Employee Incident Report

What is an employee incident report?

An employee incident report form is a tool used by employees to document any types of incident that might have caused harm or damage to the employee or company assets. They record accidents, injuries, health and safety issues, damage to company property and assets, and near misses.

Incident reports are usually used to analyze damaging or harmful incidents and apply the appropriate corrective action. By documenting harmful and damaging incidents, similar future occurrences can be prevented from happening again. Employee incident reports are used by any employee to report an incident that happened to him or an incident that he witnessed. Any employee must report all incidents, even if it's just a minor one.

A meaningful employee incident report includes all information about the accident or near-miss. The proper documentation is important to identify and analyze the causes of the incident. The report should be prepared promptly after the event so that important details, which are important for insurance and regulatory reasons, are not lost. Recording all information with a digital checklist speeds up the process and ensures documentation.

This article addresses the following topics:

1. Benefits of an incident report

2. The types of incidents

3. The structure of an employee incident report

4. An easy way to document incidents and (near) accidents

Benefits of an Incident Report

An incident is any event or situation that disrupts business operations, causes damage to the people and the organization, and attracts negative media attention. By reporting these situations, a company avoids the same things from happening. Below are other benefits of reporting hazards, accidents, and near misses.

1. Improves the processes

A hazard report brings attention to safety risks in the workplace. By doing so, organizations and businesses can identify the areas they need to improve to prevent the dangerous situation from happening again.

It gives management insight into what processes should be eliminated or changed. It also helps them determine what regulations and procedures are effective. The information they get from the report can assess whether their employees need skills training or new equipment.

2. Incites action

Filing a hazard report form shows how serious the incident is and reminds the management how critical their role is in ensuring safety and security in the workplace.

By reporting a hazardous situation, they are pressured to take immediate action about what happened. It also prevents the incident from escalating and causing further damage.

It sends a message to employees not to overlook or ignore any incident, no matter how minor they may seem.

3. Awareness of hazards and threats

Informing people about the possible risks their jobs and tasks entail raises awareness. Knowing the importance of safety and the cost of an error will help them avoid the situation. They will also learn how to equip themselves, so any dangerous occurrences will not arise.

That’s why reporting a hazard immediately is an integral part of ensuring the safety of high-risk workplaces, such as construction sites and manufacturing plants. Being informed also encourages people to become more proactive in finding solutions to prevent high-risk circumstances from happening.

The types of incidents

What needs to be documented as an incident in a company can be varied and depends on the particular industry. However, one thing is certain: incidents are not just near misses and work accidents. It also pays to report incidents, and thus irregularities, in other areas to avoid property damage or fines, among other things.

Typical incidents in different industries are:

• Accidents at the workplace or on the way there
• Bone chilling accidents
• incidents of bullying
• Data privacy breaches and theft
• Failure of machinery, equipment and facilities
• Failure or disruption of IT systems
• Hacker attacks
• Incidents in property and plant security
• Incidents in care facilities of any kind (schools, kindergartens, nursing homes, etc.)

Both for the affected person and for the organization, it is important to record incidents in order to draw conclusions. Therefore, an employee incident report should not simply be filed, but the information contained therein should always be evaluated.

Writing an Employee Incident Report

Once an incident happens, somebody should report it. Minor injuries are as equally important as major ones. If not addressed properly, these little things can balloon into a bigger problem. Therefore, an employee incident report form should have the following key elements to ensure that all details are documented. An incident report should be:

1. Accurate
   Ensure that all information is clear and specific. Often, errors come from spelling and grammar errors. For example, names might be misspelled, dates and times might be inaccurate, and phone numbers wrong.
   These might look like minor mistakes, but they can generate a lot of confusion. So make sure you reread and proofread your report to check if you overlooked any mistakes.
2. Based on Facts
   Accurate facts are indisputable. So when making an employee incident report, don’t base it on opinions, emotions, or conclusions.
   It should not be biased as well. Instead, provide a well-rounded narrative where both sides are presented as it is. If there is a need for witnesses, make sure that you quote them. Witness statements allow the reader to see the big picture much more clearly.
3. Comprehensive
   All the questions — what, who, where, why, when, and how — about the incidents should be addressed in the report:
   • What happened?
   • Who were the people involved?
   • Where did the incident occur?
   • When is the exact time?
   • Why did the people involved do it?
   • How did it happen?
   These are just examples of questions that need to be answered when writing the report. In the event an investigation happens, expect more questions to be asked, so don’t forget to add the name and details of witnesses.
4. Vivid
   A comprehensive report also includes photos and documents as supporting evidence. Take as many pictures as possible to document the incident. It will also give those who read the report a vivid image of what happened around the surrounding areas.
5. Irrefutable
   After the incident report has been written, let the involved people — victims, witnesses, reporters — read and validate the report by signing. It confirms that the report is accurate.

A simple way to document incidents and (near) accidents

Digitizing paper employee incident reports and documentation saves time and effort. With digital checklists, all anganes to an incident are automatically stored and are available from anywhere at any time. If an incident occurs, all responsible employees are informed immediately. Chat and push messages facilitate collaboration and problem-solving related to the incident.

With Lumiform, the digital and powerful app and desktop software, organizations can:

• Record incident data and information instantly in the field using the super intuitive mobile app.
• Generate real-time data about incidents. This enables faster response to incidents and implementation of preventive measures for the future.
• Easily add photos and comments to the reports.
• Increase reporting efficiency: through more efficient communication within the team, with third parties and with management, and faster incident reporting.
• Store all employee incident reports securely in the cloud and log them for regulatory purposes.
• Thanks to a comprehensive analytics function, identify accident hotspots and perform accident root cause analysis to get action underway.
• Thanks to a library of ready-to-use templates, get started digitally right away.