When an employee suffers an injury, what do you do next? In addition to ensuring the employee receives appropriate care, it’s important to conduct a timely and thorough workplace accident investigation.
Prevent Future Incidents
There are multiple reasons to conduct a workplace accident investigation. One is to prevent future incidents that could occur due to the same underlying causes. Imagine the following scenarios:
- A worker at a warehouse injures their back lifting a heavy item. Fortunately, the injury is not severe, so the employee only misses one day of work and is better after a trip to the chiropractor. However, the company could have prevented the injury by requiring employees to use safe lifting techniques. The company also could have implemented better safety policies, such as requiring employees to ask for assistance from another employee, using appropriate equipment for loads that are too heavy to lift or breaking items up into smaller loads. If the company takes the opportunity to provide better training, it could prevent future injuries.
- A worker at a deli cuts their hand on a meat slicer. The cut is deep and requires stitches. The company could have prevented the injury by implementing better lockout/tagout procedures, but the employer does not investigate the incident or implement any risk management measures. The next month, another employee is injured in a similar incident. However, this incident is more serious, and the employee loses a finger. OSHA investigates and levies harsh penalties against the employer for failing to address a known issue despite previous worker injuries.
The primary goal is always to prevent injuries before they happen. If an injury occurs, the next goal is to prevent a second and potentially more serious injury from happening in the future. Companies that take the opportunity to improve their safety practices stand to lower their workers’ compensation costs and create a better workplace culture. Companies that fail to seize this opportunity may see their costs skyrocket, their workplace morale plummet and their best workers leave for safer jobs.
It’s smart to investigate all workplace accidents, even if the injuries are minor and do not require medical attention or time off work. Even near misses may warrant incident investigations to improve occupational safety and prevent similar incidents in the future.
Curtail Workers’ Compensation Insurance Fraud
Another reason to conduct a workplace accident investigation is to curtail workers’ compensation fraud. According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), fraudsters take advantage of the workers’ compensation system by faking or exaggerating injuries and then filing claims, collecting cash and receiving the benefits of employment without having to go to work.
The cost of fraudulent claims is high, and it could potentially cause your workers’ compensation insurance premiums to increase. By investigating workplace accidents, employers may be able to catch some fraudulent claims.
Workplace Accident Investigation Process
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has outlined four steps employers should follow when investigating a workplace incident:
- Step One: Preserve and document the scene.
- Step Two: Collect information.
- Step Three: Determine the root causes.
- Step Four: Implement corrective actions.
Workplace accidents, especially if they’re serious, lead to a chaotic work environment. To ensure that employees carry out these steps in a prompt and timely manner, employers should have a clear process in place to ensure that workers know exactly what they need to do and can follow the relevant procedures. It’s important to identify who is responsible for carrying out these steps in addition to identifying what they need to do. A health and safety committee may be able to help with this process.
Documenting the Incident and Collecting Information
Documentation needs to occur as soon as possible, before the scene may be altered. You may need to block off the area where the incident occurred in order to prevent changes and preserve physical evidence. Key steps during this process include:
- Take photos of the scene and secure any surveillance video footage of the incident. Since many surveillance systems automatically delete or record over footage after a certain period of time, don’t wait to secure any footage you may need.
- Document the basic facts of the incident, including the date, time, location and nature of the injury.
- Identify the individuals who were present and may have witnessed the incident or the circumstances that contributed to it. Record their names, gather witness statements and conduct interviews. Since memories fade quickly, it’s important to conduct interviews as soon as possible.
- Identify any other information that may be relevant, such as training records, company policies and equipment manuals. Ensure you preserve this information for use in the investigation.
Identifying the Root Cause
OSHA encourages employers to investigate all incidents in which an employee is hurt or could have been hurt. The focus of these investigations is to identify and then correct the root cause by asking questions like:
- Did employees fail to follow any safety procedures? If yes, why did they not follow the safety procedures?
- Did production pressures jeopardize safety? If yes, why were production pressures allowed to jeopardize safety?
- Were procedures or safety training out of date or inadequate? If so, why had this not been identified or addressed previously?
Note that OSHA places emphasis on why things happened. The goal isn’t to blame an employee if they broke a safety rule or cut corners to meet production goals. Rather, the goal is to figure out why these issues occurred to prevent something similar from happening in the future. This is identifying the root cause.
Implementing Corrective Actions
Once you have identified the root cause, it’s time to take corrective action. You should thoroughly document this process and reassess it in the future to determine whether the corrective action was successful at removing the threat.
Consider the following scenario: an employee suffered an eye injury, with the employee’s failure to wear protective goggles contributing to the injury. An investigation revealed that many of the employees routinely carry out their work without using the personal protective equipment the company provides.
By conducting interviews with various employees, including the injured employee’s coworkers and supervisor, the company determines that a lack of safety training and awareness of the personal protective equipment was the issue. Employees avoided using the goggles because they were old and loose, which meant they didn’t fit well or stay in place securely and were a nuisance.
The company invested in new goggles and trained supervisors to help ensure employees always use the goggles and report any issues with the goggles. It documented this process thoroughly, scheduling a follow-up visit to verify that there had been no additional injuries and that employees were using the goggles correctly.
Are you investigating workplace accidents thoroughly?
Workplace accidents can lead to higher workers’ compensation costs, OSHA penalties, low workplace morale and high employee turnover. By investigating accidents thoroughly, employers can help prevent future accidents while also catching incidents of fraud.
Let Higginbotham support you with comprehensive business insurance, workers’ comp and risk management strategies. Talk to one of our specialists today to learn more.
