"If you can't measure it, you can't improve it"
Commonly used as an opening sentence at a management training session, renowned thinker Peter Drucker is famously credited with the above saying referring to the notion that you cannot be successful unless success is defined and tracked. Without clear objectives, you're always going to be stuck guessing and unfortunately that just does not cut it anymore in today's fast paced business world.
It is normally that time of the year (if you go by the financial year that is!) where you have been asked by your manager to come up with a set of clear objectives for health and safety within your company. Indicators to which the overall performance of the organization can be measured and targets can be set. After all your superiors need to know what resources need to be allocated based on some of the targets you have set.
I will use this article to provide you with a number of key health and safety performance indicators with an emphasis on how these can be measured to provide you with a road map to the overall health of your company's health and safety performance. The same KPI's should also be used to gauge performance year after year, more indicators may be added at a later stage as your organisation grows and more data becomes obtainable. You should however, stay consistent with the ones you started with.
Before I start, we would need to briefly discuss the concept of leading and lagging indicators as we generally look at leading indicators when KPI's are set. We will have some lagging data too of course, I will however explain how you can use elements of the lagging data to obtain the leading indicators needed. Don't worry, I will explain how this works.
Leading indicators (A.K.A being proactive) can be measured without an incident, accident or property damage occurring. They are useful in being able to predict or prevent future events and are often linked to processes or targeted activities. Examples of these can include safety audits, behaviour based observations, near miss reports, site inspections, number of HSE trainings or pre task discussions conducted.
Reactive data such as lost time incidents, minor accidents, first aids, medical cases, lost work days, employee absenteeism data or property damage are indicators that show the number or severity of events which have occurred. These of course are considered as lagging indicators.
Considering leading indicators, the below are examples of some of the basic health and safety KPI's that could be applied to monitor the health and safety performance of any organization. It is normally advisable that these indicators are worked out in terms of percentages to provide a clear overview of performance:
Percentage of Health and Safety Training completed:
This is a great leading indicator for overall HSE performance and one that from my experience usually correlates to an overall strong health and safety performance.
A number of systems need to be in place before you can set this one as your KPI. You need to have conducted a detailed health and safety training needs analysis, signed off training matrixes highlighting the health and safety trainings for every individual within the organisation, have a database or learning management system in place to record who has undergone the required training and who has not, and finally, a means for delivering the actual training to the employees.
At the end you should be able to get a total number of H&S trainings required within the company and you should also know who has completed how many H&S related trainings.
Formula = (Total Number of H&S trainings completed / Total number of H&S Trainings required)
Percentage of accident investigation actions closed out:
As we discussed earlier, accidents are normally lagging indicators, however I also mentioned that we can use lagging data to obtain leading indicators. The actions that come out of accident investigations are a great example of this. Measuring the percentage of investigation actions that have been closed out within a given time frame is a strong leading indicator of whether the organization is learning from its incidents.
Number of near miss reports:
The number of near miss reports submitted is a strong leading indicator of the reporting culture within an organization. A high number of near miss reports is generally a positive sign, as it indicates that employees are comfortable reporting unsafe conditions and near misses before they result in incidents.
Number of safety observations:
Behavioural safety observations are a key leading indicator. Measuring the number of observations conducted, the quality of those observations, and the trends in the behaviors observed provides a proactive measure of safety performance.
Percentage of inspections completed on schedule:
This is a simple but effective leading indicator. If your inspection program is falling behind schedule, it is a sign that safety is not being given the priority it deserves.
Percentage of corrective actions closed out on time:
This is another leading indicator that measures the organization's responsiveness to identified hazards. A high percentage of corrective actions closed out on time indicates a proactive safety culture.
When setting KPI's it is important to remember that the goal is not to generate numbers for the sake of numbers. The goal is to use the data to drive improvement. KPI's should be reviewed regularly, the trends should be analysed, and the insights should be used to make decisions about where to focus resources and effort.
The strongest organizations use a balanced set of leading and lagging indicators. Lagging indicators tell you what has happened, leading indicators tell you what is likely to happen. Together, they provide a complete picture of the health and safety performance of the organization.