How to Engage Frontline Workers in Near-Miss Reporting
Jean-Grégoire Manoukian
February 26, 2025
Near-miss reporting helps to uncover hazards and risks and creates opportunities for improvement by providing a goldmine of data for analysis.
Leading companies understand the importance of near-miss reporting. According to an EHS Today survey of 631 EHS professionals, near misses are the top leading indicators, with 83% of respondents saying they track near misses, followed by employee audits and observations (79%), and participation in safety training (77%).
Frontline workers are critical to the success of a near-miss reporting program because they face workplace hazards and risks daily and are great sources of information.
Here are four tips to successfully engage frontline workers in near-miss reporting.
1) Make it easy
The easier a tool is to use, the more likely people are to use it. Employees and contractors should be able to enter near misses in a mobile app connected to a central EHS software. Frontline workers are more likely to participate in near-miss reporting if they’re able to do it quickly and easily through smartphones or tablets.
Mobile tools for near-miss reporting should include these key features:
- Multilingual support. If you have a global and diverse workforce, support for local languages will drive worker participation in near-miss reporting.
- User-friendly workflow. The mobile app must guide users and help make the reporting of near misses seamless and fast. Free-text data fields should be limited as much as possible in favor of fields with drop-down lists. Also, auto-complete fields can accelerate data entry.
- Speech-to-text. It may not be easy or convenient for a worker in a specific environment to type information on a smartphone or tablet. Speech-to-text helps in such situations.
- Media attachments. The near-miss reporting mobile app should offer the ability to quickly and easily take images or record videos, and to include media files.
- QR code. An organization’s own employees may already have the company mobile app for near-miss reporting on their smartphones or tablets. But contractors should also be able to report near misses. Host employers can make it
easy for contractors to download the mobile app by scanning a QR code posted at job sites. While contractors should use the mobile app, they must not have access to the host employer’s backend EHS software system.
Worker reluctance to report near misses due to fear of retaliation or concerns about making colleagues look bad is a major deterrent for participation in many near-miss reporting programs. This can be the case especially in organizations with operations across the globe where there may be different cultural values and mindsets.
Anonymity can help to overcome this challenge. When a worker enters a near miss, they should have the option to report anonymously. A mobile app can have anonymous reporting by default with an option for workers to identify themselves.
After deploying a near-miss reporting program, evaluate and compare participation rates across all sites. If near misses are not being reported, consider offering the option for workers to report near misses anonymously.
3) Gamify, but verify
Friendly competition often motivates employee participation. Enhance your near-miss reporting program by gamifying it—compare the number of near misses submitted by different workgroups, plants, regions, or countries. Reward the top-reporting group with a shared prize or recognize individual employees with the highest number of near misses reported within their groups or across the company.
To minimize the potential of reported near misses that don’t truly qualify, consider implementing a review process to verify before counting a near miss towards competition totals. Ensure that reported near misses meet the necessary criteria while keeping the program efficient and avoiding excessive administrative complexity.
4) Show the results
Workers may be more inclined to report near misses if they clearly see the positive impact on workplace safety. Go beyond simply sharing the total number of reported near misses and highlight real examples—share stories of near misses that were investigated, hazards uncovered, and resulting improvements made.
Explain the specific actions taken, such as implementing new controls, updating work procedures, or launching awareness campaigns.
When reported near misses lead to meaningful changes that enhance worker safety, many will be motivated to actively and continually participate in the near-miss reporting program.
Ultimately, repetition reinforces learning. Along with the four tips mentioned above, consistently emphasize the purpose and importance of the near-miss reporting program, the reporting process, and where to find additional resources. Ongoing reinforcement will keep workers actively engaged.
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About the Author
Jean-Grégoire Manoukian
Wolters Kluwer Enablon
Jean-Grégoire Manoukian is Content Thought Leader at Wolters Kluwer Enablon. He is responsible for thought leadership, content creation, as well as the management of the Enablon blog and social media activities. He also provides subject matter expertise to the global marketing team. JG started at Enablon in 2014 as Content Marketing Manager and has more than 25 years of professional experience, including many years as a product manager for chemical management and product stewardship solutions. He also worked in the telecommunications industry as a product marketing manager.