Reasons for underreporting incidents – Stats

Why don’t workers report hazards? Some great insight into this question in a 2010 paper. Over a decade after the research was conducted, I wonder if psychological safety has improved, and the reasons have changed?

Probst and Estrada’s 2010 study of under-reporting of incidents and hazards remains one of the more comprehensive studies exploring the reasons why hazards go unreported. The research explored the factors shaping whether workers report a hazard or incident. Fear of blame, loss of incentives, organizational culture, and poor psychological safety were some of the main reasons workers do not report concerns.

Reasons for under-reporting

I took care of the problem myself;
73.8%
I did not want to go through the follow-up interviews and questions;
69.0%
I did not think anything would be done to fix the problem
51.2%
I did not think it was that important
47.5%
I thought it would make work unpleasant
41.5%
I did not want to the one to break the company's accident-free record
37.5%
I thought it would affect my crew's safety scorecard
37.2%

Consequences of reporting

Your group lost scorecard points
37.3%
You were blamed for the incident
23.9%
You were blamed for ending the company's accident-free record
21.7%
People gossiped about you in an unkind or negative way
19.7%
You were unfairly disciplined
18.6%
You were mistreated in some other way
11.6%
You were given an unfair performance evaluation
11.4%
You were given less favorable duties
10.0%

Note: Numbers could add to greater than 100% since multiple responses were permitted during the research