Incident Logging Program Launch Checklist
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A one-page checklist for the person setting up or resetting a workplace incident logging and alert program, covering definitions, the report form, routing and escalation, corrective action tracking, recordkeeping, trend review, and the drills that keep the whole chain honest.

[ ] Written definitions for incident, near miss, hazard and observation, agreed with supervisors, and printed on or linked from the report form so everyone logs the same things.
[ ] Report form trimmed to the fields a frontline worker can fill in from a phone in a minute or two, with photo capture and location, and every optional field justified or removed.
[ ] At least one reporting path that works without a login, a desk or a strong signal, such as a QR code posted at each work area or a shared kiosk, plus an anonymous option.
[ ] Reporter always gets a confirmation and, later, a note about what was done, because the fastest way to kill reporting is silence after a report.
[ ] Severity scale defined in plain language with three to five levels, including a way to flag a near miss as high potential even though nobody was hurt.
[ ] Routing matrix written down for each combination of severity, category and site: who is notified first, by which channel, and within what acknowledgment window.
[ ] Escalation path defined for every serious event, with the next name in line if the first recipient has not acknowledged inside the window, and on-call coverage for nights, weekends and holidays.
[ ] Channel matched to urgency: text or phone for serious events at any hour, app or email for routine hazards, and a weekly digest for observations, so nobody learns to ignore alerts.
[ ] Contact list reviewed against the current org chart, with one owner responsible for updating it whenever someone changes roles or leaves.
[ ] Full alert chain tested with a drill at least quarterly, from a test report on a phone to the last person on the escalation list acknowledging it.
[ ] Investigation depth rule agreed: a short conversation for simple events, a timeline or cause-and-effect review for complex or high-potential ones, and never an outcome that stops at a person's name.
[ ] Every corrective action captures a named owner, a due date, a definition of done and a verification step, and the hierarchy of controls is checked before settling for retraining.
[ ] Single list of open corrective actions visible by owner and by age, with overdue items escalating automatically to the owner's manager.
[ ] Verification done by someone other than the action owner, after a period of real use where possible, before an action can be marked closed.
[ ] Person named who makes the OSHA recordability decision for each injury, and a note in the log of where the official Form 300, 301 and 300A records live, since the internal log does not replace them.
[ ] Retention period for records confirmed against the current federal rule and any state plan that applies to each site, and the annual summary posting window put on the calendar.
[ ] Standard inspection packet defined so the same set of documents can be produced for any site on short notice: log extract, open and closed actions, training records, inspection history.
[ ] Monthly review meeting scheduled with a fixed agenda: new events by type and area, open actions by age, repeat locations or equipment, and one leading indicator such as hazard reports per worker.
[ ] Leading indicators chosen and tracked alongside injury counts, so the program measures reporting and closure rates rather than waiting for a serious injury to prove a point.
[ ] Same categories, severity scale and form used at every site, with a site field on each report so trends can be compared across locations without cleaning the data first.
[ ] One person named as the owner of the program as a whole, with time in their week to keep the routing matrix, contact list and review meeting alive after the launch energy fades.
[ ] Date set, ninety days out, to revisit this checklist with real data and change whatever the first reports proved wrong.