Learning from incidents is vital in aiding organizations in the elimination of serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs). Most incident investigation resources focus on the analysis of data collected, and there are many different academic and commercial tools available to help with that step. However, within these tools there is often a presumption that the information collected is itself of high quality—but that is not always the case. Poor quality information will result in poor analysis, inform poor organizational learning, and thus limit the implementation of positive change.
The Construction Safety Resource Alliance (CSRA) researched elements of how incident investigation data is collected and produced guidance and tools to help investigators overcome issues in information collection.
A Guide To High-Quality Incident Information Collection from Interviews
This guidance is grounded in the belief that incidents can be used by organizations for learning and continuous improvement. There are critical concepts that influence the quality of information collected during interviews:
- Trust – Being fair, transparent, and honest about the goals of the interview helps in obtaining high-quality information. Trust is the foundation for psychological safety. Psychological safety means workers can open up about safety without fear of negative consequences, which is critical in effective incident investigations and for the collection of high-quality information.
- Blame and No-Blame – Organizational learning from incidents is limited by blame, which hinders open information sharing and reporting of incidents. Interviews should be a fact-finding process to support organizational learning and continuous improvement. Discipline or consequences should not be discussed during the interview process, but equally, promises should not be made that the outcome of the investigation will be free of consequences. Any worker responsibility or accountability will be the outcome of the analysis of the information collected, not the interview itself.
- You are Biased…We All Are – We all use mental shortcuts (also called heuristics) to help us process information, make decisions, and respond quickly and efficiently. Issues emerge when we over-rely on these shortcuts and fail to determine when they don’t apply. Research shows that biases can seriously hinder the quality of information collected during the incident investigation process. For more information about bias and how to overcome them in the incident investigation process, check out the Check Yourself! tool on the CRSA website.
Meaningful corrective actions are dependent on the quality of information gathered during an investigation. The CSRA Guide highlights the pitfalls and vulnerabilities that can negatively impact the quality of incident information collected from interviews, to enhance the process from the very start.
Information provided by the Construction Safety Resource Alliance