Building a Near-Miss Reporting Culture

A near miss is an event that could have caused harm but did not. Each one is a warning — and an opportunity to fix a problem before someone gets hurt.

People report near misses when reporting is easy and when they trust that the report will lead to action, not blame. Keep the form short, accept reports in person or by phone, and thank people for raising them.

Close the loop: tell the reporter what was changed. When workers see their reports making the site safer, reporting rates rise and serious incidents fall.

Track trends rather than individual events. Several reports about the same walkway or machine point to a system issue worth investigating properly.