Presented by Stephen Hester, Saber Power

The old cliché “No harm, no foul” may work on the ball field, but it is a dangerous rule to live by, especially around electrical hazards. Statistics show that for every fatal accident, many risky behaviors do not result in injuries and may go unnoticed. OSHA defines a near miss as “an incident in which a worker might have been hurt if the circumstances had been slightly different.” It may take only a minor change in circumstances for an unsafe act to become fatal. Investigations into near misses often focus on employee behavior and not the actual reasons why the behavior occurred. Near misses are often not reported, and when they are, rigid safety rules may result in adverse action such as suspension or termination. When near-misses go unexamined, organizations lose the ability to learn the lessons and train their employees so that the risky behaviors do not happen again. Organizations need to change how leaders, managers, supervisors, and field employees think about near misses and their potential effects. This presentation examines current practices in near-miss reporting and investigation, looks at causation, and discusses how organizations can improve their near-miss reporting programs, change their reactions to near misses, and use the principles of learning organizations to improve their safety culture. Keywords: near miss, incident, electrical, hazard, risk, risk management, hazard assessment, risk assessment, electrical safety, safe work practices, normalization of deviance, human error, human performance issues, near-miss reporting, safety culture.