Why Near Misses Go Unreported: The Real Impact of Psychological Safety in Shift-Based Workplaces

Alison Butler
3 days ago
3 min read

The Near Miss No One Spoke Up About

A few months ago, a supervisor told me about a near miss that no one reported until the end of the week.

Not because the team didn’t care. Not because they didn’t notice. But because they didn’t feel safe to speak up in the moment.

They didn’t want to “slow things down.” They didn’t want to “get someone in trouble.” They didn’t want to deal with the reaction.

Here’s the part that stuck with me:

Everyone on that crew assumed someone else would say something. No one did.

And for those of us who work with industrial teams, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and other high-risk, shift-based workplaces, that silence might be a familiar story.

Why Workers Stay Silent Even When Safety Is at Stake

Psychological safety isn’t about being nice. It’s about whether workers feel safe enough to say:

“Something’s not right.”

“Can we stop for a moment?”

“I might be missing something here.”

In many industrial workplaces, the calculation becomes:

“Will I get blamed?”

“Will they take me seriously?”

“Will this cause problems for me later?”

If that answer is unclear, people choose silence.

Not because they don’t care but because the risk of speaking up feels too high.

This is how unreported near misses happen.

Not from indifference.

From fear, uncertainty, and experiences that taught workers to keep things to themselves.

And when you add in shift pressures, production demands, fatigue, rotating supervisors, and inconsistent communication?

Psychological safety gets shaky fast.

The Role of Psychological Safety in Manufacturing, Mining & Transportation

In high-risk environments, manufacturing floors, mine sites, trucking operations, warehouses, hazards change constantly.

A small concern on days becomes a bigger one on afternoons… and a serious issue on nights.

Without strong psychological safety, teams don’t share the early warning signs.

This creates:

Gaps in shift-to-shift communication
Missed opportunities to prevent incidents
Tension between crews
Fear of retaliation
A culture where only the loudest voices speak

Psychological safety is not a soft skill here.

It is a critical safety control.

And when it’s missing, near misses pile up quietly

Silence Is a Safety Hazard

When people don’t feel safe to speak up in the moment, things slip through the cracks — equipment issues, process inconsistencies, fatigue concerns, warning signs that something isn’t right.

Silence is predictable.

And predictable hazards are preventable hazards.

That’s why building speak-up culture matters just as much as PPE, training, and tools.

It’s one of the most underused and most powerful ways to improve safety outcomes in industrial workplaces.

Want Practical Tools for Building Speak-Up Culture?

That’s exactly why I created Psychological Safety Beyond the Buzzwords a free, practical guide designed specifically for shift-based industrial workplaces in manufacturing, mining, and transportation.

If you want real-world tools to: