Kick Your Pesky Metrics Habit

“We will reduce our injury rate by 20% this year.” We’ve all heard or even said this at one point or another, right? After all, injury reduction is at the core of Safety Management and it follows that we’d want to reduce injuries. But, do you realize what this could mean? If ten people were injured last year, a 20% reduction means eight people will be injured this year.

The end of the year comes around and only six people were injured. Hooray, time to celebrate! Or is it? Those six people, some of whom might be permanently impacted by the experience, will likely not be up for festivities.

Are we sure we want to cite “incident rate reduction” as a core function of Safety Management? Brag about the target reductions we achieved at XYZ company? This article hopes to prompt you to re-think this age-old tradition in Safety Management and shift to a holistic approach towards a thriving Safety Culture.

I encourage you to read Lisa Earle McLeod’s blog post on Forbes entitled “Why Metrics Drive Mediocrity”. It sheds light on the opportunities lost by managing exclusively to meet certain numerical targets. I couldn’t agree more.

Regardless of the industry, Safety professionals want to bring value to the business beyond reducing injuries, incidents, etc., or generally speaking, “avoiding loss”. But, where to begin?

So many successful businesses are based on measuring performance and improving against these measures, it’s hard to convey what could be accomplished by removing the emphasis placed on numbers. The shift in focus could become unbearable, even oppressive. I posit we can inspire others to let go of numbers and focus on the true essence of Safety Management.

Think back about your favorite moment as a Safety professional.

Maybe it was the morning you arrived at work and realized the incident that had occurred two hours earlier was already documented and investigated, actions in place and some already completed. Maybe you caught an operator showing another the better ergonomic posture for a workstation as they reviewed the day’s work orders. Does your favorite moment evoke hitting a non-zero target on [insert favorite traditional safety key performance indicator here]? Hopefully not.

What these examples have in common, and yours too, I hope, is that they’re linked to Safety Culture, not to an arbitrary number. It is in the fostering of Safety Culture that value is truly added to an organization.

Before you throw the book at me: I’ve spent a majority of my career compiling, calculating and disseminating a healthy variety of safety key performance indicators. But it wasn’t rewarding to see the numbers, no matter how sophisticated the dashboard looked. What did excite me was watching the Safety Culture shift in subtle ways. The numbers just followed.

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Safety Culture is built on the shoulders of executing the basics brilliantly and emerges as a result of true teamwork, an atmosphere in which everyone’s ideas are welcome. This, in turn, empowers employees to make contributions that ensure continual improvement viewing the effort as a shared responsibility. Transparency and openness are key to this endeavor, and can be developed with the right set of tools.

In an effective Safety Culture, issues are immediately brought to focus and dealt with promptly. There’s a sense of urgency in resolving the problem followed by palpable fulfillment of avoiding “what might have been”. Regardless of urgency on the planner’s list, a healthy Safety Culture doesn’t hesitate to halt a production batch when a significant hazard is discovered. On the contrary, everyone agrees that no job is more important than preventing the next incident.

How could you measure Safety Culture?

Time is a key element to be captured. Simply put: the longer it takes to address issues, the weaker the culture.

Another key element to capture: potential impact. Most often, we’re driven to investigate only the most serious incidents. After all, we don’t want *that* to happen again, do we? Agreed. But do we pay equal attention to the near miss next door that could lead to an even more serious incident? Not usually.

Timely investigations aligned with the potential impact produce more value-added actions because they promptly leverage the entire spectrum of hazards, not just the immediate containment needed, and show everyone the value of raising issues. All of this can be measured and shared to increase awareness.

Can you picture this? Imagine a text message (or email, if you’re feeling “old school”) is sent to the reporter when their issue is first addressed and subsequently when it’s resolved. Imagine further that the reporter is asked a few “satisfaction” questions about both the reporting process and the resolution of the issue. Once completed, the quantitative portions are automatically compiled and updated on dashboards throughout the facility. Wouldn’t that change the way everyone feels about reporting and taking action on Safety issues?

With the right tools and processes in place, employees are comfortable documenting and managing issues in real time, seamlessly integrated into their daily tasks. Far from an afterthought, Safety becomes a focal point at all times.

How will you kick your own metrics habit? Join the conversation with a comment below or drop me a line!