safety performance measurement.doc

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Safety Performance Measurement

Going Beyond Lost time Injuries

“You can’t manage what you can’t measure” – Drucker

"If we are in the business of promoting OHS, why do we use failures as the measure o

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 n

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 et

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’ even



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 monitorin

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 monitorhow effective our control

Examples of the Application of Positive Performance Measures for Safety

Objective Indicator Measure/monitor Results ImproveAll activities to be

subject to hazard

analysis and risk

assessment

Risk Assessment % Risk assessment complete

% Control measures

implemented

Track reported % on a

monthly basis by

area/department

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

Review progress at

monthly senior

management

meetings, target

areas for

improvement

Provision of safe

place of work

Work place

inspection target for

each frontline

supervisor across

whole site on a

monthly basis each

with specific area

Workplace visibility

tour by middle and

senior managers in

their work area once

per month

% Scheduled inspections

complete by name and work

area/dept.

% Actions arising complete by

name and work area/dept

% Visibility/Inspection Tours

complete


monthly basis by

area/department

Review progress at

monthly senior

management

meetings, target

areas for

improvement

Employees working

safely

Behavior based

observations

% Employees working safely

% PPE compliance


monthly basis by

area/department

Review progress at

monthly senior

management

meetings, target

areas for

improvement

Incident reporting and

implementation

remedial measures

Timeliness of

reporting

Incident

% Incidents reported within 24

hours


monthly basis by

area/department

Review progress at

monthly senior

management



investigation

effectiveness Log of

corrective actions

% Near miss incidents

% Incident investigation

complete on time

% Corrective actions

implemented

All by area/dept.

meetings, target

areas for

improvement

Safe and competent

employees

Performance

assessment

including training

needs identification

Training records

% Performance assessments

complete

% Scheduled training complete

All by area/dept.


monthly basis by

area/department

Review progress at

monthly senior

management

meetings, target

areas for

improvement

Improve safety

awareness

Toolbox talks on

targeted topics

monthly by all

Supervisors

% Tool Box Talks complete by

Dept.

% Employees attending

% Actions arising complete

All by Area/Dept.

% Safety Representatives

Trained


monthly basis by

area/department

Review progress at

monthly senior

management

meetings, target

areas for

improvement

Improve safety

culture

Annual climate

survey

Overall findings based on

selected criteria

All by Area/Dept.

Track trends on annual

basis and by area/dept

Review progress at

annual senior

management

meetings, target

areas for

improvement

Examples of PPM’s 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 PPM’s

provides information on how the system operates in practice, identifies area where

remedial action is required, provides a basis for continuous improvement and provides

mechanism for feedback and consequential motivation.

Should you consider applying PPM’s for safety in your workplace, it is vitally important

that for any PPM chosen everyone understands exactly what’s being measured and wha

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 t

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 improvement

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 safet

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 ar

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 whereupo

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

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. Mo

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 ma

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 an

in any case periodic audits will check systems such as this remain effective in the long

term.

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