How to measure health and safety performance

All businesses understand the importance of measurement. Financial measurement is a must of businesses of all size to determine if the business model is viable, if pricing is right and margins are healthy. 

Production

 measurement is usually in place to ensure the workforce is performing efficiently with deadlines to meet, targets to achieve and bonuses on offer.

Health and safety is another important aspect of your business, and most organisations recognise this, but fail to measure health and safety performance in the same context as other important business functions. Why is this? Because health and safety performance cannot be measured through a one-size fits all approach.

Financial measurement is universal. You can easily determine the money coming into, and out of your business (or you should be able to!), and a few simple calculations allows you to measure, profit, loss, overheads, and other important financial information. The result you’re looking for is a figure, the bigger the better.

There is no single measure for good health and safety performance. The measure holding the most weight is accident statistics. The result you’re looking for is a figure, the smaller the better!

But should you just measure accident statistics? No. Accident statistics alone cannot be used as adiagnostic tool to determine where things are going wrong. Often, by the time poor health and safety performance is reflected in accident statistics it can be too late, for those injured, and for your organisation. The damage has been done.

So how should you measure health and safety performance? You need to implement not one, but several measures across your health and safety activities. Each health and safety initiative and management activity should be measured in some form, otherwise, you can't know how successful that initiative is, or if there is a problem.

You should not only measure failure, through accident statistics and other reactive monitoring, but also measure success - through activities such as health and safety inspections, near miss reporting, health and safety culture, training achievements, good housekeeping and following the correct procedures.

You can measure through direct observations of conditions and behaviour, through gathering information through questionnaires, meetings and reviews, and through facts and figures examining written documents, records and reports.

What, exactly are you measuring for? There must be a purpose to you measurement. If you get 25 near miss reports in a month is that good or bad? Before you start measuring, you need to consider:

What outcome do you want?

When do you want to achieve the outcome?

How will you know when the outcome has been achieved?

What result should the outcome produce?

How would you know that people are doing what they should be doing?

Then, through establishing baseline data (how you are currently performing) and setting goals or targets (how you want to be performing) you can start to take action to improve your health and safety performance.