Safety Performance Measurement Going Beyond Lost time Injuries You cant manage what you cant measure

Drucker "If we are in the business of promoting OHS, why do we use failures as the measure of our success?" - Rose

Today, many industries and indeed regulatory agencies still focus completely on common safety performance measures such as lost time injury frequency rate and number of lost days in an effort to measure safety performance. Unfortunately, such indicators just measure failure to control and give no indication of risk management effort, which may take time to come to fruition. Such outcome measures, when used to judge safety performance, are known as lagging indicators.
Use of Lagging Indicators - Lost time injury frequency rate, severity rate, lost days etc.

Advantages

Motivate management An accepted standard Long history of use Used by government agencies, industry associations Easy to calculate Indicate trends in performance Good for self comparison

Disadvantages Reactive

Easily manipulated May be biased (management attitude to restricted work, Doctor influence/worker attitude to light duties/compensation system/safety awards& competitions)

Figures measured are typically low making it difficult to establish trends

Incident occurs managers/safety specialists put it down to a once off/freak event

Advantages & Disadvantages of Lagging Indicators Significantly however, what we are all seeking is continuous improvement towards an incident free workplace, yet when measuring lagging indicators we are only monitoring our performance at the last stage (how many fatalities, injuries, illnesses and what rate do we experience these in our operation?) Rather, we need to examine the processes that lead to these failures and monitor how effective our control
Examples of the Application of Positive Performance Measures for Safety Objective
All activities to be subject to hazard analysis and risk assessment

Indicator
Risk Assessment

Measure/monitor
% Risk assessment complete % Control measures implemented

Results
Track reported % on a monthly basis by area/department

Improve
Review progress at monthly senior management meetings, target areas for improvement Review progress at monthly senior management meetings, target areas for improvement Review progress at monthly senior management meetings, target areas for improvement

Written Work Procedures in place for critical activities

Work procedures

% Written procedures complete

Track reported % on a monthly basis by area/department

Provision of safe place of work

Work place each frontline supervisor across whole site on a monthly basis each with specific area

% Scheduled inspections area/dept. % Actions arising complete by name and work area/dept

Track reported % on a monthly basis by area/department

inspection target for complete by name and work

Workplace visibility tour by middle and senior managers in their work area once Employees working safely per month Behavior based observations % Employees working safely % PPE compliance Track reported % on a monthly basis by area/department Review progress at monthly senior management meetings, target areas for Incident reporting and Timeliness of implementation remedial measures reporting Incident % Incidents reported within 24 hours Track reported % on a monthly basis by area/department improvement Review progress at monthly senior management % Visibility/Inspection Tours complete

investigation effectiveness Log of % Near miss incidents corrective actions % Incident investigation complete on time % Corrective actions implemented All by area/dept. % Performance assessments complete

meetings, target areas for improvement

Safe and competent employees

Performance assessment including training

Track reported % on a monthly basis by area/department

Review progress at monthly senior management meetings, target areas for improvement

needs identification % Scheduled training complete Training records Improve safety awareness Toolbox talks on targeted topics monthly by all Supervisors % Employees attending % Actions arising complete All by Area/Dept. % Safety Representatives Improve safety culture Annual climate survey Trained Overall findings based on selected criteria All by Area/Dept. All by area/dept. % Tool Box Talks complete by Dept. Track reported % on a monthly basis by area/department

Review progress at monthly senior management meetings, target areas for improvement

Track trends on annual Review progress at basis and by area/dept annual senior management meetings, target areas for improvement

Examples of PPMs for Safety

Essentially PPMs are tracking the drivers of effective safety and risk management. Organizations need to recognize that there is no single reliable measure of health & safety performance, what is required is a basket of measures or a balanced scorecard providing information on a range of health & safety activities. Measurement of PPMs provides information on how the system operates in practice, identifies area where remedial action is required, provides a basis for continuous improvement and provides a mechanism for feedback and consequential motivation. Should you consider applying PPMs for safety in your workplace, it is vitally important that for any PPM chosen everyone understands exactly whats being measured and what significance the use of the measurement will have on producing the desired result in

your organisation. It should also be administratively practicable, quantifiable & reproducible, as objective and error free as possible and readily relate to aspect trying to control and/or goals set. It is also important to distinguish between two the types of process indicator: those, which focus on the behavior of employees and those, which measure management activity. Examples of indicators of employee behavior include; % of employees wearing PPE (safety glasses, harness etc.), % hoses rolled-up, % pre-start checks complete. One of the best features of such indicators is that merely publicizing the data within the workplace focuses attention on the problem and is likely to lead to safety improvements without the need for more direct or punitive management intervention usually within weeks not months, they are positive and focus on how good rather than how poor safety performance is involving all workers in improving safety, creating a safety culture and achieve "ownership". There is however a significant drawback to such indicators. They are focused on and aimed at changing the behavior of employees, not managers. Yet it is managers who are ultimately responsible for health and safety and who are in the best position to lead by example and take action where necessary. Hence the importance of indicators, which measure the safety related activity of management. Examples here include; % of workforce who has received specific safety training, % managers participating in safety talks, % of safety audits, % risk assessments. Such management indicators can usually be assigned once management has specified its safety objectives and targets whereupon appropriate measures, which measure actual performance, can be assigned. When considering PPMs for safety, define the key activities in your safety management systems that need to be promoted, reinforced and visibly drive the culture. Select the activity measures from these. For each of these PPMs you will need to list the measure to be used, how it will be collected, calculated and reported including the frequency of reporting. Some measures will need to be collected daily, others weekly or monthly. Most will need to be reported monthly or quarterly to be of value in monitoring performance (refer to examples in Table 2 for a typical site). Those chosen will vary depending on the maturity of the site and management style of the operation, significantly the measure need to be owned by the site personnel. Because PPMs can be more focused on risk areas or specific targets/objectives they may not need to continue as a constant or fixed PPM for years. If a particular area of concern or issue is brought under control there may be other priority areas to focus on and new PPMs can be adopted for these, so it is an ongoing improvement process using a

minimum number of PPMs relevant to an operation at the time. For example, it is not of much value reporting 100% employees have received inductions, month after month and in any case periodic audits will check systems such as this remain effective in the long term.