2 Vital Reasons to Conduct Thorough Incident Investigations

Incident investigations are standard practice for most companies.  However, how companies perceive the purpose and benefits of doing them can be quite different.  On one end of the scale are companies who simply do not do them, in the middle are those that do them because they’ve been told by their insurance carrier to do so and on the opposite end of the scale are companies who do them as a learning tool and as part of their continuous improvement efforts.  So, why bother to do them?  Here are 2 primary reasons to not only do them but to do them well:

1.       Have solid control and defense in work related injury cases

      When an employee gets injured companies have to think long term.  Not 2-3 months out but 2-3-5 years long term.  The questions asked and answered now will come into play down the road.  Any dispute in the claim is won or lost during the first 2-5 days of the filing the claim.  A thorough investigation can have an immediate impact on the outcome of the claims which in turn will have a positive impact on your work comp program.

2.      Help identify current work process, quality and/or safety gaps and needed improvements

     This is important for injury and non-injury incidents alike. (An example of a non-injury incident would be when a worker accidentally programs the machine incorrectly resulting in defective products produced in that entire run.)  Preventing future injuries and errors is vital component of loss control.  Things happen but if you fail to learn from them don’t be surprised or upset that it happened again.

Incident investigations are key for strong risk management and can become the driver for proactive changes to be implemented in order to prevent the same type of event from happening again, and perhaps an even greater benefit, to improve the productivity and health of all workers.