsibility of the Employer to investigate the situation and take whatever corrective action that may be required to remove any hazards and make the workplace safe.

Charlie Young
C. Young Consulting

Paint It Pink

At the Weyerhaeuser Kingsport Paper mill, we post NMUC (Near miss/unsafe condition) forms everywhere employees are likely to be - break rooms, bathrooms, time clocks. The form is on hot pink paper and very difficult to ignore.

Debbie K. Davis
WIN News Editor
Weyerhaeuser Company

Do It All

I wish to share few best practices I have instituted in our company.

• Departmental targets are fixed in Management Safety Committee Meeting and monitoring is done every month.
• The definition of near miss has been expanded quite elaborately.
• The reporting formats are printed in local language (Assamese),Hindi & English with illustrations and pictorials
  The safety recognition scheme is kept in place for awarding for reporting of maximum near miss in a month and best near miss reported.
• Awards are given away by General Manager or Executive Director.
• Drop boxes are provided at least on 15 places where people are gathered and reporting formats and a pen is kept hanging for writing a near miss and dropping in the drop box.
• An icon on company's intranet on NEAR MISS is kept where cases pertaining to near miss are uploaded and continuously updated.
• All near miss cases are analyzed and action taken reports are prepared and circulated to all employees and other refineries for maximum knowledge sharing on near miss
• Loss control Bulletins are issued containing message from GM or ED

The above practices are followed and near miss terms have become a phrase in our routine dialogue and work culture.

Ashok Kumar Singh
Sr. Manager (Fire & Safety)
Assam, India

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