Reducing the Serious Injury and Fatality (SIF) Rate: 7 Strategies for Success

The workplace total recordable incident rate (TRIR) plateauing over the past decade brings much to celebrate for EHS professionals. Yet, behind this progress lies a troubling reality: serious injury and fatality (SIF) rates have increased during the same period. 

While we all share the goal of creating safer workspaces, the path to reducing SIF rates is filled with challenges. Today, we’ll explore the most commonly faced obstacles, dive into the complexities of SIF reduction and offer actionable strategies to overcome them.  

7 Strategies to Lower the Rising SIF Rates

1. Conquer Challenging Work Environments

Challenging work environments are a three-pronged problem for effective SIF risk management. The first concern relates to dynamic, high-risk environments. Industries like construction, manufacturing and energy are particularly dynamic and high-risk, and  therefore present unique safety challenges.   

Secondly, high production pressures, especially in a post-covid workspace, couples with low resource availability to exacerbate risk. Lastly, we’re seeing ramifications from the Great Resignation, signaling a clear need for change and creating a perfect storm of potential hazards.  

In this “perfect storm” of risk, safety must take precedence over speed. Every organization must foster a culture where each employee feels empowered to report potential hazards without any anxiety over the ramifications of making a report.  

Adequate resources should be allocated to safety measures and training ,specifically addressing the unique challenges of each  dynamic worksite. Production pressures should also be matched to resource availability to mitigate unnecessary risk.  

2. Crack the Code of Plateauing Incident Rates and Rising SIF Rates

Plateauing incident rates coupled with rising SIF rates has become a common safety conundrum since the mid 2010s. With fewer incidents to learn from, trying to figure out the next step in your organization’s health and safety journey is like navigating a ship in the dark without a compass.  

The key to solving this puzzle is to shift the focus from just incident reporting to also encompassing near miss and hazard reporting. By meticulously analyzing near miss incidents, organizations can unearth valuable insights into potential SIF precursors.   

These near misses should serve as beacons that guide your safety improvements, ensuring incidents are avoided rather than simply managed after the fact.  

3. Define SIFs for Clarity and Consistency

The lack of a standardized definition of what constitutes a SIF can lead to confusion among those who need to understand the gravity of these incidents. Without proper classification, it can be harder to effectively address workplace factors leading to SIFs.   

Develop a clear and comprehensive definition of SIFs within your organization, aligning it with industry standards and building it around outcomes rather than inputs. Effective communication is also pivotal, ensuring that all stakeholders understand the significance of SIFs and the importance of their prevention.   

4. Revolutionize the Event Review Process

Traditional approaches to incident investigation often prioritize assigning blame over identifying the complex root causes of incidents. However, assigning blame won’t fix the underlying problem and won’t prevent other workers from potentially experiencing the same incident. 

Therefore, shift the focus from “who” failed to “what” failed. This means adopting a more empathetic and analytical approach to uncover systemic issues and properly address the causes of every SIF incidence.   

5. Enhance the Power of Pre-Job Briefs

Many pre-job briefs fall short because they disconnect the recognition of hazards from the establishment of controls. This creates a brittle brief system, which will almost always fall short.  

Rethink your pre-job briefs by ensuring that every hazard is directly paired with its corresponding control measure. This seamless connection will help workers to grasp the potential dangers they face and understand the precise steps required to mitigate them.   

The alignment between hazards and controls not only improves safety but also fosters a culture of proactive risk management, where employees are better equipped to tackle potential issues head-on.   

6. Shift Focus From Hazard to Task Level

Traditional safety approaches often analyze hazards without considering the specific tasks employees perform. Creating a SIF checklist is simple at the hazard level, but when you start breaking SIF checklists down at a task level, the complexity is revealed, and a much more detailed perspective is required.    

The shift from generalized hazard focus to a specific task-level perspective is transformative. By dissecting each task, organizations can better identify potential risks and develop task-specific safety measures and controls. This precision empowers organizations to mitigate risks where they matter most.  

7. Learn How To Fail Safely

Nobody is perfect. Even the best workers make mistakes. Building a resilient workforce requires establishing processes for workers to fail safely.  

Understand that you may not be able to fully control certain risks, but you can put controls in place to protect workers and allow them to return home at the end of the day. Allocate resources for ongoing training, safety awareness campaigns and technology solutions that aid in risk identification and mitigation. 

Conclusion

Reducing SIF rates is a formidable challenge, but it’s a challenge that’s well worth embracing. By addressing these obstacles head-on and implementing the actionable strategies outlined above, organizations can make significant strides toward creating safer work environments.    

These insights were provided by safety expert Todd Hohn in this episode of Two Bald Guys Talking Safety. 

Need more strategies for reframing and preventing SIFs?  Check out our eBook: Serious Injury and Fatality (SIF) Prevention: Improving Your Strategy.