Leading and Lagging Indicators in Safety
While lagging indicators can alert you
to a failure in an area of your safety and health program or to the existence
of a hazard, leading indicators allow you to take preventive action to address
that failure or hazard before it turns into an incident.
Leading indicators can play a vital role in
preventing worker fatalities, injuries, and illnesses and strengthening other
safety and health outcomes in the workplace.
Leading indicators are proactive and preventive
measures that can shed light about the effectiveness of safety and health
activities and reveal potential problems in a safety and health program.
Many employers are familiar with lagging
indicators. Lagging indicators measure the occurrence and frequency of events
that occurred in the past, such as the number or rate of injuries, illnesses,
and fatalities.
While lagging indicators can alert you to a failure
in an area of your safety and health program or to the existence of a hazard,
leading indicators are important because they can tell you whether your safety
and health activities are effective at preventing incidents.
A good safety and health program uses leading
indicators to drive change and lagging indicators to measure effectiveness.
Leading indicators are a valuable tool regardless
of whether you have a safety or health program, what you have included in your
program, or what stage you may be at in your program.
Leading indicators can improve organizational
performance in a variety of ways. Employers may find that leading indicators
can:
- Prevent workplace injuries and illnesses.
- Reduce costs associated with incidents.
- Improve productivity and overall organizational
performance.
- Optimize safety and health performance.
- Raise worker participation.
The drawbacks of lagging indicators
The major drawback to only using lagging indicators
of safety performance is that they tell you how many people got hurt and how
badly, but not how well your company is doing at preventing incidents and
accidents.
The reactionary nature of lagging indicators makes
them a poor gauge of prevention. For example, when managers see a low injury
rate, they may become complacent and put safety on the bottom of their to-do
list, when in fact, there are numerous risk factors present in the workplace
that will contribute to future injuries.
Best practices for using leading indicators
Companies dedicated to safety excellence are
shifting their focus to using leading indicators to drive continuous
improvement. Lagging indicators measure failure; leading indicators measure
performance.
According to workplace safety thought leader Aubrey Daniels, leading
indicators should:
1.
Allow you to see small
improvements in performance
2.
Measure the positive: what
people are doing versus failing to do
3.
Enable frequent feedback to
all stakeholders
4.
Be credible to performers
5.
Be predictive
6.
Increase constructive problem
solving around safety
7.
Make it clear what needs to be
done to get better
8.
Track Impact versus Intention
While there is no perfect or “one size fits all”
measure for safety, following these criteria will help you track impactful
leading indicators.
What is HIRA | Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment
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