What this is
What is an unsafe condition?
What is an unsafe condition?
An unsafe condition is a physical state of the workplace, plant or environment that creates risk regardless of how anyone behaves around it: a missing guard, a blocked fire exit, a failed luminaire, standing water on a walkway. It differs from an unsafe act in where the fault sits. The condition persists whether or not a person is present, so the control must be engineered or repaired rather than instructed.
How does an unsafe condition report differ from a hazard report?
A hazard report describes a source of harm in general terms, often as part of a planned assessment. An unsafe condition report is narrower and always reactive: something previously acceptable has degraded, broken or been obstructed. A hazard feeds risk assessment; a condition feeds a work order. Filing one as the other lands the record in a queue nobody manages.
What does ISO 45001 cl.6.1.2 require of hazard identification?
Clause 6.1.2 requires an ongoing and proactive process for identifying hazards, explicitly including those arising from infrastructure, equipment, materials and the physical conditions of the workplace. The word carrying the weight is ongoing. A process that identifies hazards only during a scheduled audit cannot see conditions that arise and are cleared between audits.
Scope
When is an unsafe condition report required?
This record covers physical conditions that have degraded and need restoring. It sits between the person who sees the problem and the person who holds the spanner, and is short enough to complete standing in front of the condition.
Use this template when
- A guard, interlock, handrail, floor surface or lighting installation has failed or been removed and not replaced
- A means of escape, fire point or electrical panel is obstructed
- A spill, leak or accumulation creates a slip, trip or contamination risk
- Plant is leaking, running hot, carrying damaged cabling or left in a state unsafe to approach
- A condition you fixed yourself in under a minute, where the fix is temporary or the condition has appeared before
Do not use it for
- Unsafe Act Report, which records a way of working that puts someone at risk, where the fault is method rather than plant.
- Hazard Report, which records a source of harm identified proactively and feeds risk assessment, not a repair queue.
- Housekeeping Deficiency Report, which handles untidiness, storage and general order where nothing has physically failed.
- Stop Work Record, which is the instrument for halting an activity; this report documents the condition, not the decision.
- Property Damage Report, which covers loss and damage to assets where no person was placed at risk.
Compliance mapping
Which ISO 45001 cl.6.1.2 requirements does this satisfy?
Each requirement below is tied to the section of the form that carries its evidence. Where more than one field applies, the section named is the one an auditor opens first.
| Clause | Requirement | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| ISO 45001 cl.6.1.2 | Ongoing and proactive identification of hazards arising from infrastructure, equipment and physical workplace conditions | The condition |
| ISO 45001 cl.5.4 | Mechanisms for workers to report hazardous situations without reprisal and be told the outcome | Report |
| ISO 45001 cl.8.1.2 | Application of the hierarchy of controls, with repair and engineering control preferred over administrative measures | Response |
| ISO 45001 cl.10.2 | Reaction to a nonconformity, correction, and evaluation of the need for action to eliminate the cause | Response |
| ISO 45001 cl.5.3 | Assignment of responsibility and authority at the point where the work is done | Response |
| ISO 45001 cl.7.5.3 | Documented information controlled and retrievable against the site and location it concerns | Where |
What it does not cover
- An email or verbal report to a supervisor, which carries no location, photograph or owner and cannot be retrieved when the condition recurs eleven months later.
- A paper defect book at the line, which records but does not satisfy cl.9.1.1, because nothing in it can be counted, filtered by asset or trended.
- The maintenance work order alone, which records the repair but not the risk, the urgency or whether the area was isolated.
- A monthly inspection checklist, which is periodic by design and cannot demonstrate the ongoing identification cl.6.1.2 requires between inspections.
- A CAPA raised after the fact, which documents the systemic response but leaves no evidence of who saw the condition, when, or in what state.
Global
Unsafe Condition Report requirements by country
Physical conditions are the most heavily prescribed area of safety law, because they are the easiest to inspect. Three regimes shape how this record is read.
Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, regs. 5, 8, 12 and 17; PUWER 1998, regs. 5 and 11
Duties on the physical state of workplace and work equipment, with maintenance as a continuing obligation rather than a scheduled task.
Reg. 5 requires the workplace and its equipment to be maintained in efficient working order and good repair, and expects a suitable system of maintenance. This log is the ordinary evidence such a system exists and reacts. Where the condition is a dangerous part of machinery, PUWER reg. 11 is effectively strict, and a report showing the guard was known defective and left in service is close to conclusive.
29 CFR 1910.22, 1910.37(a), 1910.212(a) and OSH Act s.5(a)(1)
Condition-specific standards enforced by inspection, with the General Duty Clause covering recognised hazards no standard addresses.
Each standard is cited on what a compliance officer physically observes: obstructed exit routes, walking surfaces in disrepair, machines unguarded at the point of operation. Your own reports become recognition evidence under s.5(a)(1), and can turn a serious citation into a repeat one where the record shows the condition reported before and not durably corrected.
Directive 89/391/EEC, Arts. 6(3), 9(1)(a) and 13(2)(d); Directive 89/654/EEC on workplace requirements
A framework duty of continuous improvement, coupled with an explicit duty on the worker to report.
Art. 13(2)(d) obliges every worker to immediately inform the employer of any work situation presenting serious and immediate danger, and of shortcomings in the protection arrangements. Member State transpositions make that enforceable, so the employer must provide a route for it. A channel that is hard to reach, or visibly produces no response, undermines the Art. 6(3) risk evaluation.
How to complete it
How to complete an unsafe condition report, step by step
Four decisions inside this form determine whether the record defends the organisation or damages it. None are about typing.
Urgency drives routing, so there is quiet pressure to under-rate anything that would wake somebody up. The honest test is not how bad the condition looks but what happens if nobody attends for the rest of the shift. If the answer involves anyone reaching past an unguarded part, walking the failed surface or using the obstructed exit, the rating is Immediate.
This field appears only when Urgency is Immediate, and it is the most consequential answer in the form. No means the organisation identified a danger it called immediate and continued to expose people to it, and there is no version of that sentence that reads well in an investigation. If isolation genuinely was not possible, Condition Found must say what was done instead.
Yes should mean the condition is gone and will stay gone. A cable-tied guard, a cone over a floor defect or a taped-off panel are holding measures, and answering Yes for them removes the condition from every follow-up queue while leaving the hazard in place. The correct entry is No, with a work order raised and the interim measure noted.
The two fields are not duplicates. One asks whether the hazard has gone; the other asks whether the reason it appeared is still operating. A guard removed for cleaning every night, a lamp that fails monthly, a spill from a coupling never replaced — all warrant Yes and a CAPA reference, even where the fix took two minutes.
What auditors find
Most common unsafe condition report findings
These findings recur across audits of this record type, with the clause each engages and the change that closes it.
| Finding | Clause | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Reports are raised only for conditions that could not be fixed on the spot, so the log understates frequency by an order of magnitude | ISO 45001 cl.9.1.1 | Make Fixed Immediately a normal outcome, not a reason to skip the form, and track reporting rate per area as a leading indicator. |
| Asset and Asset ID are blank on most records, defeating recurrence analysis by equipment | ISO 45001 cl.6.1.2 | The Asset picker is filtered to the selected site, so the list is short. Require it where Condition Type is Damaged guard, and review blank rate monthly. |
| Urgency is set to Immediate but Area Isolated is answered No, with no explanation in the narrative | ISO 45001 cl.8.1.2 | Route that combination to the area owner as an exception, and require a stated interim control in Condition Found before closure. |
| Work Order Raised is Yes but Work Order ID is never populated, breaking the link to maintenance | ISO 45001 cl.10.2 | Work Order ID is conditional on Work Order Raised being Yes and links to the work order; make it required so closure cannot occur without the reference. |
| Photograph is taken after the condition is cleared, so the evidence shows a tidy floor rather than the hazard | ISO 45001 cl.7.5.3 | Train reporters to photograph before intervening where it is safe, and take any image of the corrected state as a second upload, not a replacement. |
| Records sit at Open indefinitely because the Area Owner named has left or never existed | ISO 45001 cl.5.3 | Area Owner is a user field, not free text. Maintain the area-to-owner mapping in the site register and audit the Overdue bucket weekly, not at management review. |
Case in point
Case in point: the guard that was reported four times and repaired once
A chilled foods plant ran condition reporting on paper at the line. Over fourteen months the cutting room slicer had its interlock guard refitted repeatedly on night shift, each time inside fifteen minutes. Because the fix was quick and the line kept running, only one of those events produced a written record, closed as Fixed Immediately with no asset reference.
The interlock eventually failed open during wash-down and an operator reached into a moving blade. The investigation asked how often the guard had needed attention; the answer available to the company was once, while the fitters' recollection put it nearer a dozen. That gap was the finding — not that the guard was defective, but that nothing could notice it was chronically defective.
The template
The template, field by field
The form exactly as it installs. Every field, option, score and conditional rule is editable, and the links to other templates come with it.
4 sections
- Reference
- SAF-014
- Archetype
- Record
- Record ID
- CASE-2026-000
- Scoring
- Urgency band
- Direction
- High is bad
- Singleton
- No
- Basis
- ISO 45001 cl.6.1.2
- Links
- Feeds CAPA, work order
- Tags
- Hazard, Leading
- Sections
- 4
- Fields
- 24
- Follow up fields
- 6
- Repeating sections
- 0
- Links out
- 4
Report
4 fieldsCase ID*
Auto sequence. Format CASE-2026-00000.
The record's own ID. Other templates point at this value.
Status*
Drives who this goes to next.
- Planned2 pts
- In progress2 pts
- Complete3 pts
- Deferred0 pts
- Open0 pts
- Closed3 pts
- Overdue0 pts
Date and Time*
Reported By*
Where
4 fieldsSite*
Site ID*
Format SITE-000.
Links to FDN-001 Site ID
Area*
The area within the site.
Exact Location
Drop a pin for anything hard to find.
The condition
7 fieldsCondition Found*
Photograph*
Condition Type*
Damaged guard, spill, poor lighting, blocked exit, damaged floor and so on.
Asset
Asset ID
Format AST-0000.
Links to FDN-002 Asset ID
Urgency*
Immediate danger, this shift, this week or routine.
Area Isolated
Response
9 fieldsFixed Immediately*
- Yes2 pts
- No0 pts
Work Order Raised
Work Order ID
Links to MNT-002 Work Order ID
Action Required*
Raise the action record, then enter its reference here.
- No2 pts
- Yes0 pts
Priority
- High0 pts
- Medium1 pt
- Low3 pts
CAPA ID
Format CAPA-2026-00000.
Links to FDN-014 CAPA ID
Action Owner
Area Owner*
Signature*
SAF-014 · record IDs look like CASE-2026-000 · Feeds CAPA, work order
Open in KnowellaRun it with agents
From a document you fill in to a programme that runs itself
The form takes ninety seconds. The effort goes on routing each report to the right owner, chasing the ones that stall, and noticing when the same asset appears for the fifth time.
Owns the report: routes on Urgency, escalates any Immediate record where Area Isolated is No, and holds the photograph and location against the case so evidence stays together through closure.
Picks up the maintenance half. Where Work Order Raised is Yes it carries the reference back into the report, and surfaces assets accumulating repeat conditions before failure becomes injury.
Handles conditions created by or affecting contractors, so the report reaches the responsible firm's supervisor as well as your area owner rather than sitting in a queue they cannot see.
Watches the log across sites, flags recurrence by asset and area, drafts the CAPA where a pattern is established, and holds every write for your approval.
This template lives in KnowSafe — safety and compliance. Incidents, hazards, permits, inspections and the critical controls behind them.
Meet KnowSafe→Glossary
Unsafe Condition Report definitions and key terms
- Unsafe condition
- A physical state of plant, structure or environment creating risk independently of how any person behaves around it.
- Interim control
- A temporary measure such as isolation, barriering or signage reducing exposure while a permanent repair is arranged. It never closes the condition.
- Hierarchy of controls
- The ranking in ISO 45001 cl.8.1.2 requiring elimination and engineering measures to be considered before administrative controls or PPE.
- Recurrence
- The reappearance of the same condition on the same asset or location — the only signal distinguishing a component fault from a random event.
- Leading indicator
- A measure taken before harm occurs, such as reports raised per area per month, judging whether the reporting system is alive rather than whether injuries fell.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about unsafe condition report
Should a condition that was fixed in under a minute still be reported?+
Yes, and this behaviour alone determines whether the log is worth anything. The individual fix is trivial; the pattern is not. Fixed Immediately exists so a resolved condition can be logged in seconds without generating follow-up work.
What is the difference between raising a work order and raising a CAPA here?+
A work order restores the condition. A CAPA addresses why it arose and prevents its return. The fields are separate because most reports need one, some need neither, and recurring ones need both.
Who should be named as Area Owner?+
The person with budget and authority over the physical area — not the reporter, and not the maintenance planner. If one name covers every area on site, closure will bottleneck on that individual, which shows up quickly in the Overdue bucket.
Can this template be used for a near miss?+
No. If someone was nearly harmed, that is a Near Miss Report, which captures the sequence of events and the people involved. This record captures a state. Where both apply, raise the near miss and reference the condition report from it.
Is anonymous reporting supported?+
Reported By is a required user field, so the template as shipped is attributed. That is deliberate: it lets the reporter be told what happened, which is what sustains reporting rates.
How should the Area list be adapted?+
The shipped options reflect a food processing site. Replace them with your own areas before rollout, and keep the list short enough to pick one-handed on a phone. Exact Location covers anything the list cannot resolve.
Keep going
Related templates and programmes
Industries this is written for
Programmes this belongs to
Used together in Incident and Investigation
Root Cause Analysis
Finds out why something happened rather than who was involved
Corrective and Preventive Action
The single action record used everywhere
Finding
Records a single deficiency picked up during an audit, inspection or check
Effectiveness Verification
Checks whether an action actually worked, some time after it was put in place
Just Culture Determination
Separates a system problem from a genuine choice to take a risk, using a consistent set of questions
Extent of Condition Review
Asks two questions after an investigation: where else does this same condition exist, and where else could this same cause bite us
More in Hazards
Hazard Report
Reports something that could hurt someone, before it does
Unsafe Act Report
Reports a way of working that puts someone at risk
Stop Work Record
Records that work was stopped because it was not safe to continue
Safety Suggestion
Captures an idea for making work safer or easier
Housekeeping Deficiency Report
Reports untidy or obstructed areas that create slip, trip and fire risk
Ergonomic Concern Report
Reports a task or workstation that causes discomfort, strain or awkward posture
Written and reviewed by
Siddarth Singh
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Knowella
Certified Safety Professional and industrial and systems engineer with more than a decade inside food supply chain, freight and manufacturing operations. This page was written against the current text of the standards it cites, not against secondary summaries of them.
- Certified Safety Professional (CSP), Board of Certified Safety Professionals
- MBA, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- MS and BS, The Ohio State University, Industrial and Systems Engineering
- Six Sigma Black Belt
Sources and last review. Reviewed 16 August 2026 against:
- ISO 45001:2018 — Occupational health and safety management systems, cl.6.1.2, cl.8.1.2, cl.10.2
- Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 (SI 1992/3004), regs. 5, 8, 12, 17
- Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (SI 1998/2306), regs. 5 and 11
- 29 CFR 1910.22, 1910.37(a), 1910.212(a); OSH Act 1970 s.5(a)(1)
- Council Directive 89/391/EEC, Arts. 6(3), 9(1)(a), 13(2)(d)
This page is general guidance, not legal advice. Confirm requirements with your jurisdiction’s regulator.