Incidents and Risk, where do you stand?

What attitude do you have towards taking risk? What about your company?

What tolerance do you have for employees who break the rules?

Employees who then reason in the best interest of the company, to achieve a production target, or to meet a customer requirement.

Does your business allow safety to be compromised?

A SafeWork Australia Report published in December 2014 entitled ‘Attitudes towards risk taking and rule breaking in Australian workplaces’ states

“Greater acceptance of risk taking and rule breaking in the workplace was associated with particular groups of workers. Acceptance of risk taking was particularly high for sole traders and employers operating in Transport, postal & warehousing. Similarly, acceptance of rule breaking was high among Transport, postal & warehousing employers.”

And further

“The finding of an increased acceptance of risk taking and rule breaking in the workplace among these groups of workers coincides with the higher incidence of serious workers’ compensation claims and work-related fatality observed for these groups.”

Apart from taking risk the incidence of rule breaking is also evident:

“Almost 40% of employers operating in the Transport, postal & warehousing industry agreed that their workplace does not suit those worried about being injured. In addition, compared to the other priority industries Transport, postal & warehousing employers were much more likely to agree that they break safety rules in order to complete work on time and were more accepting of risk taking at work.

Employers in large businesses were more likely to agree that workers ignore safety rules to get the job done, achieve a target and take short cuts that involve little or no risk compared to employers in medium and small businesses.”

Each time a worker breaks a safety rule, they take a risk.

An important step in managing risk is by applying the following 4 step process:-

1. Identify the risk

2. Assess the level of Risk

3. Control the Risk

4. Monitor and review the risk

Modal Logistics has the tools to be able to conduct such a risk assessment in your business.

But do I need to do an incident investigation after each incident? Again this is an important question and requires the following consideration.

Does the breach of a safety rule become a safety incident?

Could the incident have resulted in a serious outcome, such as personal injury, property damage, environmental damage or affected ongoing operations?

There is also the need to consider the opportunity to improve health, safety and environment by using the incident as a warning of possible future incidents.

An incident investigation is a good tool to advance safety management by developing a good understanding of the contributing factors both personal and infrastructure. The incident investigation will allow for corrective tools, policies or procedures to be considered and implemented.

The scope and complexity of any health and safety investigation should mirror the actual or potential seriousness of the incident. To assist your staff in determining the seriousness of an incident the following tables identifying Consequence, Likelihood and Assessed Risk Level will assist you.

Once the level of risk has been ascertained it is important then to apply controls or consider alternatives the following table will help identify if you need to implement control measures or eliminate the current practices to minimise the risk.

Once an incident has occurred and has been assessed from a low level risk to a high level incident and the necessary safety precautions have been taken to establish site safety and security an incident safety investigation should commence as soon as practical.

At Modal Logistics we are trained in incident safety investigations.

What is ICAM?

The ICAM methodology provides the following logic towards incident and accident causation and supports the notion that most incidents and accidents are caused rarely by a single act or condition, but rather by a number of factors working together.

ICAM’s are typically suggested for the following risk levels:

The investigation process follows 4 key categories;

1: Organizational Factors

Organisational factors are those aspects which can be implicated in producing the task/environmental conditions, individual or team actions, or absent/failed defences that have allowed the incident or accident to happen.

These factors usually arise from organisational shortcomings which produce adverse conditions in the workplace. They can be hard to detect at times until combined with other local conditions such as leadership issues or errors in planning etc. As the name implies, organisational factors are controlled by the organisation itself and improvement of those factors can only be achieved through the utilisation and constant upkeep of the management systems in place.

2: Task and Environmental Conditions

Task and environmental conditions are those conditions in existence immediately prior to or at the time of the incident that directly influence human and equipment performance in the workplace.

3: Individual and Team Actions

The ICAM code describes these as errors or violations that led directly to the incident. They are typically associated with personnel such as operators and maintainers having direct contact with equipment or material. They are always committed ‘actively’ (someone did or didn’t do something) and have a direct relation with the incident’.

4: Absent Failed defences

Absent or failed defences are described as the ‘last minute measures which did not prevent the outcome of the incident or mitigate/reduce its consequences’.

These absent or failed detection systems may include: protection systems, warning systems, guards or barriers, recovery, escape, rescue, safety device operation, personal protective equipment, hazard identification and control systems.

Once all the data is collected and organised the data is analysed using the Incident Cause Analysis Method (ICAM) to identify the underlying causes of the incident. The analysis is designed to ensure that the investigation is not limited to the actions or errors of workers. ICAM helps to identify workplace or organisational deficiencies.

As the data is analysed a series of Corrective improvements or recommendations become apparent. These recommendations or corrective actions are identified to reduce risk, advance safety and prevent any further escalation of risk related to the incident.

These recommendations or corrective actions are contained within the investigation report which seeks approval from senior management to allow for implementation and future follow up to occur within a prescribed time.

Modal Logistics is available to assist you with risk identification and incident investigations, do not miss an opportunity to improve safety in your workplace by learning from each incident.