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Just the facts - Helpful tips for interviewing accident witnesses
Ask people to name their greatest fear, and the majority will answer public speaking. Ask the same question to participants of an accident investigation seminar, and their reply will overwhelmingly be interviewing.
There are many similarities between public speaking and interviewing. In both you are faced with an audience, you are the centre of attention, and your performance is being evaluated. Building audience rapport is critical. Your presentation, in either case, must contain an opening, a body and a conclusion. Then there are those butterflies. They need to be calmed so your nervousness doesn't show or distract you from your game plan.
The challenges of interviewing can be overcome with a little preparation and practice. Let's face it - interviews aren't something you do every day. It's difficult to question a co-worker about his/her part in an incident. Where do you start? What are the important questions? What if the person doesn't want to talk? The biggest obstacle to a successful interview lies within the interviewer. If you believe the witness will be uncooperative and not tell you much, you'll be absolutely right. The following tips can help you get prepared and confident for your next interview.
Getting ready
Have questions prepared. Too many investigators rush into an interview with a blank note pad and pen. Their plan is to play it by ear. They believe that somehow, the right questions will pop into their mind at the right time. Wrong! The right questions usually come to mind about ten minutes after the witness has left the room. You then have to chase the person down for a second interview. In your questions, avoid using words like "witness," "interview" and "safety infraction." Use less-threatening terms such as "bystander," "chat" and "incident." Successful interviewers put people at ease and simply allow them to tell their story.
Visit the incident scene. Not only does this give you ideas for questions, it sends a message that you are caring and professional. More importantly, it puts you on an equal footing with witnesses. Those who want to be helpful, the vast majority, will be even more helpful because they do not have to waste time drawing you a mental picture. The small minority that might be uncooperative have lost their opportunity to mislead, because you were there and saw the scene for yourself.
Prevent "witness contamination". While it's important to interview witnesses as soon as possible, don't hurry to do this at the expense of being well prepared. Your concern, of course, is that the recall of witnesses will be contaminated through talking with others. While this is a real possibility, for the most part it's a minor concern. Time spent visiting the scene, talking with supervisors and others, and developing a list of questions for each witness will be time well spent.
You can lessen witness contamination by giving them the opportunity to make their own notes. As you meet witnesses for the first time at the scene, give each of them paper and a pen. Ask them to write down everything they can recall about the incident, and to draw a sketch of the scene. Ensure they understand that this is not a statement, but their own notes that they should retain until the interview.
This simple step will force witnesses to document what they observed. Now, even though they will be talking with others, the chance of evidence contamination has been lessened. When you conduct your interview, witnesses can refer to their notes, and their story should be based solely on their personal observations.
Choose an ideal location. Where you conduct the interview can also help build rapport and eliminate communication barriers. Secrets are disclosed in moments of intimacy. You need a quiet, private place to talk. Obviously, this is not going to be a manager's office or the executive boardroom, as these are likely too intimidating. Research shows that the best place for interviews is the first aid room or health centre, as these have a history of providing immediate and confidential help. Your second choice is a classroom. After all, don't only good things happen during health and safety training? While the lunchroom appears to be a relaxing place, it offers no privacy. You can be guaranteed that five minutes after you start talking to a witness another employee will sit down and want to tell you his/her version of the events.
Set up the interview room ahead of time, not on the fly. Clean off the top of the desk. Remove any distractions such as safety posters, family photos or office supplies. Even a paper clip in the hands of a witness can be a distraction. Any effort by you to remove it during your talk will be viewed negatively. Turn off telephones. Put a sign on the door indicating an interview is in progress and that you mustn't be disturbed.
Face to face
Always build a rapport with your witness. While we may acknowledge the importance of this first step, for the most part, we simply fail to do it. Aristotle said, "Friendship is the key to another man's mind." Try and learn a little about the individual's background before the interview. You need to establish a level of closeness that will put your witness at ease and help him/her relate all of the circumstances. Appreciate that witnesses come to this exercise with questions too. Will I or a co-worker be punished? What will happen with the information I give you? Anticipate these types of questions and answer all of them as they come up, before moving on.
Introduce yourself, and tell the witness about your role in the investigation. Start with some small talk about hobbies, sports or other areas of interest to the witness. After a few moments, focus the conversation on your organization's health and safety program, and in particular, the prevention aspect of your investigation.
So, things appear to be going well, and you are anxious to get to your questions. Don't go there just yet! It's important that the witness, not the interviewer, be seen as the most important person in the room. Let the witness tell his/her story first. Ask an open-ended question such as "tell me what happened the day of the incident."
By using a broad based question you are asking the witness to tell you a longer but more informative story. Even the point where the witness chooses to start the story is in itself significant. To that person, this is where the events began to unfold that led to the incident. Incident causes begin hours, days or even weeks before the event itself. When you ask about activities of the whole day or beyond, the witness will have more to tell. This may provide clues to events and conditions that contributed to the incident. Don't worry about this question taking too much time to answer. Even a written description of the whole day would take on average about 20 minutes and consume at the most a page and one-half of paper. The few extra minutes this might take will pay significant dividends.
After asking this opening question, let the witness tell the story without interruption. This will provide information with the fewest errors. Sometimes, when interrupted and asked to clarify a point, witnesses may be forced to give you inaccurate information, or give you the answer they think you want.
For example, the witness tells you the incident happened at 1:00 p.m., but you know for certain it was 2:00 p.m. You stop the witness in mid-sentence and ask for clarification. The witness now develops some self-doubt about the information, but knows you think it was 2:00 p.m. In order to please you, the witness may give in to your suggestion and change the story. All you have done is force the witness to give you a totally useless piece of information. Wait until the witness has finished telling the story before seeking clarification. You may be surprised about why he/she thought it was 1:00 p.m. This may have had some impact on the incident.
Demonstrate by your body language that you are listening to every word. Leaning towards the witness and turning your head slightly, to listen, will be perceived as a sign you are hanging on every word. Once the witness has told his/her story you can now seek the answers to your planned questions. Many of these will have been answered in the initial story, so it won't be necessary to ask every one of them. Never read your questions word for word. It sounds stilted, and if you ask a question that the witness has already answered in a roundabout way, it will appear that you were not listening.
Always save your questions about prevention until the end of the interview. As part of your rapport building, you told the witness that prevention was the objective of this process. The witness is expecting to be asked for an opinion about this and will want to give it and have it valued. If you ask the question early in the interview you will get an answer, and then the witness will feel that the interview is over, having told you how to prevent it from happening again! Make sure you have gotten the answers to the who, what, where, when, and how of the incident first. Save the why question to the end. The why question is the real answer to the prevention question.
Interviewing can be a stressful exercise. Taking time to prepare questions, building witness rapport and listening without interruption will calm those interview butterflies and produce effective prevention information.
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