There’s a quick and easy fix any company can do to improve the quality of their accident investigatons.  I’ve seen this simple technique dramatically improve the accidents records at three companies.  Is this a magic pill that will turn around a poorly performing safety program?  Maybe!

In the early 1980′s I was hired to help an air conditioning manufacturer improve their accident record.  I met with their president / owner and explained how much accidents were costing his company.  He became so excited about their poor performance that he decided to require the injured employees’ supervisor to meet with him after each accident to explain what happened and what the supervisor was going to do to prevent it from happening again.  This president was a very powerful man, and no supervisor wanted to have to confront him about having an accident.  After a couple of accidents occurred the supervisors got the message that their president really cared about accident prevention and that they’d answer directly to him for any accidents that occurred to their employees!

In 2006 I was the safety director for a manufacturing company.  The top executive (V.P. of Operations) at a poorly performing location came to me and asked what he could do to turn around their accident record.  I told him about the above success story at the air conditioning manufacturer.  He decided to do something similar.

This VP required the supervisor of any injured employee to schedule a meeting in the VP’s office within 24-hours after any accident.  Attending this accident review meeting were the: VP, supervisor, department head, and the safety manager.  The meeting consisted of the VP asking the supervisor 14 questions about the accident. Once again, the results were immediate with supervisors and department heads soon learning that safety was a top priority of their executive.

To see these 14 questions click the below link.

http://bit.ly/P7Ob8M