Help me out folks! I'm running out of ideas for newsletter stories. If you have an investigation success story you'd like to share, send me a note. I can publish it anonymously or not. There should be no secrets when it comes to improving health and safety in our workplaces.

Attention First Time Readers: If you are looking for more investigation resources see my web site for articles, links and copies of past newsletters.

A client asked me to develop a computer based training program on incident investigation as they wanted their employees in remote areas to be familiar with the investigation process.
I now have a sixty minute program called Investigation Basics available on my web site. The program can be uploaded onto a company mainframe computer if your organization has a learning management system. An examination in either computer or paper based format is also available, and the program can be customized to cover company reporting protocols.

This program is not designed to replace a "live" presenter, but rather, to serve as an introduction to investigation and/or as a refresher for those that have taken training and may need to quickly review some key points before starting an investigation.

The link below will take you to my E-Learning page and then follow the link to preview Investigation Basics.

E-Learning page and preview. . .

In a recent training session a group discussion unfolded about using the terms "recommendations" versus "corrective action" and for the most part I have viewed these terms as being interchangeable with a bias towards the use of "corrective actions."

The consensus was that a "recommendation" could be viewed as only a suggestion and that there was no guarantee that any concrete action would be taken simply based on a recommendation. Whereas "corrective action" implies by its very nature that positive steps would be taken to remedy the situation.

There's not much on the web when you search the terms "safety" and "recommendations." One site offered a course on developing accident recommendations and raised many issues and here are just a few:

• How to identify potential recipients of the recommendation.
• Types of recommendations (general, specific, urgent or routine.)
• How will the recommendation be perceived?
• How to sell your recommendation?
• Is it necessary to adopt all recommendation?

Clearly, the course developers feel that recommendations are not cast in stone and much thought is required to develop and sell them.

To see full article. . .