Who Should Investigate an Incident

The success or failure of the incident investigation processes can frequently be traced directly to the actions of management or failure of the management system. 

The responsibility for investigation of incidents could be assigned to any level of management. Workplace rules should be established and communicated requiring employees to report all incidents immediately to supervision. Once an incident is reported, the immediate supervisor should initiate the investigation as soon as possible, by the end of the shift when the incident occurred or no later than 24 hours after the incident was reported. Written statements should be obtained from the injured employee and witness(es) as promptly as possible following the incident. This will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter. 

Responsibilities of management, at every level, should include the following  

In some cases, injuries should be immediately reported to the individual who files the workers compensation claims. Most of the time, results of the investigation are critical in determining compensability of the injury [5], 

Follow-up investigations may be requested either by the affected supervisors or by the safety professional to verify facts and to obtain more information about an incident. In either case, the immediate supervisor should lead the initial investigation and take full responsibility for making all necessary arrangements. 

---