THE RISK NO ONE SEES COMING

The incident report was textbook perfect. Equipment checks signed off. Induction completed. PPE worn. Every box ticked. Yet the new employee still ended up in hospital. The supervisor had been covering two roles for three months. The experienced worker who normally trained newcomers was on stress leave. And the "quick question" that might have prevented everything? No one felt comfortable asking it because the boss had been visibly stressed for weeks.

This is the pattern I see often. Incidents are rarely caused by a missing checklist or an unknown hazard. They happen when pressure has been building quietly, and no one stops to talk about it.

When people think about workplace safety, they picture obvious hazards: machinery, traffic, and chemicals. But the issues that cause the most disruption are usually developing in the background while everyone's too busy getting through the day.

A team member who's stopped speaking up in meetings. A supervisor insisting they're fine while stretched. A culture where deadlines win over discussion. A near miss that gets noted but never unpacked because “we’ll deal with it later."

None of these looks dramatic.

On their own, they don’t seem urgent, but together, they set the stage for something to go wrong.

I worked with a transport company where drivers had created their own fix for a loading issue. It saved fifteen minutes off each trip. Everyone did it. It worked fine for two years. Until it didn't. The shortcut wasn’t wildly reckless. The real problem was that it existed outside the official process. New staff were trained in one way, but the job was actually done another way. That gap is where we risk lives. Safety isn’t about adding more paperwork. It’s about being honest about how work really happens and making sure everyone is on the same page.

We’re good at pushing through. That’s something I genuinely respect. But there’s a difference between resilience and slowly building up problems we don’t talk about.

The businesses that handle this well ask simple but uncomfortable questions.

Are our expectations realistic? When someone raises a concern, do we listen or label them difficult? When something goes wrong, do we look for lessons or someone to blame? These questions directly affect whether a business runs steadily or lurches from one issue to the next.

One of the most interesting conversations I’ve seen was between a tourism operator and a mining contractor. Different worlds on the surface. But when they started talking about managing busy seasons and fatigue, they realised they were dealing with the same pressures in different ways. Each walked away with ideas they hadn’t considered before.

There is a lot of practical wisdom in this community. The real opportunity comes when people step outside their own industry bubble and share what they have learned. Because often, the risk no one sees coming is one that someone else has already faced and figured out.

KRIS COTTER:

Founder: Regional Safety Expo Australia

Director: Synergy Safety Solutions.

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