From manufacturing floors to hospital corridors, frontline workers encounter potential hazards daily. Yet many incidents go unreported. That’s because in every organization, the people who see risk first are often the ones farthest from the systems built to manage it. The reasons are familiar: Reporting feels cumbersome, feedback takes too long, and, too often, nothing seems to change. That silence isn’t apathy — it’s friction. And every unreported observation represents a missed opportunity to prevent the next event. A 2023 study found that anywhere between 20% and 91% of an organization’s workers do not report work-related injuries or illnesses for reasons including fear of consequences, cumbersome processes, and the perception that risks are “part of the job.” The real challenge for safety leaders is closing the distance between insight and action. When reporting is simple, visible, and rewarded, participation rises naturally and safety becomes something employees help shape, not just follow. Technology is making that possible by folding the frontline directly into the safety process. Key Reasons Why Workers Don’t Report Underreporting doesn’t happen because people don’t care about safety. It happens because the system around them makes reporting feel like a risk itself. Key factors include: Fear and Friction Before speaking up, many workers don’t ask, “Is this safe?” They ask, “Am I going to get in trouble?” If reporting feels like a path to blame or punishment, people naturally stay silent. This dynamic often forms even in organizations with good intentions. Workers also may withhold reporting when their efforts seem to be in vain; slow feedback or no visible change lessens the perceived value in contributing. Complexity Even motivated employees can lose patience when reporting takes time away from the job. Paper forms, complex portals, or systems that require logins can create small obstacles that add up. When a hazard takes minutes to identify but 15 minutes to report, most people choose the path of least resistance and just move on. Normalization of Risk In high-hazard environments, workers can become desensitized to danger. Hazards that should be flagged start to feel “routine” or “part of the job.” Without visible action or reinforcement from leadership that every near miss matters, employees learn to tolerate risk instead of reporting it. Over time, silence becomes habit and small hazards can snowball into serious events. How to Make Reporting Easy Changing safety culture starts with access. When reporting becomes as quick and intuitive as sending a message or snapping a photo, participation stops feeling like a task and becomes second nature. Here are three ways to enable easy participation: 1. Meet Employees Where They Are Reporting should happen in the flow of work, not outside of it. Field employees shouldn’t have to leave the job site or log in from a desktop to share what they see. Mobile-first systems, QR codes on equipment, or kiosk options in shared spaces make it easy for every worker to participate without disruption. How to implement it: Integrate reporting options into existing workflows, not as add-ons. For example, use QR codes or NFC tags on jobsite signage and equipment so employees can scan and log a hazard immediately from their phones. Offer multiple input paths (mobile, tablet, shared kiosk) so every worker, including outside contractors, has equal access. In industries with limited connectivity, enable offline reporting that syncs automatically once back online. Small operational design choices like these eliminate excuses and make reporting habitual. 2. Don’t Just Shorten, Simplify A short form isn’t the same as a simple one. The goal is to eliminate friction points, not context. Pre-filled details like location, date, and supervisor; drop-down menus for common hazards; and photo uploads instead of long text fields all make reporting faster and more approachable without sacrificing quality. How to implement it: Audit your current reporting process from the worker’s perspective. Time how long it takes to submit an observation and how many fields require manual entry. Then, remove anything that doesn’t drive insight or accountability. Replace narrative questions with standardized fields and automate data capture where possible. Then, pilot your updated workflow with frontline teams for feedback; simplification is most effective when it’s done with employees, not just for them. 3. Make the Impact Visible Ease of reporting means little if employees never see what happens next. Workers are far more likely to keep speaking up when they know their input leads to real action. Simple practices like showing open items during team huddles or highlighting recent hazard fixes on digital dashboards can close the feedback loop and build trust. How to implement it: Integrate visibility into routine communication. Use shared dashboards to review outstanding issues in daily huddles, send short notifications when corrective actions are completed, and spotlight success stories such as a resolved hazard that prevented a potential incident. Even brief, public acknowledgments show employees their contributions matter. Over time, this transparency turns participation into pride and reporting into a core part of how teams communicate. Buy-In at Every Level At its core, participation reflects trust. Buy-in follows naturally when employees believe their input matters and when the systems they use make it easy to share that input. Accessibility isn’t just a convenience feature; it’s the foundation of engagement. Every worker who can report a hazard with two taps instead of two forms and who sees their feedback acknowledged instead of ignored becomes an active part of the safety culture. That’s what real buy-in looks like. Not compliance driven by policy, but participation driven by connection. And the same principle applies across the organization. Executives buy in when they see how safety impacts performance. Peer departments buy in when collaboration removes redundancies. Frontline workers buy in when they see action and recognition. In each case, access to data, communication, and shared goals is what builds alignment. Learn how EHS leaders are using connected technology to win executive support, unite risk and operations, and empower every employee to take part in prevention. Download our guide The Safety Buy-In Blueprint: How to Win Support Across Your Organization.