In this article, we’ve got an interview with Joey Estey talking about performing incident investigations at work and looking for a root cause (or root causes).

You may already know this is the second of two articles drawn from an interview about incident investigations with Joe Estey. The earlier article is more of an introduction to incident investigations, including what an incident investigation is, when and how to do one, pros and cons of doing your own as opposed to bringing in a third-party, and some common mistakes people make while performing incident investigations.

In addition, we’ve also recently spoken with Joe about performing pre-task pre-mortems, discussions at the job scene intended to help avoid having incidents and having to perform incident investigations.

And with those three points made, let’s see what Joe had to tell us about incident investigations and performing a root-cause analysis.

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In this article, we’ve got an interview with safety professional Joe Estey to learn a whole bunch about incident investigations and looking for root causes. This article focuses on explaining what an incident investigation is, how to perform one, and some common errors people commit while performing one.

In addition to this article, we’ve also held an interview with Joe on the search for root causes while performing a root-cause analysis during the incident investigation process.

We’re excited about and grateful for Joe’s participation in this interview, and think you’ll enjoy learning from his knowledge and insights about incident investigations.

You might also be interested in a few other incident-related articles, including:

• How to Conduct an Incident Investigation
• How to Prepare an Incident Investigation Kit
• Incident Investigations and Safety Differently (an interview with Ron Gantt)

Finally, we’ve also had a chat with Joe about performing pre-task pre-mortems, discussions just before performing the job that help to avoid incidents and reduce the need for incident investigations.

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When the Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) was published by OSHA in 1983, it represented a decade of painstaking, but vital, rulemaking activity.

More than thirty years have elapsed since the rule was published. And yet, HCS remains one of the most important and relevant US occupational safety and health standards. The Hazard Communication Standard (29 CFR 1910.1200), last updated in 2012 for GHS alignment, applies to a wide spectrum of workplaces and industries, and is considered one of the crown jewels in OSHA’s mission to protect workers on the job.

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OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) is a broad, horizontal regulation, meaning it impacts almost every workplace and numerous employees within those companies. According to OSHA, that boils down to roughly five million US workplaces and approximately forty-three million employees who are affected by the standard. (1)

Most employers are aware HazCom is an essential element in their safety management systems. They’ve made Hazard Communication part of required onboarding training through safety orientations. And when the standard updated to align with the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) in 2012, employers followed through on mandatory training, to inform workers about the changes in labeling, Safety Data Sheets (SDSs), and terminology.

But the next questions are:

• What do you do beyond that?
• Are your employees following through on various aspects of HazCom or is it a somewhat dormant and overlooked safety program in your workplace?

We’ll consider those questions and more in this article.

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When OSHA aligned the Hazard Communication Standard 1910.1200 with the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) in 2012, it was with good reason. Prior to these modifications, numerous internal and external chemical labeling systems existed, which often meant confusion for workers, delays in shipping and loss of business revenue. This was especially true when products had to be shipped or received across national borders.

Moving to a harmonized system allowed a uniform structure for labeling, as well as hazard information, to be disseminated. Today, over 65 countries share the GHS system. And while each have country-specific versions, the increasing use of the GHS worldwide has brought greater ease and transparency to chemical safety use and shipping.

The merging of GHS with OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) did not replace the regulation. Instead, it augmented the main HCS purpose, which was to convey hazard information to workers in an effective and meaningful way.

That included changes to chemical labeling. Understanding the GHS-aligned chemical labeling that’s now part of OSHA’s HazCom Standard is quite simple, but there are key terminologies and components you’ll need to learn to use the system in your workplace. 

We’ll explain those in this article.

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