Health and safety is a priority for most employers in any industry. It ensures that wellbeing is of great importance for both management and workers so that the workplace is more productive and positive. Whilst we know why it’s important to report hazards, did you know it’s just as important to complete incident reports too?

In this article, we’re going to go through the differences between incident reports and hazard reports, why they’re essential for your workplace, and the best way to complete them using our Take 5 Safety Books.

What Are Incident Reports?

Incident reporting is a method of detailing an occurrence in the workplace. By doing this, incidents such as injuries, accidents, thefts or damage to property can be correctly and uniformly managed. The aim of filling out incident reports and any further documentation needed is to prevent the same thing from happening again.

Although we all wish that incidents at work didn’t occur, they can highlight areas in your workplace's health and safety procedures that need improvement. This could mean ensuring you're using the right types of risk assessment checklists and that you're maintaining your vehicles and equipment properly.

An incident report can be completed by the workers involved or a safety manager and can hugely affect the likelihood of the incident happening again.

How Do Incident Reports Differ from Hazard Reports?

Hazard reporting involves identifying possible hazards and resolving them. This ensures they don’t become a larger hazard that could be a serious risk to workers. In an ideal world, hazard reports should prevent the need for incident reports as the risk of an incident happening will be identified before it becomes a reality.

However, even in companies with a strong workplace safety culture, incidents can happen. But using an incident report can prevent them from happening again or becoming even more serious. Safety managers can identify patterns and trends to minimise risk.

The Main Benefits of Filling Out an Incident Report Form

There are lots of reasons why your company should (and needs to) fill out these useful forms. Here are the main benefits.

Benefit #1: Prevent More Severe Accidents from Happening

The main goal of successfully filling out an incident report form is to use the details you’ve collected to stop the incident from happening again. In some cases, the safety knowledge gained can be applied in different situations and departments too. 

Managers can implement a new safety checklist that includes the new information so that all workers are aware of the update. Not only does this prevent the likelihood of it happening again, but shows employees that management takes safety seriously.

Benefit #2: Comply With Legislation

Incident reports allow companies to protect themselves in the case of non-compliance issues associated with health and safety. It’s proof of what happened should a company ever need it. 

Benefit #3: Incident Reports Are Significantly Cheaper Than A Major Workplace Accident/Incident

Incidents in the workplace can cost companies an awful lot of money. They can mean that equipment is out of use for long periods of time, workers need time off or they need to buy new machinery. Safety books and incident reports are significantly cheaper than a potential incident. This is especially true if you buy our safety books wholesale.

Benefit #4: Create a Positive Workplace Safety Culture

Encouraging employees to fill out incident reports (and other risk management documentation) ensures that health and safety are a priority for all. Workers know that their safety is important to management and filling out reports ripples down into other day-to-day safety tasks.

UniPrint Take 5 Safety Books

At UniPrint, our unique Take 5 Safety Books include injury and incident reports. They’re well-designed to industry standards meaning they’re quick and easy to fill out. You may also benefit from a customisable Take 5 Safety Book. In these, we can print company-specific safety details, colours, logos and any added information you’d like. They can also be translated into numerous languages to make them more accessible.

A customised safety checklist engages workers more and can help to show how important health and safety are to the company. They can also work more efficiently by including specific numbers, meeting points, contact details and information to include in an incident report. 

If you’d like to make incident reports a priority part of your health and safety procedures, get in contact with the team at UniPrint today. We’d gladly take you through your options and even offer a free online Take 5 course!