The Corrective Action Workflow

Corrective actions — sometimes called CAPA (Corrective and Preventive Actions) — are the tasks you raise to eliminate or control hazards, respond to incidents, and prevent recurrence. Getting the workflow right is central to an effective safety management system.

The four-stage workflow

Open → In Progress → Completed → Verified

This four-stage flow is intentional and maps to real-world accountability:

Stage	Who sets it	What it means
Open	System (on creation)	Action exists and is assigned; work not yet started
In Progress	Assignee	Assignee is actively working on the action
Completed	Assignee	Assignee believes the work is done
Verified	Admin or Owner only	A second person has confirmed the work is truly complete and effective

Why four stages instead of two?

Many organisations use a simple Open/Closed workflow. SteadyOn uses four stages because:

Completion and verification are different things. When a worker marks an action as Completed, they are saying “I’ve done the work.” When an Admin marks it as Verified, they are saying “I’ve checked the work and confirm it is effective.” This two-person sign-off is a key control in any quality or safety management system — it prevents actions from being closed out without anyone actually checking the outcome.

In Progress is useful for planning. Knowing which actions are actively being worked on (versus assigned but not started) helps managers prioritise their follow-up conversations.

How actions are created

Actions can be created in three ways, each leaving a link back to the source:

From a hazard

Raising an action from a hazard creates a link so you can see all the control tasks associated with that hazard. When you view the hazard detail page, all linked actions appear below with their current status.

From an incident

Raising an action from an incident creates the investigation-to-action link. This is important for demonstrating to a regulator that you not only recorded the incident, but took concrete steps to prevent recurrence.

Standalone (manual)

Some actions do not stem from a specific hazard or incident — for example, scheduling a plant maintenance service or procuring new PPE. These are created directly in the Actions module with source type Manual.

The hierarchy of controls

When you create an action, you classify it using the hierarchy of controls — a globally recognised framework for the relative effectiveness of different control types:

Level	Control Type	Example	Effectiveness
1	Eliminate	Remove the chemical	Highest
2	Substitute	Replace with a safer alternative	High
3	Isolate	Install machine guarding	High
4	Engineering	Improve ventilation	Medium
5	Administrative	Write a new procedure	Medium
6	PPE	Provide gloves and goggles	Lowest

The hierarchy matters because controls higher up the list are more reliable. PPE can fail; engineering controls generally cannot. When raising actions, aim for the highest practical control type.

Priority levels

Priority	Intended use
Immediate	Must be done today or within 24 hours — life-safety risk
Short-term	Within 1–4 weeks — significant risk that cannot wait
Long-term	Within 1–6 months — improvement or lower-priority control

These are labels to guide urgency. The actual due date you set is what drives the BRAG status.

What makes a good action?

A well-written corrective action should be:

Specific — Install anti-slip tiles throughout kitchen (20m²) not Fix the floor
Measurable — you can check whether it is done
Assigned — one named person is responsible, not a team or role
Time-bound — has a realistic due date
Linked — connected to the hazard or incident that raised it

Vague actions — Review safety procedures or Improve training — are hard to close out and easy to forget. Be specific enough that the assignee knows exactly what to do and you know exactly what to check.

Managing overdue actions

An action becomes overdue when its due date passes and it is not yet Completed or Verified. Overdue actions:

Turn Red BRAG immediately
Appear in the Overdue section at the top of the Actions list
Appear in Today’s Focus on the dashboard

If an action cannot be done by its due date, update the due date with a realistic new date and add a note explaining why. Do not leave actions sitting overdue without explanation — this is the pattern that leads to regulatory findings.