Don’t blame but seek to learn

Workplace blame culture

A blame culture refers to an environment where people, or groups/teams of people, are frequently singled out and blamed, criticised and fault is dished out for mistakes and errors. This results in a situation where people are reluctant to accept responsibility for their actions and mistakes because they are afraid of reprisal from their managers, including fear of losing their jobs. This then breeds an ongoing atmosphere of disengagement, which is not good news for your business.

The blame game

If you ask a young child who has been caught red-handed with their hand in the biscuit barrel and accuse them of stealing, the majority will answer “it wasn’t me” and perhaps point the finger at a sibling who “made me do it”. When blame is bandied around, our natural instinct is self-preservation and our defences kick in to protect ourselves from the outcome. As we grow older, this instinctive protection can become apparent in the workplace if an accident occurs.

Accident liability

If you approach the investigation with a blaming, critical attitude you will find that your workers may close ranks to protect each other, may lie by omission and you won’t get to the bottom of a complex situation. By having an open, blame-free approach and reassuring not just the injured party but any witnesses, supervisors, etc. that you are simply establishing facts and haven’t judged people at this stage, you’ll engage your teams and be far more likely to get an accurate version of events, than a cagey minimalistic answer.

Avoid falling into the blame trap

When an incident occurs in the workplace, it tends to generate a huge amount of emotion including concern, worry, anger, guilt, incredulity, sometimes even mocking and possibly a combination of all of these. You may think this incident has put your targets off track which may sway your feelings towards the situation, but keep in mind that the staff involved in the incident will probably not understand that you have your own pressures. By adopting a standardised attitude to incident investigation you will send a strong message to your staff that you are seeking to learn from the incident to prevent reoccurrence.

Practical advice

• adopt an approach using the principles of fairness, respect, equality, dignity and autonomy
• don’t use negative words, e.g. blame, fault, shortcomings, incompetence as this will indicate you are pre-judging
• focus on systems not people as avoidable accidents are often caused by inefficient processes failing to remove or reduce the risk
• focus on what you know you can improve, both in the short and long term to demonstrate action and commitment to safety for your staff
• provide clear feedback so they know that their input into the investigation has been listened to, and possibly acted upon meaning they will be more forthcoming in future situations.

Tip. Try to keep your emotions inconspicuous, and base your investigation on facts only, not assumptions and feelings.