Corrective actions often fail because we don’t fully understand the situation or we can’t think outside of the box.
Poor Investigation and Analysis
“I’ve seen something like this before. I know what to do.” “We need to try something, so let’s do this.”
“Let’s just get a move on.”
“We need to take care of this ASAP.”
How often do you hear these phrases when a problem pops up?
While we might be tempted to handle an organizational issue as quickly as possible, corrective actions based on assumptions will always be nothing more than guesswork.
Strong Investigation and Analysis
The first response to an incident should be an investigation. We need an accurate understanding of what happened before deciding how to prevent its reoccurrence.
In TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis, the first step of every investigation is to build a SnapCharT® Diagram. This is a visual diagram of the events and details leading to the incident.
While a SnapCharT® will start fairly simple…
It may develop into something much more detailed:
Once a full timeline is built, we can accurately assess the root causes and establish better corrective actions.
Surface Level Problem-Solving
A solution that fails to address the root causes can soil the investigation.
Too often, teams fall back onto the same few corrective actions:
Training or retraining programs,
Extensions to the guidelines or procedures, or
Disciplinary action for those involved.
While these responses are typical in many industries, they’re more often a formality than a necessary step in the right direction.
Out-of-the-Box Thinking
Instead of telling workers to be more careful around a hazard, take a step back and ask: how can we make the working environment safer?
The Corrective Action Wheel (left) is a simple but versatile human performance tool that ranks the effectiveness of each safeguard (starting at 12 o’clock and moving clockwise):
The safest actions would be to remove, reduce, replace, or relocate the hazard. Automatically preventing, detecting, stopping, or containing the hazard from harming anyone would be the next best choices.
If these aren’t possible or realistic solutions, upgrade the workers’ guards or PPE.
These corrective actions are more committal than a retraining session, but they future-proof the work environment with a safer foundation.
Building Successful Corrective Actions
If you’re interested in learning more about corrective actions, sign up for our interactive course, Successful Corrective Actions Workshop.
Our team will also be available at our booth to discuss any questions you have about corrective actions.
Leading organizations adopt a risk-based approach to environment, health, and safety (EHS) management to go beyond regulatory compliance.
Risk assessments are part of an effective EHS management program. But what happens after initial risk assessments are completed? They may be revised after an incident or over time (e.g. every 5 years). However, it’s always important to be proactive about EHS risks.
Here are four examples how EHS software can be used to enable proactive risk management.
Analysis of near misses and employee observations
Employees and contractors are valuable sources of insight when it comes to identifying new hazards and risks. EHS software simplifies the process by enabling them to easily report near misses, hazards, and unsafe or at-risk behaviors or conditions through a mobile app or desktop software.
Once reported, this data is analyzed with EHS software to uncover hazards and emerging risks. Organizations can then proactively implement controls to mitigate these hazards before they lead to incidents. Instead of reacting to problems after they occur, companies can leverage early warning signs or other indications to stay ahead of potential risks.
Evaluation of control effectiveness
Conducting an initial risk assessment and implementing controls is just the first step in preventing incidents. Over time, controls and barriers can weaken, making it essential to continuously evaluate their effectiveness. While risk assessments may be reviewed every five years, controls and barriers require more frequent assessments, ideally ongoing or in real-time.
EHS software provides organizations with tools to enable proactive risk management through the ability to evaluate the effectiveness of controls.
First, an inspections module allows organizations to conduct targeted inspections to verify whether controls remain effective. These inspections leverage software-based checklists, and results can be analyzed within the EHS platform to identify weaknesses or failures.
Second, barrier management capabilities offer a real-time or near-real-time view of barrier health across all operations. Instead of discovering a degraded barrier only after an incident or periodic inspection, plant and safety managers receive early alerts—allowing them to address issues before they become serious risks.
By leveraging these capabilities, organizations can take a truly proactive approach to risk management, ensuring that safety measures always remain strong and effective.
Management of Change
Management of Change (MOC) is one of the 14 elements of OSHA’s Process Safety Management (PSM) standard, but its importance extends beyond PSM alone. MOC should be viewed in the broader context of EHS and operations, as every type of change, whether in personnel, process, equipment, or product, has the potential to introduce new hazards or risks.
To stay ahead of these risks, organizations must evaluate whether a proposed change could lead to problems.
EHS software streamlines this process by providing structured workflows, automated notifications, and audit trails for managing MOC requests. This ensures every change undergoes a thorough assessment, allowing organizations to proactively identify and address risks before they lead to incidents.
Enterprise-wide risk register
A risk-centered EHS platform includes a comprehensive risk register that allows organizations to track and manage risks and controls across the entire enterprise. This is especially critical for companies with global operations, where similar hazards and risks may be present at multiple sites.
For example, if a specific type of machinery or equipment at one facility has the potential to malfunction under certain conditions—leading to operational disruptions or a safety incident—it’s essential to know where else that same equipment is used. This enables proactive measures to be implemented enterprise-wide before issues arise.
Likewise, if occupational health risks related to chemical exposure are identified at a particular plant, organizations need visibility into all other facilities where similar exposure risks exist. With this insight, preventive controls can be implemented universally, rather than reacting to issues as they occur.
EHS software provides a holistic, real-time view of all EHS risks and controls across global operations, allowing organizations to proactively mitigate risks enterprise-wide before they escalate into incidents.
Benchmarking EHS software solutions
How can you determine which EHS software solutions include the right features to enable proactive risk management?
The Green Quadrant: EHS Software 2025 report from independent research firm Verdantix is used by leading organizations to compare EHS software solutions. Here’s the current assessment of EHS software vendors:
The report evaluates and scores EHS software platforms on eight technical, 19 functional, and 12 market momentum categories.
For example, in the category ‘EHS compliance & risk management’, which covers risk identification, risk assessment, and risk register, Wolters Kluwer Enablon received a score of 2.8 on 3.0. It’s the highest score among all vendors.
Similarly, in the category ‘Management of Change’, Wolters Kluwer Enablon received a score of 2.7 on 3.0, which is also the highest score among all vendors.
Jean-Grégoire Manoukian is Content Thought Leader at Wolters Kluwer Enablon. He is responsible for thought leadership, content creation, as well as the management of Enablon insights articles and social media activities. He also provides subject matter expertise to the global marketing team. Jean-Grégoire started at Enablon in 2014 as Content Marketing Manager and has more than 25 years of professional experience, including many years as a product manager for chemical management and product stewardship solutions. He also worked in the telecommunications industry as a product marketing manager. JG has dual Canadian and French citizenship.
A successful serious injury and fatality (SIF) prevention program is a sort of three-legged stool of culture, processes, and technology. All are needed and each individual leg on its own is not enough.
Organizations must combine a strong safety culture that prioritizes SIF prevention, with internal processes that effectively identify SIF precursors and hazards, and use EHS software to bring it all together.
Let’s take a closer look at the individual elements, along with three questions to consider for each.
Culture starts at the top
An effective safety culture sees SIF prevention being deeply embedded in the behaviors, attitudes, and mindsets of all employees.
And it starts with the “tone at the top.” When executives and the C-suite continually raise awareness and actively promote SIF prevention, the entire organization – from safety managers and shift supervisors to frontline workers – is more likely to fall in line because consistent leadership actions demonstrate safety is a priority, not just a policy.
Is your safety culture contributing to effectively prevent SIFs? The answers to these questions may give you the answer:
Does top management regularly emphasize the need to prevent SIFs and talk about actions taken for SIF prevention? Regularly raising awareness reinforces safety must be everyone’s responsibility. Employees must feel encouraged to take ownership of their actions and their role in maintaining a safe workplace.
Is there frequent communication around SIF prevention in the form of e-mails, newsletters, toolbox talks, posters at worksites, etc.? Open communication from management ensures employees understand safety protocols, risks, and expectations. This clarity reduces confusion and empowers employees to act appropriately.
Is there a culture of blaming employees or does your organization also look at systemic and other issues that may have led to an incident? While human error is always possible, it’s also essential to look at other factors that may have set an employee up for failure, such as the work environment, lack of training, or failure to communicate critical safety information.
Processes for managing and investigating incidents must adapt
Processes for incident management and incident investigation should reflect a focus on SIF exposures, not just on recordable injuries. Companies must move beyond a fundamental compliance-based approach.
Near misses must be analyzed to determine their SIF potential, and if so, these should undergo a full incident investigation and root cause analysis. Actual SIFs should be analyzed to identify the responsible hazards, and SIF precursors should be identified by analyzing data on observations and incident investigations of potential and actual SIFs.
Consider these questions to determine whether your organization has the right processes:
Are there common definitions throughout the company for what constitutes a SIF precursor, a potential SIF, and an actual SIF? Having common definitions ensures all employees share the same SIF prevention understanding. It also reduces the risk of miscommunication or misinterpretation that can lead to mistakes.
Did you determine the hazards and high-risk activities that have the greatest potential to lead to SIFs? Focus is key. SIF prevention efforts are more likely to be effective if they’re prioritized by hazards and activity types that are most likely to result in serious injuries and fatalities.
During root cause analyses of potential or actual SIFs, do you look at organizational factors, decisions made, or work processes that may have also contributed to SIFs? As part of an incident investigation, there should be a process to look beyond the immediate and most obvious cause(s) of an incident. All contributing factors should be identified and addressed.
Technology brings everything together
Technology is the vital third element because it brings everything together: people, processes, data, and information. It enables you to reach your SIF prevention goals.
EHS software allows employees to collaborate, provides a single source of truth, automates processes and workflows, and tracks progress through reports and dashboards. It also helps to identify trends, areas of weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement.
Consider these questions to determine whether your organization is using the right technology for SIF prevention:
Are frontline workers empowered to easily report near misses, hazards, and observations of at-risk behaviors and conditions through mobile devices? Allowing employees to document hazards, unsafe conditions, and near misses increases the likelihood of quickly and effectively identifying trends or problem areas that need attention.
Do you analyze data on SIFs to categorize them according to the type of hazard and to evaluate the success of your SIF prevention efforts? Analyzing SIF data allows organizations to pinpoint common hazards or systemic issues that lead to severe injuries and fatalities. Categorizing incidents by hazard type provides insights into patterns or recurring problems.
Do you use action plans in EHS software to launch and track corrective actions associated with actual and potential SIFs? This is vital for creating a proactive and effective safety management system that ensures timely response, data-driven decision-making, and enhanced organizational learning when incidents occur.
Jean-Grégoire Manoukian is Content Thought Leader at Wolters Kluwer Enablon. He is responsible for thought leadership, content creation, as well as the management of Enablon insights articles and social media activities. He also provides subject matter expertise to the global marketing team. Jean-Grégoire started at Enablon in 2014 as Content Marketing Manager and has more than 25 years of professional experience, including many years as a product manager for chemical management and product stewardship solutions. He also worked in the telecommunications industry as a product marketing manager. JG has dual Canadian and French citizenship.
Today’s EHS professionals have unprecedented access to massive data volumes that allow them to generate more and better insights and move their organizations to proactive risk management. But with such tremendous capability and data volumes, it’s easy to miss important lessons if you don’t dig deep enough.
Centralizing data creates a single source of truth
It all starts with consolidation. Among the many good reasons for a single, centralized, cloud-based EHS software platform throughout an entire organization is having all EHS data in one place. A centralized data repository provides:
A single, unified source for all data, ensuring consistency across the organization since everyone uses the same data
An easier way to integrate data from different sources or departments
Governance and control mechanisms to ensure data is clean, accurate, and up to date
Easier access to data without the need to search multiple systems
A more streamlined way to gather data, reducing the time to locate and extract information, and a way to accelerate analysis and decision-making
Data gives organizations greater visibility across their operations and the potential to quickly detect patterns and trends, as well as logical connections between elements, helping them identify risks and opportunities. It all leads to improved worker safety, superior EHS performance, and operational excellence.
Be sure to see the big picture
But there are challenges associated with an overabundance of data, including information overload where there’s too much data or too much irrelevant data. It can be overwhelming and make it difficult to prioritize actionable insights.
Even with insights generated from data, there is the possibility that decision-makers may be swamped by the sheer number of insights available, or they may not recognize important insights beyond those that are most obvious.
Consider these three examples below that show how an initial data analysis may not reveal everything.
1) Field reporting of near misses and observations
What the data shows: After launching a near-miss reporting program with a centralized system and mobile apps, the number of reported near misses and observations of unsafe conditions and behaviors has fallen.
What you may conclude: Safety is improving because the total number of reported near misses and observations has fallen.
What you may have missed: When a field reporting program is implemented, there’s an initial and often significant rise in the number of reported near misses and observations, since workers are proactively identifying issues that already exist. As time goes on, there could be a drop in the number of near misses and observations reported after that initial bump, leading to a conclusion that safety is improving, which may or may not be the case. Also, a decline in reported near misses and observations may suggest another issue – one of diminishing employee engagement and a weakening safety culture. It would be a mistake then to assume safety is improving simply because reported near misses and observations are dropping.
2) Near misses and potential SIFs
What the data shows: The number of near miss events is falling, and the number of incidents is stable or also declining. An organization feels it is moving in the right direction.
What you may conclude: The lower number of near misses indicates safety is improving and risks are diminishing.
What you may have missed: While there are fewer total near misses, perhaps the number of near miss events with a potential for a serious injury or fatality (SIF) is actually increasing. Suppose there were 100 quarterly near misses, of which 20 were potential SIFs. Now, near misses total 80 each quarter, but 30 have a SIF potential. The overall drop in near misses is misleading at first glance since there is an increasing and disturbing rise in potential SIFs that can lead to more actual SIFs.
3) Benchmarking plants or facilities
What the data shows: By centralizing all data, a company can compare the safety metrics and performance of individual plants or facilities, allowing for benchmarking.
What you may conclude: Plants or facilities observed with poorer safety performance should receive extra training and be targeted for awareness campaigns.
What you may have missed: Is safety training and awareness the only problem? Perhaps some plants perform poorly on safety because they were built before the 1970s or 1980s and incorporate fewer inherently safer design principles than plants built more recently. Is it necessary to apply inherently safer design concepts to existing facilities? Additional training or awareness campaigns could help but may not address the primary flaws and may only tell part of the story. In this case, a bigger picture analysis could be needed to recognize that more engineering controls are required in older plants.
Dig deeper for more valuable insights
EHS professionals need help in digging more deeply into data to reveal important insights. There has never been more data available and while insights can make organizations more proactive in minimizing risks and reducing incidents, data volumes can be massive.
Today, advanced analytics and artificial intelligence are assisting professionals in many industries in processing data and revealing insights that they may otherwise miss. Analytics are now an important part of improving safety performance and helping human experts drive even deeper data analysis to ensure nothing gets missed.
Learn more about Enablon Open Insights and discover how to simplify your data management with an advanced cloud native analytics solution.
Jean-Grégoire Manoukian is Content Thought Leader at Wolters Kluwer Enablon.
He is responsible for thought leadership, content creation, as well as the management of Enablon insights articles and social media activities. He also provides subject matter expertise to the global marketing team. Jean-Grégoire started at Enablon in 2014 as Content Marketing Manager and has more than 25 years of professional experience, including many years as a product manager for chemical management and product stewardship solutions. He also worked in the telecommunications industry as a product marketing manager. JG has dual Canadian and French citizenship.
Trust Your EHS Data, but Talk to Your Workers Also
There used to be a time when companies did not have the same quantity and quality of EHS data that they have now. That certainly was a problem. But do we have another type of problem now?
Today, organizations have gotten better at collecting data on incidents, near misses, risks, hazards, observations, and environmental metrics. This has been greatly facilitated by EHS software.
Moreover, the technology exists today to analyze EHS data and make sense of it. With a massive volume of data available, organizations can use advanced analytics to gain better insights, including descriptive analytics (“What’s happening?”), diagnostic analytics (“why it’s happening?”), predictive analytics (“What could happen?”), and prescriptive analytics (“What should be done?”).
Here’s a question that you don’t hear often: Is there a danger of relying too much on data?
Not everything that counts can be counted
Almost 60 years ago, in 1963, sociologist William Bruce Cameron wrote ‘Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking’, which included the following passage (emphasis added separately):
“It would be nice if all of the data which sociologists require could be enumerated because then we could run them through IBM machines and draw charts as the economists do. However, not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
At first glance you may think that the passage is irrelevant because sociology and EHS are completely different. But are they? Aren’t humans at the center or both? Ultimately, EHS is about keeping workers safe and health.
Listen to your EHS data
Let’s be clear: The great progress in technology and data management is a positive development. Advanced analytics present many opportunities for EHS professionals to improve safety performance.
You should trust what your EHS data says. You can gain a competitive edge and better protect your workers if you fully embrace EHS data analysis and new technologies.
Listen to your EHS data to generate these types of insights that will inform your decision-making:
The top hazards that are leading to the most incidents. This informs your risk assessments and shows you where controls should be implemented.
The locations, job types, or work groups with the most accidents and near misses. This helps you determine where you should focus your efforts and attention.
Changes in incident rates following an increase in observations of at-risk or unsafe conditions or behaviors. This allows you to see if you’re successfully identifying or addressing problems.
In sum, it’s good to be data-driven. Numbers don’t lie. Decisions supported by data are more likely to stand scrutiny and to achieve their desired outcomes.
But talk to your workers also
However, there is a danger of relying too much on data.
Why? Because data is rational, precise, structured, and logical. Humans can also exhibit these traits, but they also carry inherent cognitive biases, irrationalities, and emotional complexities.
There are things that EHS data will tell you that you will not learn from conversations with people. But there are also things that conversations will reveal that you can’t learn from data.
For example, go talk to the professional with more than 40 years of experience who is about to retire, and who has a wealth of knowledge. He may give valuable information on how people feel, think, act, and behave, which is something that data may only partially tell you.
Talk to the employee who was recently hired, and graduated from university only last year. She may give great insights about the expectations of your future employees and the new workplace trends that may be common in one, five, or ten years.
Don’t dismiss what people have to say by relying too much on data.
Complementing, not competing
Ultimately, it’s about complementing data insights with what people say. Both are not mutually exclusive. Rather, they strengthen each other.
Data will tell you what happened, where it happened, and when. Through advanced analytics and artificial intelligence, data may even tell you why something happened, and what could happen.
But conversations with workers offer glimpses into the thought processes, emotions, and feelings that people go through, and which may provide critical insights into such questions as:
Why are workers reluctant to wear PPE?
Why is training material not being remembered?
Why do workers hesitate to report near misses or observations?
Why do they see processes and paperwork as unnecessary burdens?
In conclusion, always aim to improve your EHS data management through software and technology. But keep talking to your workers and don’t forget the human aspect of safety.
We are incredibly grateful for the overwhelming interest and support we’ve received for the EHS Congress 2024. Your enthusiasm has surpassed our expectations, and it is with a mix of gratitude and regret that we announce the congress is now officially at full capacity. With a hard limit of 300 seats in our conference room, our commitment to providing an exceptional experience and value for each attendee means we must adhere strictly to this number and cannot accept further registrations.
However, we understand the importance of the discussions and insights that will be shared at the congress and want to ensure that no one misses out. To this end, we are thrilled to offer LIVE streaming of all main room sessions, including keynotes and panel debates. You can join us virtually via https://www.linkedin.com/events/7142473963640700928/ to be part of the action from wherever you are.
Moreover, we’re already looking forward to next year’s event. Mark your calendars for May 20-21, 2025, when we’ll be back in Berlin for another enriching edition of the EHS Congress. Thank you once again for your support and understanding. We can’t wait to welcome you, in person or virtually, to what promises to be an unforgettable experience.
“I’ve seen something like this before. I know what to do.” “We need to try something, so let’s do this.”
“We need to take care of this ASAP.”
The safest actions would be to remove, reduce, replace, or relocate the hazard. Automatically preventing, detecting, stopping, or containing the hazard from harming anyone would be the next best choices.
