Ep. 623 Near Misses Are Often Missed Opportunities

Rancho Mesa's Alyssa Burley sits down with Sam Clayton, Vice President of the Construction Group to talk about using near misses on a jobsite as an opportunity to create corrective plans before an incident occurs.

Show Notes: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to Rancho Mesa's Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Alyssa Burley⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sam Clayton⁠

Editor: ⁠⁠Megan Lockhart⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Music: "Home" by JHS Pedals, “Breaking News Intro” by nem0production

© Copyright 2026. Rancho Mesa Insurance Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

Transcript

Alyssa Burley: You’re listening to Rancho Mesa’s StudioOne™ podcast, where each week we break down complex insurance and safety topics to help your business thrive.

I’m your host, Alyssa Burley, and today I’m joined by Sam Clayton, Vice President of the Construction Group with Rancho Mesa. And, we’re going to talk about using near misses on a jobsite as an opportunity to create corrective plans before an incident occurs.

Sam, welcome to the show.

Sam Clayton: Good morning, Alyssa. Good to be back in StudioOne™.

AB: We're happy you're here. Now, you recently wrote an article about near misses often being missed opportunities, meaning contractors should use a near miss to be proactive in mitigating a risk perhaps they hadn’t previously addressed. Will you explain what a “near miss” is and why it’s so critical for contractors to pay attention to them before an actual claim occurs?

SC:

AB: What are some common examples of near misses on construction sites, and how can recognizing these incidents help prevent more serious accidents or claims?

SC:

AB: How are tools like SafetyOne™ helping your contractor clients turn near miss reports into actionable steps that improve safety and reduce financial or reputational risk?

SC: Sure. Before we get into like a near miss, let's kind of define or give OSHA's definition of what a near miss is. OSHA defines near miss as a potential hazard or incident in which no property was damaged and no personal injury was sustained. But where given a slight shift in time or position, damage or injury easily could have occurred. So really, in a nutshell, it's basically that moment that we've all had. once or twice in our life where our life flashes before our eyes.

AB: Yeah.

SC: That's the near miss opportunity that I'm talking about. It's kind of life or death situation. So these are really important for contractors to take note of. And too many times I see contractors focusing on claims after they happen, and in my opinion, that's being reactive. And I would recommend having your foreman or project managers focus on the near misses because they're missed opportunities. The problem is it's the elephant in the room. It's the, oh my gosh, this could have happened. thank God it didn't, and thank God that the foreman or superintendent didn't see it.

AB: That's probably the truth there. And it's not being reported. And then you're not learning from it.

SC: And then you're not learning from it. So that's the missed opportunity.

AB: So do you think that it's a safety culture type thing?

SC: Absolutely, and I kind of went like, you know, by talking about it, hopefully, one, it gives the employee empowerment, right? Yeah. Because he's not fearful of his job. But then it changes the culture from, you know, this punishment culture to we're working together as a team so that we're better. So it's the elephant in the room.

AB: Yeah, and so I think you're right. I think the owner of the company probably never hears about those near misses. And so how do you address, how do you fix something if you don't even know that it's a problem? And so the root of it is let's change the culture, allow employees to say, hey, this almost happened. Could you imagine if you were an employee and you were on the job site and you almost died, right? And you can't say anything. And then the next guy, you know…

SC: It happens to him…

AB: He might be put in the same situation until at some point. It gets so bad that someone does get injured.

SC: Until there's an incident, right? And then all of a sudden it's like, oh my gosh, accident investigation.

AB: How did this happen?

SC: How did this happen? What could we have done differently? It really changes from the starting point.

AB: Yeah, absolutely. So what are some common examples of near misses on construction sites? And how can recognizing these incidents help prevent more serious accidents or claims?

SC: Well general engineering contractors work with excavation, heavy equipment, and around utilities, and near misses often signal events that could easily lead to fatal or multi-million dollar claims. So an example of this would be two pieces of equipment almost colliding at a blind corner on a job site or a trench wall shifting or beginning to collapse while workers are inside. These site conditions are constantly changing, which creates new hazards. So near misses help identify these risks early.

AB: So how are tools like Safety One helping your contractor clients turn near miss reports into actionable steps that improve safety and reduce financial or reputational risk?

SC: Well, through Rancho Mesa's Safety One platform, reports of near misses can alert the company safety manager, to conduct an on-site safety observation where they can then assign the responsibility for corrective actions to the appropriate person within the company.

AB: Yeah, and there's quite a few different tools in Safety One that can help your clients identify an issue or report and document that there was a near miss and then actually go out to the job site and do an observation, identify, okay, what is the actual cause of this near miss and address it there. And it's all documented and it makes it easy for our clients to identify and document and make sure that it's been fixed as much as you can out on a job site. I know you mentioned that. Job sites are continuously changing. Every day it's going to look a little bit different, but that means that everybody on the job site needs to be vigilant and needs to be paying attention and looking for those potential hazards that maybe weren't previously there the day before.

SC: Couldn't agree more.

AB: Yeah, all right Sam, if listeners have questions about their near miss reporting process or best practices, what’s the best way to get in touch with you?

SC: Yes, you can reach me at sclayton@ranchomesa.com, or call me directly, (619) 937-0167.

AB: All right, well Sam, thanks for joining me in StudioOne.

SC: Thanks for having me.

AB: Thank you for tuning in to our latest episode produced by StudioOne™. If you enjoyed what you heard, please share this episode and subscribe. For more insights like this, visit us at RanchoMesa.com and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.