‘Employee behavior’ too often tagged as accident cause; learn how to probe deeper

If you were to look at past accident reports for your company, would you find that most recommended corrective actions target “employee behavior”?

Certainly, employee behavior is part of the overall picture but it is only one piece of the puzzle. If your accident investigation does not get to the real root causes, it is a fair bet that the same accident will occur again — it is only a question of when, where and to whom.

Proper accident investigation allows organizations to identify the root cause(s) of accidents and near-misses. However, it takes knowledge and practice to do it right.

A couple of examples:

1) An employee was injured when he removed a guard to clean out a machine fixture without locking out. Root cause analysis revealed that the machine had to be cleaned every one-half hour and the disconnect to lockout power was 50 feet away. The task only took 30 seconds to perform and employees often took shortcuts.

Understanding root causes allowed the employer to redesign the guard such that it could remain in place to allow the task of cleaning without removing it. Safety and operational performance were improved.

2) An employee slipped on a puddle of oil. The supervisor in the area chastened the employee for lax housekeeping. However, proper accident investigation showed that the leak was a daily occurrence. Further, maintenance personnel were spending their time on machine breakdowns and the alleged planned maintenance program was being ignored.

Good investigation allows you to identify the root cause(s) of why something occurred. You will often find more than one cause. Root causes typically challenge management to change their system, be it procedures, guarding, planning for tasks, etc. Improving the standards and systems drives continual improvement for improved safety and operational excellence.