ecchelmet Never miss a near miss
A worker is busy on the top of a high rise. Suddenly, a M125 spanner slips out of his hand and hurtles down. Unaware of the danger rushing towards him from above, another worker, several floors below, is going about his work. Almost as if warned by premonition, he stops. The spanners thuds to the ground, missing his head by inches, and comes to rest at his feet. He picks it up, looking up with a bemused expression, but it is impossible to pinpoint from where it fell. He pockets the spanner and nonchalantly goes about his work. The worker on top, relieved that nothing is amiss, also continues his work, the incident soon forgotten. Nothing untoward occurred. No one was injured or anything damaged. All is well that ends well.
This is a near miss. If the spanner had hit the worker below, it could well have smashed through his helmet grievously injuring him, or even worse. Should it have been reported? Of course, says R Ganesan, Head – Corporate Centre, L&T Construction, nodding vigorously. A strong proponent of creating and sustaining a culture of near miss reporting, he says, “A near miss is an early warning that something is not quite right with the system that requires immediate corrective action to prevent a recurrence because the next time we may not be so lucky.” It is as simple, he adds, as making your home safe for a toddler by covering the edges of furniture with soft padding, knowing his tendency to rise suddenly.
A near miss is an early warning that something is not quite right with the system that requires immediate corrective action to prevent a recurrence because the next time we may not be so lucky.
R Ganesan
Head – Corporate Centre,
L&T Construction
According to the Heinrich pyramid, for every 300 near misses there is one serious accident.
Harmless. Yet, with the potential to be harmful.
A near miss is an unplanned but unwanted, undesirable, and harmless event yet with the potential to be harmful. It is the result of an unsafe act or unsafe condition or a combination of both and hence needs to be instantly addressed. According to the Heinrich pyramid, for every 300 near misses there is one serious accident.
“Near miss reporting is integral to a good EHS system,” opines K Sudheesh Kumar, Head – EHS, WET IC. “It helps to establish and continue safe practices within the workplace and provide valuable information to both engineers and workers about how to avoid or prevent future accidents and injuries by implementing effective corrective actions.” All near miss cases in WET IC are uploaded in the View EHS digital app for root cause analysis and recommended corrective actions are shared through EHS Alerts to all the sites to conduct Safety Ki Baat awareness sessions, Toolbox Talks and EHS Standdowns to avoid recurrence.
Near miss reporting is integral to a good EHS system. It helps to establish and continue safe practices within the workplace and provide valuable information to both engineers and workers about how to avoid or prevent future accidents and injuries by implementing effective corrective actions.
K Sudheesh Kumar
Head – EHS, WET IC
Reporting and investigating near misses can highlight otherwise overlooked hazards and gaps in the EHS programme and these leading indicators can make safety programmes proactive rather than reactive.
To integrate the practice of near miss reporting into the organization’s safety culture, it is imperative to create the right mindset and an enabling environment for it to take roots.
Sensitizing the workforce: Since a near miss normally does not cause any physical injury or damage, it can easily be ignored, but to do so is only at one’s peril. Buy in of the work force is necessary to sensitize them about the importance of reporting such occurrences, and how and where to report them. To be effective, the reporting should be immediate, seamless, constructive, and certainly not a blame game for both employees and workers to feel comfortable and safe when reporting.
Near misses must be investigated: Depending on the likely potential for harm, injury, or ill-health, near misses must be thoroughly investigated, root causes analysed to understand the gaps in the system to plug them. Corrective action must be taken without delay following the adage: strike when the iron is hot. Prompt and decisive action sends out a message to the workforce that the management is serious about addressing near misses. This must be followed by reviewing risk assessments to control all foreseeable risks and evolve training modules to address these specific system flaws. Another advantage is that reporting and investigating near misses can highlight otherwise overlooked hazards and gaps in the EHS programme and these leading indicators can make safety programmes proactive rather than reactive.
We are all in it together: “Good safety management cannot be successful in isolation,” points out T Prabhakar,
EHS – Head, PT&D IC, “and must involve the complete buy-in of the workforce,” sharing that at PT&D, all near misses are uploaded in the SHIELD App for thorough investigation and corrective action. The first step to involve the workforce in the process is to sensitize them to recognize a near miss and help cultivate the mindset to report it. “Workmen by nature are diffident and rarely come forward to report and hence it is crucial to create an enabling environment that encourages them to report,” says Prabhakar. “If their first experience is a good one, then others will feel confident to follow suit and thereafter it is up to the EHS team to keep the momentum and develop near miss reporting into a good practice.”
Good safety management cannot be successful in isolation and must involve the complete buy-in of the workforce.
T Prabhakar
EHS – Head, PT&D IC
However, there is neither any magic formula nor will people convert overnight. It is a process that will take time and the only way to keep it going is to remove barriers, on one hand, and create enablers, on the other. A global logistics company, for example, exponentially increased their near miss reporting using software. The Computer Vision digital solution developed by our Digital team can be an effective tool to detect and record near misses.
Hazard identification & risk assessment: Data from a hazard identification exercise can be valuable to understand what could lead to a near miss and serve as training material for supervisors and line managers to effectively investigate near miss cases. The hazard identification exercise can be extended to assess risks to identify who can be harmed, how and what controls are required to prevent harm.
Once instituted, the near miss reporting system must be periodically reviewed to keep it relevant.
In the final analysis, cultivating a culture of near miss reporting is a sure shot way to improve EHS performance. The aviation industry is a prime example of one that rigorously follows near miss reporting which is why our skies are safe. With the same vigour and focus, our constructions sites can be so too.