Ep. 645 Accident Investigation Turning Incidents into Opportunities for Improvement

Rancho Mesa's Alyssa Burley sits down with Sam Clayton, Vice President of the Construction Group to talk about how construction companies can to turn accidents into opportunities for safety improvements on the jobsite.

Show Notes: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to Rancho Mesa's Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Megan Lockhart

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

Megan Lockhart: 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, Megan Lockhart, and today I’m joined by Sam Clayton, Vice President of the Construction Group with Rancho Mesa. And, we’re going to talk about how to turn accidents into opportunities for improvement.

So Sam, welcome to the show.

Sam Clayton: Morning, Megan. Good to be back in StudioOne™.

ML: Now, you previously discussed the value of learning from near misses in episode 623. And unfortunately, not all companies take the time to learn from those and end up experiencing a workplace incident. So, how does a formal accident investigation program help contractors uncover root causes and prevent similar incidents from happening in the future?

SC: It's a great question. In order for contractors to uncover root causes from job site accidents, they really need to perform an accident investigation. This is a formal process where the employee secures the job site, takes pictures, gets statements to really find out exactly what happened. For example, let's say one of your employees falls off a ladder. Obviously, the first thing that the foreman wants to do is make sure that that person gets the proper medical attention that they need. But afterwards, they should perform the actual investigation process. And during this investigation process, they're going to uncover, you know, Why exactly did he or she fall from the ladder? Was the ladder they were using adequate for the type of job that they were doing? Was the ladder inspected? Were they trained on how to use that ladder? So there's a lot of different things that could have caused the accident because the accident is the accident, but what actually really caused it? So by doing that investigation, it'll help contractors kind of... take that information so they can use to train their employees so that the accident doesn't happen again.

ML: That makes sense. So what would you say are the key steps foremen or supervisors should follow when conducting an accident investigation?

SC: So the key steps in a successful accident investigation are secure the scene to ensure the area is safe and preserve any evidence. Gather information by interviewing witnesses, reviewing documentation. and collecting facts, analyze the root cause to determine the underlying factors that contributed to the accident, and then implement the corrective actions so that you address the deficiencies to reduce it from reoccurring. And one of the things that we look at for our insureds is after they've had an accident or injury, a lot of times our underwriters will want to know, well, what has the employer done to prevent that from reoccurring.

And the accident investigation really helps with that because it uncovers the root causes and then provides a training opportunity for the employer to not only provide to the crew that was on the job site when the accident occurred, but to also train your employees who weren't on that job site. Because at the end of the day, they're going to hear that one of their coworkers suffered an accident. You want to make sure that they're aware that you have their best interests in mind and that you're following up with training. Because ultimately, we just want to prevent the claim from reoccurring.

ML: Yeah, that makes sense. So why is it important to focus on corrective action rather than assigning blame to employees?

SC: Well, I think focusing on the corrective action rather than assigning blame really kind of helps you as a company be able to have open communication with your employees. Going back to my last podcast with the near misses and, you know, having your employees have the ability to communicate with their foreman or this job site superintendent that, hey, this almost happened, but it didn't. Unfortunately, we're talking about the post-accident investigation. And really, you know, you shouldn't assign blame because that really misses the opportunity to really provide the open communication. within your company and ultimately improve morale.

ML: Yeah. You know, even discourage people from reporting that they had some type of near miss or something because they don't want to get in trouble.

SC: Right. The fear of repercussion.

ML: Yeah. You know, safety is everybody's responsibility.

SC: Yeah. You know, safety is everybody's responsibility.

ML: So with that said, how can training programs and tools like Rancho Mesa’s Safety Star™ Program and SafetyOne™ Platform help contractors strengthen their accident investigation process and improve workplace safety outcomes?

SC: Well, our Safety Star™ Program I think is a great jumping off point for a lot of companies because the first module is accident investigation. And fortunately, accidents don't occur every day. Employers may have one or two during the course of a year. So having your foreman properly trained on how to perform an accident investigation is really important and it's not something that they do every day you may have a foreman who's never done an accident investigation so to kind of expect them to be able to do one and have it be effective is can be challenging right so by enrolling your employees in the safety star program and having them take it you know at least the first module on accident investigation kind of gives them the groundwork on you know what to do and what's needed So that ultimately it doesn't happen again.

ML: Right.

SC: In addition to the Safety Star™ Program, we also have our SafetyOne™ or our mobile app. And what that does is it's an automated process for them to answer the questions needed for an accident investigation program.

ML: Right.

SC: And ultimately, you can assign trainings that are specific to that incident.

ML: Right. So Sam, that was a lot of really insightful information. But if listeners have questions about their accident investigation 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 at (619) 937-0167.

ML: Well Sam, thanks for joining me in StudioOne.

SC: Thanks, Megan.

ML: 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.