701 Effective Safety Committee Operations

Hazard Analysis Tools

Now, let’s explore some of the tools that safety committees can use to identify hazards and determine how to correct those hazards.

Workplace Accidents

Earlier, we discussed workplace hazardous conditions, unsafe behaviors, and safety management system weaknesses as causes for accidents. We need to understand which following cause categories result in the most accidents:

• Conditions: Hazardous conditions account for a small percentage of the workplace accidents. Yet, most of the time, we primarily look for unsafe conditions when conducting a walk-around safety inspection. OSHA compliance inspections are geared toward discovering unsafe conditions, so it is no wonder that employer inspections focus on the same thing. Consequently, your company might conduct a safety inspection on Tuesday, only to suffer a fatality the next day due to an unsafe work practice not discovered earlier. During safety inspections, our attention must be focused on both hazardous conditions and unsafe behaviors.
• Behaviors: Formal and informal observation programs are effective tools for uncovering unsafe behaviors in the workplace. Formal observation programs involve trained observers who use specific checklists or other tools to assess workplace safety and identify areas for improvement. Informal observation programs involve safety committee members, supervisors, or coworkers observing each other's work activities and providing feedback on safe work practices. Unsafe behaviors account for a greater number of accidents than hazardous conditions. But what are the factors that contribute to hazardous conditions and unsafe behaviors? What is the 'ultimate cause' of most accidents?
Systems: Root cause analysis involves a systematic and thorough investigation of the factors that contributed to the incident. Failures in safety management system components contribute in some way to virtually all hazardous conditions and unsafe behaviors. Therefore, the only assumption we should make when an accident occurs is that the safety management system has failed somehow. Our job is to discover and correct those failures. Overall, the importance of root cause analysis in determining the cause of accidents cannot be overstated. Using a root cause analysis approach to accident investigation allows companies to focus on addressing the underlying causes of incidents rather than simply treating the symptoms. By identifying and addressing these underlying factors, organizations can take targeted action to prevent future incidents and improve their safety management systems.

There are a few situations where safety management system weaknesses should not be considered the root causes of an accident. Examples of such accidents include:

• Accidents where the employee makes an informed decision to intentionally violate a safety rule.
• Accidents that are considered 'acts of God' (e.g., lightning) or are otherwise uncontrollable.
• Accidents resulting from an illness or disease that is unknown to the employee and not observable by management.

Throughout the rest of the module, we will discuss in more detail the various tools that can be used to identify, analyze, and correct the surface and root causes of accidents.

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