1. People do not see a benefit (improvements)
2. People do see a cost (time)

You need to work on those two.


BenifitsBenefits can also include random prizes (like training a dolphin you don;t give them a fish every hoop they jump through, just enough to make them think they might get a fish).

Letting people know that an improvement occurred because of a near miss report. I run a "You Said, We Did" board to highlight things that changed because people spoke up.

Costs

Make it as easy as possible. If you get a verbal report don't send them away to fill in a form. Talk to them about actions.

My 2.3 cents (GST Included)

Major near-misses may be easier to grasp and may be more likely to be reported. Smaller scale may not be reported either because people don't really think they are important enough to report, or they may not recognise the experience as really having been a 'near miss', or because they are minor, they may be more likely to just move on with the next activity. Another possibility I have seen at times is that they may just be reported as a hazard, without reference to a near miss.

Matt, maybe embarrassment, fear of getting into trouble, unfit for purpose reporting systems and the good points Michael makes. Just a thought - how about reporting and dealing with near miss incidents within teams. Senior Management just need to know lessons learned, improvements made and how they could assist.

My 2 cents (no GST)

Delving a bit more into what Sheri said - Maybe because they don't recognise the near miss as a 'near miss' until it's pointed out to them.

As the health/safety/wellbeing people 'what could happen' is very much in our culture but it is still severely lacking in most of our teams at the coal face, on the line and up the rank.

One team I worked with had a bit of a epiphany when we changed the definition of 'near miss' to "[enter favourite expletive] that was close!"

If they got to say that, then they needed to tell someone about it.

One team I worked with had a bit of a epiphany when we changed the definition of 'near miss' to "[enter favourite expletive] that was close!"

Excellent to see my Patented FARK Scale ((copyright donated to the good cause)) taking off and becoming more main stream

For those unfamiliar with my Patented FARK Scale ((copyright donated to the good cause)) heres a reprint from an original post some time ago.

“Fark, that was close. It nearly hit me” or “it just missed me”. Or “opps I cut myself but it only needs a plaster” That’s a Fark1 event. (I’m not instigating formal investigations for Fark1’s)

A Fark2 event might go ““Oh Fark I’ve cut myself. I need a First Aider to fix me up”

A Fark3 could be “Fark Me, you’re a mess. Best I get you to a doctor. You’re bound to get five days off work”.

A Fark 4 “You’re farked. It will take more than a doctor to fix you up so we need to plan on you having more than five days off work”

And a Fark5, is “HMOG we’re all farked!”

Farks are important as they feed my Patented FEFR (Fark Event Frequency Rate) metric which of course is the preferred alternative to LTIFR

Andrew,
How does one acquire a copy of this legendary FARK scale :-) along with permission to use it or at least refer to it, seriously though that way of putting it may help students relate to the concept and process.
Cheers

your FARK scale is brilliant, my guys would definitely relate to his

The Patented FARK Scale ((copyright donated to the good cause)) is available free of any charge to any member of Safeguard Forum providing there is proper attribution. (Something like Lord Andrew sounds good to me) All donations (preferable wine and red) gratefully accepted as these will be directly applied to further research

Nice one Matt, however when I read the question I was left sitting here thinking jeez, how long has the health and safety game been afoot in NZ, and how long have we - and by "we" I mean NZ business/industry/PCBUs/whatever - known about the requirement to identify hazards & near misses etc. and yet here we are after so many years down the track providing the same answers to the same questions. Even Andrew gave the same answers! Sigh...:sad:

I have found that the term near miss can be confusing for people, and that's because if it didn't happen and I didn't get hurt, then what's the issue? So I introduced an additional category called "non-injury". This has been really successful and has helped to tackle the issue of non-reporting. Non-injury is when a worker observes something that has the potential to cause harm. By using this term, it helps to take a closer look at the process and controls with the worker. So near miss and non-injury categories are closely linked.

After experiencing what Matt is going through, for me, the uptake in reporting has been fantastic and this supports the proactive H & S culture needed. I don't really mind whether a "near miss" or "non-injury" is used. The fact workers are reporting is what you want. By the way, I like Andrew's analogy. Trouble is I would be laughing way too much to put it into place.

A couple of very quick, rambling and generic thoughts from me.

1. Near misses with high potential consequences deserve as much attention as an actual harm event, unfortunately they are seen as the poor relation to injuries and don't even prompt a review of a Risk Assessment.

2. The language around how the near miss has historically been communicated has caused a bit of bad press for this very important metric. Flip the language from measuring Days Since a Near Miss to Days Since A Lesson Learned and we start to get to the true reason for reporting these events. It soon becomes one of the more powerful (and meaningful) metrics in our armoury.

Reporting near miss is a demand from management. We use unsafe acts and unsafe conditions along with near miss. using this approach empowers workers to report 'that was close' I nearly got hurt because of an unsafe condition. Managers then respoond by improving conditions not investigating workers. Demands from management will never work. Empower workers to get results.

People want to know what's in it for them. Once they see that, e.g. a near miss is a free lesson and a positive not a negative or punative thing, behaviours will change. We had a 300% increase over a couple of years, it's not perfect but we're pretty happy generally with our near miss reporting.