Incident Reporting Procedure Hi Catherine
In our system it is treated as an "Opportunity for Improvement" so covers safety, environment and quality. It may be an initial report prior to an investigation or it may simply be a headsup that a hazard has been identified and dealt to or a nearmiss occurred, to share the information with the rest of the team. Each Manager is responsible to followup to ensure appropriate immediate actions have been taken to avoid a recurrence or whether other resources are required to assist.
Agree with LouiseB no magic cure-all - it needs to be about encouraging people to share their knowledge, using their expertise to assist with finding solutions, taking care of others and providing feedback so they can see the positive changes happening. It also helps when they understand that by reporting, trends can be identified and even minor things that may be happening often can be monitored and tracked to assist to find solutions. CEO support with the message is really important and should not be underestimated.
We use an app on Smartphones which has assisted with increasing the reporting with those who don't like filling out forms but in saying that were also having good results with paper copies as they would at least verbally report to their Manager who would assist to fill the form out but now we are getting the pictures too and as they say a photo can save a lot of words. Good luck with the journey....
PS forgot to add in the early days we placed all the names of people who reported an incident into a hat each month, drew a name out and they won a voucher. Some would have reported anyway but It gave some an incentive and reason to make the effort and we improved the hazard and nearmiss reporting.