October 12, 2022 | Mark Paradies

Is “Not Being Careful” a Root Cause?

Safety Manager’s Statement

A safety manager said,

“People not being careful is a major source of our accidents.”

I asked him how he knew that. (I suspected they were not doing an adequate root cause analysis.)

He said:

“Our statistics prove that 90% of our accidents
are caused by 5% of the workforce.”

He then explained that these accidents were caused by careless, unsafe acts. He declared that he didn’t need root cause analysis because the only way to get people to do the right thing regarding safety was to be like a cop. You need to give them a ticket when they violate the rules. He claimed what he needes is more people to hand out tickets.

Then he challenged me. He said:

“What would you do if you were in my shoes.”

I said, “You’re lucky! The answer is so clear. If you fire the people who have accidents, you will eliminate 90% of your problems by getting rid of the people who are not being careful.”

He was taken aback by my answer. He responded:

“We are a union plant. You can’t fire people for reporting an accident.”

A Different Way to Think About the Problem

Let’s take a minute to consider this problem.

Of course, a small percentage of employees were involved in accidents. Who would work at a facility where large fractions of the employees are maimed or killed yearly? A small fraction of people being injured doesn’t prove anything.

This approach of blaming people for accidents (by saying they weren’t being careful) wasn’t achieving anything. A better approach is to look for the hidden root causes of human errors. Root causes that the safety manager didn’t see.

Imagine if management could implement effective fixes for the root causes of accidents and incidents, they could eliminate 90% or more of the accidents without blame.

Try Something New

What if I told you a secret way to find the root causes of accidents and precursor incidents? A method that:

Was flexible enough to be used on minor incidents and major accidents.
Had a built-in expert system to help you apply human factors technology to find ways to stop human errors.
Had been proven successful by leading companies worldwide.
Had thorough documentation and excellent training to help your people implement the technique successfully.

Would you be willing to give it a try?

The method is the TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis System.

The TapRooT® System meets all the root cause analysis fundamentals needed for an excellent incident investigation.

Read about the history of the TapRooT® System’s development HERE.

The next step is to pick which TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis Course you need.

Then you can register for one of the upcoming public TapRooT® Courses or schedule a course at your site by calling 865-539-2139 or CLICK HERE to e-mail one of our TapRooT® Implementation Advisors.