Incident Reporting
Reporting incidents and injuries helps us to eliminate hazards and to improve as a company. As part of our safety culture, all employees have the right, and expectation, to report incidents, injuries and unsafe conditions. If you feel you are being hindered from reporting, please contact the Safety Director immediately. As described in the roles and responsibilities in the Employee Handbook. It is the responsibility of the worker and/or Supervisor to immediately notify the Safety Department of safety hazards or violations and incidents, near misses or injuries.
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An incident is any unplanned event that disrupts normal work activities and may or may not result in injury or property damage. All work-related incidents, near-misses and injuries must be reported to your supervisor immediately, no matter how minor.
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If an incident, near-miss, or injury (that does not require professional medical treatment) occurs, the Supervisor should be informed immediately so that an Incident Investigation Report/Review can be completed. If first-aid treatment is needed, a competent person with the necessary training should administer it.
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If an injury occurs which requires professional medical treatment, the worker must inform their Supervisor immediately. The Supervisor will contact the Safety Department and receive instructions. The worker will be transported to treatment.
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If a severe incident occurs that threatens the life or health of one or more employees, CALL 911! (or follow site specific emergency protocols) Inform the Supervisor immediately and follow the emergency procedures as outlined in the Supervisors Safety Book.
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Fred Shearer and Sons works on multiple sites with different general contractors, site specific incident responses may be required based on site specific plans developed by the general contractor. If there is a site specific plan, this should be outlined in your site specific orientation, and that plan should be followed. Note that incident reporting should always include contacting your Supervisor.
Incident Investigation
Incident investigations are conducted to understand what happened and to prevent similar events in the future. The goal of an investigation is to identify and correct the root causes of an incident—not to assign fault or blame. When investigations focus on learning and improvement, they help build trust, improve workplace morale, and support a safer and more productive work environment.
Incident investigations are often led by a supervisor, but they are most effective when managers and employees work together. Each person involved can bring valuable knowledge, experience, and perspective that helps the team fully understand what occurred.
When reviewing an incident, it is important to look beyond the immediate cause. It can be easy to assume that carelessness or failure to follow a procedure was the main reason an incident occurred. However, focusing only on these surface-level explanations may prevent the team from discovering the deeper causes that allowed the incident to happen.
To truly understand what happened, the investigation team should ask questions such as:
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If a procedure or safety rule was not followed, why was it not followed?
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Did production pressures influence the situation? If so, why were those pressures allowed to affect safety?
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Was the procedure outdated or unclear?
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Was safety training adequate for the task being performed?
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If a problem had been identified before, why had it not yet been corrected?
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Asking these types of questions helps uncover the underlying issues that contribute to incidents. These factors often involve equipment, procedures, training, communication, or gaps in the safety and health program.
By identifying and addressing these root causes, we can better understand why the incident occurred and take meaningful steps to prevent it from happening again. This process helps protect our employees, improve our safety systems, and reduce the likelihood of serious incidents in the future.