Measurements that Correlate to Successful Safety Performance

Tracking performance is critical to continual improvement and success but, in the area of safety, many organizations have struggled to identify measurements that have a strong correlation to successful performance.

Many companies make the mistake of relying exclusively on lagging indicators, such as incident rates, lost or restricted workdays, or Workers’ Compensation costs. Although these can be useful with respect to benchmarking within similar industries, they only provide a retrospective view of your safety program performance.

A better practice is to incorporate leading indicators—which identify, track, measure, and correct the factors that have a strong correlation with potential accidents—into your overall safety metrics strategy. The goal is to use this information to identify causal factors in an accident and take preventative measures to correct them. This strategy is also an excellent opportunity to increase your overall employee participation in your safety program

·        Identify trailing (lagging) and leading measures and metrics and use them in an effective way

·        Select EHS measures that drive high performance safety management success for your company or at specific facilities

·        Create the right balance in your safety performance measurement between leading and lagging measures

·        Incorporate benchmarking considerations in your EHS measurement systems

·        Use audit results as a key measure of safety performance improvement

·        Track key EHS metrics—and why those EHS measures could have the greatest impact on your company’s safety and health program!

·        Use measures to motivate, drive performance, and foster continuous improvement

·        Objectively maximize the use of leading safety measures

·        Embrace the qualitative value of EHS measures—and why safety professionals must resist pressures to avoid them

·        Effectively—and successfully—communicate EHS performance factors with CEOs, CFOs, COOs, and the board of directors to increase leadership buy-in and supervisory accountability

For more information on AwardSafety products or services or other white papers please contact us at awardsafetyinfo@cox.net