Measuring a Company’s Safety Performance

Determining whether your company’s OHS program is effective can be challenging. There’s no clear cut, definitive way to measure a company’s safety performance from year to year so you can make comparisons and see trends. The best way to measure safety performance may, in fact, be to use a variety of difference methods.

We recently asked how you measure your company’s safety performance, allowing you to choose multiple options. The top techniques were:

1. Tracking reported injuries and illnesses (84%). Of course, to track injuries and illnesses, you have to be sure that workers report them to their supervisors or another person in the company, which in turn will likely trigger your duty to report under the OHS laws.
2. Conducting workplace inspections (78%). Ensure that your inspections are effective with these five tips. And here’s an inspection worksheet that you can download and use to document hazards identified during such inspections.
3. Tracking near misses (59%). Take these eight steps to effectively manage near misses in your workplace. And adapt this model near miss reporting form that workers can use to report these events.
4. Conducting audits of the OHS program (55%). Watch this recorded webinar to learn how to conduct effective safety, health and environmental program audits.
5. Monitoring worker engagement in safety (37%). Watch this recorded webinar by Robert B. Hafey, author of Lean Safety: Transforming Your Safety Culture with Lean Management, to learn some strategies for getting worker interest and buy-in for the OHS program and workplace safety in general.
6. Tracking discipline for safety infractions (33%). Go to the Discipline and Reprisals Compliance Centre for articles, tools and other resources to ensure that you properly discipline workers for safety infractions without committing reprisals.
7. Tying management compensation to safety performance (16%). Remind your senior management that the company’s safety culture comes from the top down.