Why do companies that “do everything right” still experience workplace accidents?
Every year, companies invest in safety training, procedures, audits, and protective equipment.
And yet, workplace accidents persist.
Not necessarily more frequent.
But often more severe.
And above all, recurrent.
This paradox is not new. It has been documented for several decades in occupational risk prevention, notably through the foundational work of the INRS, the CNAM, and international research in ergonomics and human factors.
A Key Figure on Workplace Accidents
According to consolidated data from the CNAM and the INRS, more than 70 percent of serious or fatal workplace accidents occur during tasks that are known, repetitive, and already mastered by employees.
In other words,
it is not exceptional situations that cause the most problems,
but everyday work.
This finding is consistent with accident analysis models developed since the work of James Reason and confirmed by the literature on industrial and organizational safety.
The Problem Is Not the Lack of Rules
In most organizations, the rules already exist.
Instructions are formalized.
Personal protective equipment is available.
Mandatory training has been completed.
However, research in prevention shows that beyond a certain threshold, the accumulation of rules and procedures no longer improves actual safety.
Accidents therefore do not occur because employees are unaware of risks, but because, in real work situations, other constraints temporarily take precedence.
The 10 Documented Reasons for the Persistence of Workplace Accidents
1. Daily operational pressure in real work
Research by the INRS and European studies shows that time pressure, production targets, and organizational constraints modify decision making, even when safety is known and understood.
Employees do not choose between safety and danger.
They choose between several competing constraints at the same time.
2. The gradual normalization of risk at work
The phenomenon of normalization of deviance, widely described in international literature, explains why non compliant practices become acceptable when they do not immediately lead to accidents.
This mechanism is frequently found in the analysis of serious accidents.
3. Weak signals and near misses left unaddressed
Near misses, workarounds, minor deviations.
Research shows they are rarely absent, but often not discussed collectively.
Yet a serious accident is almost always preceded by a series of weak signals that are ignored or minimized.
4. The gap between prescribed work and real work
Procedures describe ideal work.
The field imposes adjusted, sometimes improvised work.
The greater the gap between what is prescribed and what is actually done, the higher the risk, as shown by reference ergonomic analyses.
5. Fatigue, stress, and mental workload
Fatigue, stress, and cognitive overload reduce vigilance without appearing directly in accident statistics.
These human factors, well documented in occupational psychology research, significantly increase the probability of error and accidents.
6. Routine and overconfidence
Many serious accidents occur among experienced employees precisely because the task is perceived as mastered.
Repetition creates a sense of control that masks contextual variations and gradual drifts.
7. Implicit managerial trade offs
What management truly values through its decisions and priorities has more impact than institutional messages.
When production implicitly takes precedence over safety, behaviors adjust accordingly.
8. Prevention perceived as external to work
When prevention is experienced as an administrative or regulatory system disconnected from real activity, its effectiveness decreases sharply.
Research shows that prevention is far more effective when it is integrated into the work itself.
9. Fragmentation of responsibilities
Subcontracting, multiple interfaces, diluted roles.
Organizational gray zones are documented risk areas, often absent from traditional indicators.
10. Confusion between safety indicators and real safety
Stable or improving indicators can mask a slow degradation of vigilance, practices, and decision making.
Numbers are reassuring, but they do not tell the whole story of real safety.
Conclusion
Workplace accidents are not primarily the result of individual errors or a lack of rules.
They reflect a work system and the daily trade offs that occur within it.
Effective prevention relies less on adding new mechanisms than on understanding real work.
Going Further
Understanding why workplace accidents persist is an essential first step.
But it is also necessary to know where to act concretely in order to reduce them sustainably.
In a second article, we detail the truly effective levers, validated by research and field experience, to move from formal prevention to safety that is genuinely lived in everyday work.
- Read the next article:
What Really Reduces Workplace Accidents Today
Key Takeaways
- Workplace accidents rarely persist due to a lack of rules or equipment.
- More than 70 percent of serious accidents occur during ordinary, known, and repetitive tasks.
- Safety indicators can mask slow but real drifts in everyday work practices.
- Operational pressure, routines, and implicit trade offs play a central role.
- Understanding real work is a prerequisite for effective prevention.
- Sustainable accident reduction relies on systemic levers, not on piling up procedures.
FAQ
Why do workplace accidents continue despite existing prevention measures?
Because formal prevention does not always cover real work situations. Employees often know the rules but must deal with time, production, or organizational constraints that influence their decisions in the field.
Are safety rules ineffective?
No. Rules are necessary and essential. However, research shows that beyond a certain point, their accumulation alone is not enough to improve real safety if they are not connected to actual work practices.
Why do accidents often occur during routine tasks?
Because repetition creates routine and overconfidence. Contextual variations, fatigue, or unexpected events then go unnoticed, increasing risk during activities that are otherwise well mastered.
What are weak signals in workplace safety?
They include near misses, minor deviations, workarounds, or unusual situations that do not cause immediate accidents but reveal fragility in the work system.
Are safety indicators misleading?
They are not false, but incomplete. Stable or improving indicators can coexist with a gradual degradation of real practices, as highlighted by INRS and CNAM analyses.
What should be addressed to sustainably reduce accidents?
Recent research emphasizes starting from real work, treating near misses as learning resources, clarifying managerial trade offs, and working on safety culture rather than regulatory compliance alone.
Sources :
INRS. (2023). Understanding workplace accidents and acting in prevention. National Research and Safety Institute for the Prevention of Occupational Accidents and Diseases.
INRS. (2022). Human and organizational factors and safety culture.
CNAM. (2023). Workplace accident and occupational disease statistics. French National Health Insurance, Occupational Risks.
Reason, J. (1997). Managing the risks of organizational accidents. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
Reason, J. (2008). The human contribution: Unsafe acts, accidents and heroic recoveries. Farnham, UK: Ashgate.
Dejours, C. (2015). The human factor. Paris, France: Presses Universitaires de France.
Hollnagel, E., Woods, D. D., &Leveson, N. (2006). Resilience engineering: Concepts and precepts. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
Eurogip. (2021). Prevention of serious and fatal workplace accidents. Eurogip.