Incident
Investigation -- Tips, Techniques & Trivia
In a recent newsletter I spoke of developing a new program
on workplace discipline as it relates to the enforcement of
health and safety activities. I teamed up with two consultants
specializing in the area of human resource practices. They are
Linda Maul and Lynelle Mantai with Creating People Power. Both
have extensive experience in the field of human resource practices
and the provision of training and coaching.
After working with them in the development of the program
I realized that they could deliver the training much more effectively
than I could and as a result I have stepped back and taken a
secondary role. Appropriately, the program has also gone much
beyond the health and safety realm and now encompasses all aspects
of workplace performance.
I look forward to our first session, which runs February 22,
2007 in Edmonton. I expect to run public classes likely on a
quarterly basis; however this program really lends itself to
being taken inside an organization and delivered on a team basis.
A link to the "Creating
People Power" website can be found at the bottom of this
newsletter.
Jeff
Investigation
Bias
Hindsight
Bias
In
the next few issues I'm going to focus on some of the biases that
we as investigators may bring to the investigation process.
Hindsight is 20/20? Well, not always! When investigating a workplace
incident one of the first things we do is examine the actions
of people immediately prior to the incident. If there has been
an injury caused by an unsafe action we tend to zero in even more
on the worker's actions. The question becomes what impact did
a worker's actions have on the incident?
We
become tempted to put ourselves in the role of the injured worker;
and many times will form the belief that if it had been us we
could have correctly predicted the outcome of a future event (the
incident).
This
is a false belief as we are looking at the problem from two very
different perspectives, that of the investigator and usually,
the injured worker. The difference is not unlike someone being
in a maze (the worker) and another person (the investigator) looking
down from a height into the maze. Obviously we have a unique view
of the problem and can see the way out.
As
investigators we have almost unlimited time to review facts and
come to a decision. We are not distracted by performing multiple
tasks, nor fatigued, nor do we have time pressures or competing
goals. We also know the outcome, the other party doesn’t!
Something to consider next time you try to place yourself in someone’s
shoes.
Creating
People Power
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