Near-miss reporting: How to get employees to report near misses

A man in a construction hat works on a laptop in a facility.

Estimates have shown that for every lost time injury that results in three or more days, there have been more than dozens of prior non-injury incidents. So, why don’t workers report more near misses so there are fewer serious injuries?

A recent article in the May issue of the American Society of Safety Engineers’ journal, Professional Safety, “Near-Miss Reporting — a Missing Link in Safety Culture”, explains and explores reasons why workers don’t report near-misses and how to overcome those obstacles.

The article written by Caterpillar Safety Services senior safety consultant Mike Williamsen, lists eight unique barriers to near-miss reporting:

  • The status quo factor: People grow comfortable with how things are and don’t bother to change.
  • Fear of punishment and retaliation: Even if there is no prior history of retaliation at your workplace, it must be reinforced verbally and through examples that there will be no punishment
Read more...

The culture of denial, workplace injuries and lessons learned

Try to imagine this workplace injury scenario: A construction worker is seriously hurt on the job. It’s a very minor injury. Years later, under similar circumstances, a worker is killed from a similar incident. Why didn’t the company learn from the first incident?

Recent research in the International Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics suggests three barriers to learning from previous workplace injuries and how companies can overcome them. In Workplace accidents as a source of knowledge: opportunities and obstacles, author Hernani Neto of the Univeresity of Porto, Portugal, suggests workplace injuries and other safety incidents must be understood as a source of knowledge.

However, here is another point that companies need to understand: Safety incidents don’t automatically become an effective source of knowledge. Companies have to work at it. Just because a company suffered a close call or an incident with an employee suffering only minor injuries doesn’t mean … Read more...

Support for Movember at Intelex keeps growing

Do you hear that?  Yes that’s right, men around the world who are parting with their mustaches are weeping. Movember is now over but here at Intelex we have reason to cheer.

Last year about 12 Intelexians united to grow mustaches for the month of November to help raise money for men’s health awareness. During that run we raised $2,500, a sum Intelex President and CEO Mark Jaine matched for a total of $5,000.

This year the men at Intelex were ready to beat last year’s record and take the challenge to another level. That’s right, the ‘Mo Bros’ worked hard to gain every donation and with about 24 members this year we were ready with mustache combs in hand. Between leveraging Internet memes and internal campaigning, we used everything from cats to boots (no, not puss and boots) to boost awareness of our campaign. Every creative idea and … Read more...

Intelex’s own ‘Mo Bros’ raise over $5,000 for prostate cancer research

This is my first year with Intelex and what better way to get to know my fellow coworkers than by growing moustaches together?

Yes, that’s right: the Intelex family participated in this year’s Movember.  Ah, how my upper lip does miss its fuzzy warmth (sadly I had to say goodbye to it on December 1st).

In addition to Intelexians raising $2,635 throughout the month of November to help support research for prostate cancer, President and CEO Mark Jaine also pledged that the company would match all donations made during Movember, bringing the grand total to $5,270!

Intelexian Mo Bros and Mo Sistas diligently collected donations from family, friends and the local community to make this sizeable contribution.

From every Mo Bro and Sista at Intelex, thank you all for your support! And until next year, “May the Mo be with you!”

Some of the Intelex Mo Bros featured in the picture … Read more...