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What is SIF?
We’re not talking about paper cuts or splinters today, we’re talking about the things that can change lives or end them.
SIFs are serious injuries and fatalities. Sometimes it’s a fatal fall from height. Other times, it’s a near miss involving live electricity or a reversing vehicle. The outcome might be different, but the potential is the same. These are the events we have to stay ahead of - because one serious incident or fatality is one too many!
Why does it matter?
Traditional safety efforts have reduced minor injuries, but serious injuries and fatalities remain stubbornly high (EEI, 2024).
→ We must take responsibility NOW and focus on high-risk situations to act proactively.
GOAL: Eliminate/reduce dangers before they lead to serious harm or loss of life.
How can we help you preventing SIF?
At DuoDynamic Safety Solutions, we have delivered SIF prevention for many companies. Based on our experience and research in collaboration with industry partners, we have created a strategic overview.
This overview serves as guidance for a SIF prevention project but will be tailored to your business.
Phase 1: Standardise SIF Classification Within Your Company
In the initial step of the SIF Prevention Strategy, it is important that the people among your company have the same understanding of SIF and Potential SIF to create a foundation for the further steps. We like to use the EEI Safety Classification and Learning (SCL) Model or the Potential SIF Decision Tree by Dominic Cooper (LINK).
-> Creating a common understanding for what has SIF potential within your company!
Phase 2: Defining High-Potential Activities
After creating an understanding on what SIF is and how we identify it, we will start analysing the activities within your company and categories these rather they have a SIF potential or not. Examples for SIF areas are:
Working at height (4 feet or higher)
Lifting operations
Mobile equipment/traffic with workers on foot
High dose of toxic chemical or radiation
And many more....
-> Identifying SIF areas within your company!
Phase 3: Control Measures
To control SIF areas and prevent serious or fatal incidents we have found that the best strategy is to implement direct controls which directly address the hazard in form of:
Elimination - Removing the hazard entirely (e.g., de-energising a circuit, replacing hazardous tasks with automation, removing work at height).
Reduction - Lowering the level of hazardous energy to a manageable level where serious harm is no longer likely (e.g., lowering voltage, reducing pressure, using lighter loads).
Isolation - Separating a worker from the hazardous energy source (e.g., lockout/tagout (LOTO), mechanical blocks, line blanks).
BUT, we are aware, that direct controls are not always applicable...
Secondary Controls are necessary to reduce the risk.
Secondary controls reduce the chance of human error but do not directly remove or modify the hazard.
Physical Barriers – Exclusion zones, safety guards, traffic control barriers.
Monitoring (Eyes On) – A dedicated person watching a task (e.g., spotters, banksmen).
Reminders (Minds On) – Signage, alarms, warning signals.
Phase 4: Incident Investigation
SIF prevention is not a one-off thing. The strategy and the control measures must be adapted based on data from your company in form of leading indicators which will be set in the beginning of the strategy to measure the short and long term performance but also in form of lagging indicators. Lagging indicators can be incident rates, near misses or lost work time.
To adapt the strategy, we must understand WHY incidents still happen and take them seriously at all times. Even if a SIF has not occurred this time and the worker only experienced a shock, the incident must be thoroughly investigated (root cause analysis). We must examine human and system factors to uncover weaknesses in controls and feed lessons learned back into training and procedures.
-> A Potential SIF (PSIF) is more than a close call, it’s a lesson in disguise.
Phase 5: Proactive Risk Management
In the past phase we spoke about incident investigation and using lagging indicators to prevent future incidents.
BUT, we can also think about leading indicators within your company and how to prevent incidents proactive!
Over the years we have identified a few proactive initiatives focused on identifying and mitigating SIF before incidents occur.
Behavioural Safety - Understanding why people take risks and building habits that support safe decision-making.
Visible Leadership - Managers leading by example, encouraging safety conversations, and reinforcing safe behaviours.
Dynamic RA - Conditions can change quickly on site. Teams must use POWRAs and task specific safety briefings.
Interactive Reporting - Making it easy and positive to report near misses, unsafe conditions or improvement ideas and following up on what's reported.
Safety Champions - Empowering engaged team members to support their peers and help embed a strong safety culture at every level.
Site Observations - Carry out regular site observations to spot potential SIF precursors and spark real-time safety conversations with the workforce.
Why DuoDynamic Safety Solutions
We’re specialists in SIF prevention - We’ve supported companies across different industries to understand, identify and reduce their serious injury and fatality risks. From first steps to long-term strategy.
We combine research with real-world experience - Our approach is grounded in leading frameworks like the EEI SCL Model and builds on insights from frontline experience.
We make safety accessible - No jargon. No outdated PDFs. We use clear language, modern visuals and user-friendly tools to make safety guidance understandable and actionable – for everyone from the boardroom to the site.
Thank you for reading!
