When it comes to safety on the jobsite, most contractors focus on widely accepted performance indicators like an experience modification rating (EMR) or the count of their OSHA recordable incidents. While these are important overall numbers, ignoring near miss incidents can be a costly mistake for the future.
To be clear, a low EMR rating or low amount of OSHA recordable incidents doesn’t necessarily mean your jobsite is free of hazards. Leading a safe jobsite requires a proactive approach and collaboration with the workers on-site to correct items before someone gets hurt. Recording near miss safety incidents plays an important role in building the safety culture of your crew.
OSHA defines a near miss as a “close call…in which a worker might have been hurt if the circumstances had been slightly different.” Other industry safety groups include potential property damage in that definition.
Examples of Near Misses
To help assist you in improving your safety reports with near miss documentation, the team at Safesite, a free safety management app, has recently released an article titled “30 Near Miss Examples to Improve Your Reports.”
In the report, Safesite includes helpful examples of near misses across several categories, such as:
Slips, Trips, and Falls
Risky Behavior and Horseplay
Narow Escapes
Working at Heights
Signage and Hazard Communication
Equipment Operation and Maintenance
If you’ve ever done something on the jobsite and said to yourself “whoa, that was close,” there’s a pretty good chance that you just experienced a near miss.
You’ll have to check out their article for the full list of examples, but a few that I thought were interesting were:
“A worker slips on condensation that had dripped onto the floor but doesn’t fall (this time).”
“A co-worker attempts to quickly retrieve an item left on a steep roof alone, without fall protection.”
“A worker finds a live, damaged electrical cord that is lying in a pool of water before contact is made.”
“While working on a third-floor roof, one worker throws an object to another, causing him to lose his balance in an attempt to catch it.”
If you’ve been on a jobsite long enough, you’ve probably experienced most of the situations mentioned above. Continually ignoring these incidents can make workers on-site numb to their potential effects.
How to Document Near Misses
Just like an OSHA recordable incident, near misses should undergo a root cause analysis (OSHA FactSheet link), resulting in some type of action that prevents the incident from happening again in the future. Providing an environment for open and honest communication is key to this process. If employees think they will get punished for the incident occurring or reporting it, they are much less likely to let someone know about it.
Having a system and process in place to allow those items to be reported is also key to receiving good feedback. Safesite, for obvious reasons, recommends using their app to digitally submit safety incident reports, which can then be sent to the appropriate person responsible on-site.
Full story: 30 Near Miss Examples to Improve Your Reports | Safesite
Shane is the creator of Construction Junkie and an active construction project manager. In his career, he has managed interior remodel projects, site development, construction safety, governmental project compliance, and facility maintenance. He has a strong passion for construction technology and safety, as well as sharing the knowledge or insights he has gained throughout his career.