Last blog post we discussed how a popular mainstay of measuring safety effectiveness isn't all it's cracked up to be. Incident rates, longtime make-or-break measure for how your safety program is doing... don't do what we've long thought they do.
So what now?
Safety has long suffered from a data problem. As more of the world moves into gathering and analyzing data, the traditional way of measuring data in safety means there is less data available.
Think about it -- the safer your company becomes, the less incidents happen (which, obviously, is great!), and then the less information you have about what might go wrong.
As time goes on, you can become blind to risks that might be bubbling under the surface. New risks that you haven't recognized yet, and older risks that may be increasing again.
This is scary but manageable. The solution isn't to throw up our hands and give up: we just have to be smarter about what data we measure.
The more traditional way of data gathering in safety is called "lagging indicators." This is because we measure something after the fact. Common lagging indicators include:
- The big baddie we already talked about: Incident rates
- Worker's compensation number of claims and costs
- Fines from regulatory agencies (OSHA, etc)
- Lost workdays
- Property damage costs
There is nothing wrong with measuring these, but it is important to recognize their limitations. These are all "rear view mirror" perspectives. Once you've addressed the root cause of the kinds of incidents you are seeing, there will be less of this type of data available. Congratulations, you're moving toward safety success! But, unfortunately, your work is not done.
The next phase is managing those risks that you don't necessarily see. You need a "forward view." This can be provided by intelligently measuring what are called "leading indicators." Most of these relate to measuring proactive actions taken toward identifying risks and preventing incidents. While you will never know for sure that you've prevented a specific incident, this data will show how proactive your company is being in reducing your risk.
Some examples of leading indicators include:
- Rate of action items identified during incident investigations closed vs. open
- Rate of safety inspections completed on time
- Rate of employee attendance at safety trainings
- Number of toolbox talks completed
- Number of job safety analyses (JSA's) completed
- Number of risk assessments completed
- Number of near misses reported (while near misses themselves are lagging indicators, the fact that employees report them are leading indicators!)
- Rate of equipment inspections completed as required
Measuring this data opens up several important possibilities. First, it gives you an opportunity to assign SMART annual safety goals to employees, if your employees already have annual performance management goals. These goals are in their control, as they are not tied to incident rates. Did they attend all assigned safety meetings? Did they complete their equipment inspections in the correct timeframe? This gives employees ownership of the safety program as well.
Second, this data is invaluable to help with that "forward view." While we cannot ever know the future, these measurements help defray those unknown risks by demonstrating that your company is proactive.
Third, this is a great source of data if you ever do come under investigation by a regulatory agency. You can absolutely show all the proactive actions taken by your company in an attempt to make your company safer.
You don't need to start out measuring each leading indicator above -- why not pick a couple for this next year and start there? The constellation of leading indicators you choose must make sense to you as a company.
If you have any questions at all, reach out to TT&S for consultation on what type of indicators might make the most sense for your company to measure.
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