Challenge the Illusion of Safety

In this episode, Trish Kerin and Traci Purdum discuss process safety insights with Alex Fernando and Warren Smith from Incident Analytics. Their research analyzed over 10,000 incidents across 12 countries and multiple high-risk industries.

Key findings include that organizations often misclassify serious incidents, missing critical learning opportunities. Many safety controls are "difficult" or "unworkable" in practice, with workers adapting procedures to get jobs done despite inadequate equipment or impractical requirements. The research reveals a significant gap between "work as imagined" and "work as done."

A fundamental shift in leadership thinking needs to take place — from asking "why didn't they follow the procedure?" to "why couldn't they follow the procedure?"

References: 

Whitepaper 1 

Whitepaper 2