Incident Reporting and Investigation
Incident management procedure covering immediate reporting of injuries, near misses, and property damage, scene preservation and evidence collection, investigation team roles and witness interviews, 5-why root cause analysis that reaches system causes rather than blaming the worker, and corrective action assignment, tracking, and effectiveness verification.
- Audience
- All employees, temporary workers, and contractors who must report incidents, plus supervisors, investigation team members, and the safety program owner who investigate them
- Review cycle
- annual
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-15
- Revision
- 1
What is in the procedure
8 sections. Regulatory language is fixed and passes through verbatim. Sections marked customized get rewritten around your facility, your equipment, and your job titles.
- 01
Purpose
FixedThis procedure ensures that every injury, illness, near miss, and property damage event at this facility is reported promptly, investigated to its real cause, and closed out with a corrective action that prevents...
- 02
Scope
CustomizedThis procedure applies to every person on the property, including employees on all shifts, temporary workers, contractors, carrier drivers, and visitors, and to every event of these kinds: any injury or work-related...
- 03
Responsibilities
CustomizedAny employee who is involved in, witnesses, or discovers an incident reports it to a supervisor immediately, and always before the end of the shift, and cooperates fully and honestly with the investigation.
- 04
Procedure: Immediate Response, Reporting, and Scene Preservation
Customized1. Care first. Make the scene safe, then get medical help under the facility First Aid and Medical Emergency Response SOP.
- 05
Procedure: Investigation and Root Cause Analysis
FixedInvestigation depth is scaled to potential severity, not to the actual outcome.
- 06
Procedure: Corrective Actions, Tracking, and Verification
Customized1. Write a corrective action for the root cause and for every contributing cause, and prefer controls higher on the hierarchy: eliminate the hazard, substitute a safer method, engineer a physical control such as...
- 07
Special Cases: Severe Injuries, Regulatory Notification, Temporary Workers, and Contractors
CustomizedSevere injuries and regulatory notification: some events must be reported directly to OSHA within a fixed time under the injury and illness reporting rules at 29 CFR 1904.39, separately from anything in this procedure.
- 08
References
Fixed29 CFR 1910.38 Emergency action plans. 29 CFR 1910.151 Medical services and first aid.
OSHA references
Incident Reporting and Investigation: 29 CFR 1910.38(c)(1)
Every SOP generated from this template cites the paragraphs below, with a plain-language summary of what each one requires. Citations are informational and are not legal advice.
| Standard | Title | What it requires |
|---|---|---|
| 29 CFR 1910.38(c)(1) | Emergency action plans: procedures for reporting a fire or other emergency | The emergency action plan must include procedures for reporting a fire or other emergency, so employees know exactly who to call and how, and reporting does not depend on finding the right person by chance. |
| 29 CFR 1910.151(b) | Medical services and first aid: trained persons and first aid supplies | In the absence of an infirmary, clinic, or hospital in near proximity to the workplace used to treat all injured employees, a person or persons must be adequately trained to render first aid, and adequate first aid supplies must be readily available. The paragraph sets no order of operations; putting care for the injured person ahead of every reporting and investigation step is facility policy adopted here. |
| 29 CFR 1910.22(a) | Walking-working surfaces: general housekeeping and maintenance | The employer must ensure all places of employment, passageways, storerooms, service rooms, and walking-working surfaces are kept clean, orderly, and sanitary, that floors are kept clean and, so far as possible, dry, and that walking-working surfaces are maintained free of hazards such as sharp or protruding objects, loose boards, corrosion, leaks, spills, snow, and ice. |
| 29 CFR 1910.22(d) | Walking-working surfaces: inspection, maintenance, and repair | The employer must ensure walking-working surfaces are inspected regularly and as necessary, and are maintained in a safe condition. A hazardous condition found must be corrected or repaired before an employee uses the surface again, and if the correction cannot be made immediately the hazard must be guarded to prevent use until the repair is complete. Where the repair involves the structural integrity of the surface, a qualified person performs or supervises it. |
| 29 CFR 1910.132(d) | Personal protective equipment: hazard assessment and equipment selection | The employer must assess the workplace to determine whether hazards are present or likely to be present that require personal protective equipment, must select and require each affected employee to use PPE that protects against the identified hazards, must communicate the selection decisions to each affected employee, and must verify the hazard assessment through a written certification. The standard itself sets no reassessment trigger; redoing the assessment when an incident reveals a hazard it missed is good practice adopted here as facility policy. |
Compliance checklist
What an inspector looks for
A written reporting procedure exists, employees know the channel on every shift, and it is part of the emergency action plan
29 CFR 1910.38(c)(1)
Adequately trained first aid providers and adequate first aid supplies are readily available to treat an injured person, and facility policy puts that care ahead of any reporting or investigation step
29 CFR 1910.151(b)
Spills, debris, and other hazards revealed by an incident are cleaned up and the area is restored to a clean, orderly condition
29 CFR 1910.22(a)
A hazardous walking-working surface condition found during an investigation is corrected or repaired before an employee uses the surface again, and is guarded until the repair is complete
29 CFR 1910.22(d)
Where an incident reveals an unassessed hazard, the PPE hazard assessment is redone, new PPE is selected and communicated, and the written certification is updated, which is facility policy rather than a trigger set by the PPE standard
Every injury, near miss, and property damage event is reported the same shift and logged, and no employee is disciplined for reporting in good faith
Root cause analysis reaches a system cause and does not stop at operator error or failure to follow procedure
Every corrective action has a named owner and a due date, and is closed only after effectiveness is verified on the floor
Waitlist
Generate this SOP for your facility
At launch you answer the facility questionnaire once and this template comes back with your equipment, your titles, and your sign-off sheet attached.
This page is informational and is not legal advice. Have a qualified safety professional review any procedure before it goes into service at your facility.