Reasons Why Incidents Occur

Reasons why incidents occur

An incident is any unsafe work-related event that causes or could have caused injury or ill health. This includes accidents and near misses. There are always reasons why incidents occur – they do not just ‘happen’.

Incidents are usually caused by a combination of issues – for example:

• poor design and structure of buildings
• poorly designed, selected, constructed, guarded or maintained equipment
• bad housekeeping standards, such as blocked gangways and spilled liquids
• poor lighting or ventilation
• lack of information, instruction and training
• dangerous working practices
• distractions and lack of attention
• playing games or practical jokes
• the use of alcohol or drugs, or both
• working when ill or tired
• no or poor supervision
• working too quickly
• ignoring rules
• wearing unsuitable clothing
• not using the correct PPE

Risk factors

When looking into why incidents occurred, it is useful to consider four groups of factors:

• Occupational – these are the aspects of a particular job or task that involve health and safety hazards, such as manual handling, using dangerous equipment or hazardous substances, or using a display screen
• Human – these are aspects of the individual person, his/her behaviour, and his/her ability to work in a safe and healthy manner, which might include fatigue, health and fitness, knowledge, skill and training, awareness and motivation.
• Environmental – these are aspects of the workplace that could cause injury or harm to anyone, such as uneven floors, noise, overcrowding, poor housekeeping, lighting, ventilation.
• Organisational – these are aspects of the systems in place in the organisation, such as the safety culture, safety standards, procedures, training, supervision and communication.

Linking each of the issues listed above to one (or more) of the four risk factors, we have the following:

• poor design and structure of buildings (environmental/ organisational)
• poorly designed, selected, constructed, guarded or maintained equipment (occupational/organisational)
• bad housekeeping standards, such as blocked gangways and spilled liquids (organisational)
• poor lighting or ventilation (environmental)
• lack of information, instruction and training (organisational/human)
• dangerous working practices (organisational/human)
• distractions and lack of attention (human)
• playing games or practical jokes (human)
• the use of alcohol or drugs, or both (human)
• working when ill or tired (human)
• no or poor supervision (organisational)
• working too quickly (human/organisational)
• ignoring rules (human)
• wearing unsuitable clothing (human/organisational)
• not using the correct PPE (human/organisational)

Nearly all the issues contributing to incidents are impacted by organisational factors. This is because an organisation’s health and safety culture and management system have the greatest influence on occupational health and safety outcomes – positive and negative.