Kennisuitwisseling inspireert en zet tot nadenken – Werksessie Beter Leren van Incidenten

Exchange of knowledge inspires and sets thinking in the work session for Better Learning of Incidents! 24 March 2022

by Denise Harkema

On 24 March, a work session was held with participants of the improvement group Learning from Incidents, organised by Master class Safety Middle and Master class Safety South West and Safety Delta Netherlands. During the work session participants were able to exchange best practices, but also to discuss common knowledge needs to further strengthen learning from incidents in the organisation.

Strengthening each other by looking for differences
During the session , the participants presented the results of a previous assessment. The results not only show the desired development points in the field of incident management, but perhaps focus even more on the identified best practices. Do all participants look at incident management in the same way? Where are the differences in our organisations, what can we take away from this?

What kind of best practices can we think of? There is a great diversity; ways to clarify process steps and responsibilities in the organisation, but also a way of working in which communication can best be seen separately from incident investigation. After all, different people and activities are needed for the two. This working method was further reinforced by the best practice of introducing an incident communication moment: by means of a video, recorded in the environment where the incident occurred, the message can be conveyed to the organisation in an accessible manner that should prevent future incidents.

The role of senior management is seen as key to achieving strong social safety and organisational commitment in learning from incidents. Give senior management an important role in incident investigation and involve them thoroughly in the incident management process. Effective communication and expectation management starts with management, who should also show their commitment on the shop floor.

Continuous improvement in effectiveness and communication
In addition to an inspiring session, common issues also emerged. Even if an incident management process is in order, there is always a need for continuous improvement.

For example, it would be desirable to be able to look more clearly at the definitions that come into the picture in the incident management process, whether externally inspired or not. What is the definition of an incident? What does a good effectiveness check on measures taken in an incident mean? Effectiveness checks play an important role in the evaluation of measures taken.
The diversity of systems also comes to the fore, which can be used for trend analysis. How do you set up an optimal structure for dealing with the many reports that may come in? How can you use data analysis to spot the right trends and act on them?
Finally, communication is also a major point of attention in continuous improvement. Make use of existing communication structures of the organisation for the best result. But how do you make sure that real learning takes place, with lessons from (near) incidents being incorporated into the organisation's long-term memory?

These are great questions, which the participants have not yet finished answering. In the coming period, each participant will work with his/her ideas. The work session led to a good exchange of knowledge and is definitely worth repeating!

About the SDN Project Improvement Group Learning from Incidents
In the programme Better Learning from Incidents, companies jointly evaluate the incident management process in their organisation. This is done by means of an assessment carried out by knowledge brokers Corine Baarends and Dirk den Ottelander, after which the participating companies can use the results to draw up their own improvement plans.

Safety Delta Netherlands is looking for knowledge requirements from the industry, so that SDN can better align its activities and knowledge offering with these requirements and offer higher added value.

Are you interested in this route and do you want to know more about it? Please contact us at info@safetydelta.nl!

In the picture:
Knowledge broker Corine Baarends (MVM) and participants Niels van Kaam (Actemium), Rene Dijkmans (Sabic), Kevin Troy (Eastman), Peter Stufkens (Sachem), Niels Vogelzang (Vivochem), Marco van der Linden (Aspen).