What is Incident Reporting and why do we need it?
Incident reporting is an essential process for any organization. It involves documenting and analyzing any events or occurrences that could potentially impact the business, its employees, or its customers. By reporting incidents, businesses can identify potential risks and take proactive measures to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future. Incident reporting also helps organizations comply with regulations and internal policies, as it provides a clear record of any safety or security issues that may arise. Additionally, incident reporting can improve communication within an organization by ensuring that all relevant stakeholders are aware of potential risks and can work together to address them effectively.
An Incident Reporting process is about capturing the details of an incident such as a safety incident, security, property damage, near miss or safety observation and submitting them to a nominated contact for follow up. This process can lead to identifying the risks, failures and hazards that led to the incident and result in applying improvements to avoid future incident reports. An Incident Report can be in relation to any type of incident occurrence. The follow on process typically involves a corrective action, investigation, hazard report and review. Incident Reporting is an important part of every organisation for awareness, recording and action relating to near miss incidents, injuries, safety observations, corrective actions and follow up procedures to ensure people work and remain safe in the workplace.
Why is Incident Reporting important in the workplace?
It's an important part of ensuring the safety of workers in the workplace, visitors, volunteers, members of the public, contractors and employees. Incident Reporting allows everyone to report not just injuries and accidents that have happened, but also preventative incidents such as near misses and safety observations.
The importance of incident reporting cannot be overstated. It serves as a crucial tool for promoting a safe and secure work environment, as well as for protecting the reputation and financial stability of a business. By encouraging employees to report incidents promptly and accurately, organizations can gather valuable data that enables them to make informed decisions about risk management and prevention strategies. Incident reporting also fosters transparency and accountability within an organization, as it demonstrates a commitment to addressing potential issues in a timely manner. Ultimately, incident reporting is not just a regulatory requirement; it is a fundamental practice that contributes to the overall health and resilience of an organization.
The Process
- injury or illness, property damage or security incident occurs in the workplace
- the details are reported via an incident report form. Details include what happened, where and why it happened
- the incident report is then managed by the relevant investigation team. This might include investigating why it happened and why it won't happen again.
- Follow up actions might include risk controls, preventative measures, evidence gathering, comments from managers and even medical reports
- A hazard report might be lodged to investigate which hazards led to the incident, if any
- when the incident is finished being managed, it is ready to be closed
The Outcome
- registry of what incidents have occurred with historical trends and analysis
- ability to categorise and classify incidents by type, site, department, location in order to track poor performance and hist risk workplaces and areas
- ensure every incident reported is investigated and actioned to ensure it can be prevented from happening again
- ability to see what incidents have occurred and prevent future ones from happening
Common Incident Reporting Tools
- Reporting incidents via an app
- Reporting incidents online via a web portal
