Indicators of Safety

Phil La Duke — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:16:41 GMT

When I initiated this discussion thread I was struggling to develop the indicators of a truly safe company (as opposed to a company that is just plain lucky). So many of you asked me to share my conclusions so I submit for your consideration my indicators (in no particular order) of the relative risk of a catastrophic injury I am also providing a first stab at how one would measure these attributes

Leadership Engagement in Safety
Indicators:
o Safety Inspections are conducted by first line supervision (or their managers).
o Incident Investigations are conducted by first line supervision (or their managers).
o Safety data is tracked and analyzed by Operations leadership.
o The efficacy of Incident Investigation is judged by Operations leadership.
o A system for holding operations personnel accountable for safety exists.
o CIW events focused on improving safety are led by Operations.
o Leadership will not jeopardize worker safety in pursuit of production goals
Employee Engagement in Safety.
Indicators:
o Number of safety inspections conducted in an area each week.
Average number of hazards found per inspection.
o Ratio of Hazards Found to Actual Injuries
o Average Continuous Improvement events focused on safety each month.
Compliance
Indicators:
o Government mandated training is delivered and tracked by Operations leadership.
o Progress toward correcting known areas of non-compliance is tracked and managed by Operations .
o Supervisors know when workers in their department are required to take refresher training and the jobs for which an individual is qualified
o Supervisors do not direct workers to complete task for which they are not qualified.
o Safety professionals audit the plant for violations at least annually.
o Disciplinary records for non compliance with PPE track favorably to injuries that would have been prevented had the injured party been wearing PPE.
o Evidence of proactive compliance exists.
Problem Solving
Indicators:
o Ratio of Near Misses to Actual Injuries
o Ratio of Hazards Found to Actual Injuries
o Days to correct Hazards (by risk priority)
o Percentage of workers who have received task-specific safety training
o Safety data is monitored and analyzed instead of just displayed without interpretation
Safety Strategy
Indicators:
o Safety Leading and Trailing Indicators are monitored, trends are reviewed by Operations Leadership
o Zero injuries is the goal.
o Leadership believes that having a safety record that is better than average for its industry is irrelevant
o Leaders believe that having zero injuries is not the same as having zero risk, and that unless they understand why their safety efforts are producing positive results the results themselves are meaningless with respect to predicting future performance

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Indicators of Safety