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

Workplace incidents usually result from a combination of conditions, work practices, and safety management system weaknesses. Effective incident analysis examines how these factors interacted instead of assigning a fixed percentage of incidents to any one category.

• Conditions: Inspect the equipment, materials, work environment, and physical hazards present when the incident occurred. A walk-around inspection is useful, but it may not reveal hazards that appear only during particular tasks, shifts, or operating conditions.
• Work Practices: Observe how work is actually performed and compare it with established procedures. When a work practice contributes to an incident, look beyond the action itself and ask what influenced it, such as equipment design, workload, staffing, training, supervision, or unclear procedures.
Systems: Examine the policies, planning, design, maintenance, training, supervision, communication, and corrective-action processes that shaped the conditions and work practices. Root cause analysis helps the organization correct these underlying weaknesses instead of stopping at immediate causes or blaming individuals.

Even when an incident involves a deliberate action, an unexpected medical event, or a natural hazard, the investigation should consider whether planning, workplace design, procedures, supervision, or emergency controls could reduce the likelihood or severity of a similar event.

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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