How can an app help overcome a culture of poor workplace accident reporting?

When conducting our research about why incidents go unreported, often with detrimental consequences to business, we’ve been met with a barrage of possible reasons. The main ones being: unclear protocol, lack of time, fear of unpaid leave or costs, workplace bravado linked to a culture of ‘I’m fine’, particularly among male workers (more on that later).

In order to reduce the number of incidents, it’s important to reduce the risk of them happening in the first place and it’s been deduced that having a clear, time-saving reporting system allows that to happen.

Tackling a culture of male bravado

Firstly, let’s address the issue of workplace bravado. The past few years have brought to the fore an open (and welcome) discussion about mental health, in particular male mental health. We’re predominantly focusing on the guys here and this is why. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reported that those identifying as male made up the majority of reportable workplace accidents in 2019/20 much the same as previous years. It follows then that a large portion of the workforce in industries most likely to suffer incidents are male, and that those who don’t report incidents will be male, too.

Leaving incidents unreported due to a culture of not wanting to admit injury, be it mental or physical is perhaps a direct result of an endemic of unwilling to show weakness. What if a digital app could introduce faceless reporting so that the customary, ‘knocking on the gaffer’s’ door is avoided completely? We’re placing our bets that the rate of incident reporting nationally would increase exponentially.

Time is precious

We all appreciate the value of time, especially when it’s your own. Employees might be reluctant to report incidents if they believe any filing is to be done at the end of a shift, in their own time. Equally, they might not want to take time away from the proverbial factory floor, leading to a decrease in productivity. The use of a digital app to report incidents can literally, give the gift of time. Goodbye, long, manual form-filling. Hello instant reporting, immediately after the incident.

Promote a transparent reporting process

What about unclear protocol as a barrier to submitting appropriate reports following an incident? Your employees know what needs to happen, but they don’t know the process. Where is the form saved? Who is the dedicated health and safety personnel? These questions won’t exist with an app for reporting incidents. Decreasing the risk of future accidents can be achieved in the palm of a hand with the appropriate individual notified in real time thanks to innovative technology that’s bespoke to your sector and company.

We all know how cumbersome traditional reporting can be. Clunky forms that often have unnecessary fields unrelated to the incident and industry are as time wasting as they are demoralizing. How about bespoke digital forms, gleaning the right kind of information, uploaded to a dashboard resulting in a report giving tangible results? Where do we sign up?

Have a robust internal communications strategy

In the past eighteen months, we’ve all been affected, be it directly or indirectly, by the uncertainty of having to take leave due to self-isolating, experiencing the symptoms of COVID-19 or worse, suffering from them. With that comes the worry of having your salary deducted due to unpaid absence – exactly why a worker might fear reporting an incident – because their monthly take home could be deducted, a completely rational fear.

This unsettling belief can be firmly stamped out with an appropriate, robust internal communications strategy, underpinned by a digital reporting app. Do you work in a sector where incidents go unreported due to these reasons? How do you combat them? We’d love to hear your thoughts or how we can help you overcome a low incident reporting rate. Get in touch with us below.

Risky business: how Logincident can help to reduce bad outcomes

Put plainly, ‘risk’ is defined as the possibility of something bad happening. Risk involves uncertainty about the consequences of an activity in relation to something that society values, such as our health, wellbeing, finances, property or the environment; often focusing on negative, unwanted outcomes.

 

Human nature dictates that we’ll try to avoid negative situations and accidents from happening but realistically, they’re impossible to prevent because quite simply, we can’t see into the future, as much as we’d like to (hello, winning lottery numbers!).

 

There are common sayings based on this premise that you’ve undoubtedly heard before. ‘With the benefit of hindsight’ and ‘hindsight is a wonderful thing’; both alluding to the fact that while we can’t stop bad things from happening, we can certainly learn from them to ensure that the risk of the same thing happening again is reduced.

 

Let’s explore that for a moment, looking at it from the perspective of workplace accidents. How can we learn efficiently from unavoidable events such as an accident, so that risk is minimised for the future? Firstly, questions will be raised about how the accident or incident occurred. Secondly, depending on the situation, the date and time might be recorded and who was (or wasn’t) present. If it was outdoors, what was the weather like? Was the correct safety equipment being used? For optimum results, as many details as possible should be gathered and noted so that they can be analyzed and in turn, the reason, or reasons why something happened are clearer.

Reduce the risk, reduce the accidents

Now, add into the mix a work environment that’s considered as potentially quite dangerous. One such sector that has a high rate of accidents per employee is the construction industry. Think – working from heights, heavy machinery, hazardous chemicals, the list goes on and so does the percentage of workplace accidents.

 

Naturally, managers want to keep accidents to a minimum but how? There’s a legal requirement through the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR) whereby a person of responsibility must notify Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and keep records of specific workplace accidents.

 

By having these kinds of protocols in place, the risk of accidents occurring is reduced and if the risk is reduced, it follows that the rate of accidents decreases. Sounds simple enough, but what if the report isn’t written straight away and vital details are missed off? Worse, it’s written inefficiently or not at all, leading to conflicts later down the line? Wouldn’t it be much wiser to be able to record the important details of an accident immediately?

 

Reporting in the digital age

What if we told you that by digitalizing the process, these hiccups that crop up with manual reporting could be a thing of the past? We can almost hear the collective sigh of relief from site managers all over the country. In 2021, most people have access to a smartphone and it’s through this innovative technology that we’ve been able to transform accident reporting as the construction industry knows it.

 

We’ve been working with one of the UK’s leading home building companies who’ve told us that our app has helped them to collate more accurate incident reports, with consistent information provided quicker and more easily than ever before.

 

What’s more, with a rise in claim-culture there has arguably never been a better time to phase out inaccurate methods of incident reporting but ultimately, it’s all about ensuring that the workplace is as safe as it can be – a basic human right. So together, let’s reduce the risk with smarter reporting and make the construction sector a safer place to work.