Key Performance indicators of Health and Safety : Leading and Lagging Indicators

Leading indicators are proactive, preventative, and predictive measures to identify and eliminate risks and hazards in the workplace that can cause incidents and injuries.

Leading indicators are a form of active monitoring focused on a few critical risk control systems to ensure their continued effectiveness.
Leading indicators require a routine systematic check that key actions or activities are undertaken as intended.
They can be considered as measures of process or inputs essential to deliver the desired safety outcome. (HSG254)
Leading indicators that are connected to specific OHS program goals introduce a real level of accountability for those goals.
leading indicators also measure and monitor their relative importance of H&S within the organization.
Leading indicators can work to complement the more traditional outcome-based measures of lagging indicators, and can be used to balance out some of their limitations.

Leading indicators can be broadly sorted into the following categories:

Operations-based leading indicators: Metrics that reveal how well an organization’s infrastructure (e.g. machinery, operations) is functioning. For large organizations with multiple locations, these indicators can be site-specific.

Systems-based leading indicators: These indicators relate more to the management of an EHS system. Systems-based indicators can be rolled up from a facility level to a region/business unit or corporate level.

Behavior-based leading indicators: Indicators that measure the safety behaviors or actions of individuals or groups in the workplace. Behavior-based leading indicators can be reviewed at site-specific levels through management levels.

Examples of Leading Indicators

Examples include:

The percentage of managers & supervisor with OHS training, ( How many training completed)
The percentage of workers with H&S training, BBS
Frequency of H&S meetings, ( including safety committee meeting)
Percentage of issues raised by H&S representatives actioned.
Frequency of ergonomic assessments, and
Number of Risk/ hazard assessment carried out. ( Percentage of required Risk Assessment)
Number of PTW’s submission and timely completed weekly.
Number of Job Safety Analysis completed weekly.
Number of Hazard Observation weekly
Number of Near-miss reports weekly.
Number of H&S Training carried out weekly.
Number of First Aid Training carried out weekly.
Hazards Alerts released and Follow up of the same
Number of Man Hours Worked without Lost Time Accidents weekly. (Safe Man Hours)
Number of H&S Inspections recorded/ carried out weekly.
Number of Safety Audits ( Internally / Externally)
Number of Safety Surveys carried out ( Employee perception of management commitment)
Number of Safety Tours carried out quarterly.
Reward/recognition , motivational programs
Allocation of resources (PPEs, Safety Equipment),
No. of Induction Training, TBTs (Tool Box Talks),
No. of Consultation done
Number of suggestions / Suggestion schemes implementation,
No. of preventive maintenance programmes,
No. of Health Surveillance etc.
No. of Mock drills
Percentage of testing/caliberation of Safety Critical equipment (Like Lift , cranes) carried out
Housekeeping Safety Audit
No of Worker involvement and Participation

Advantages of Leading Indicators

Measure the positive: what people are doing versus failing to do.
Improve or influence constructive problem-solving.
Allow for continuous improvement.
Provide information that can be quickly acted upon.
After all, being proactive, preventive and predictive is only beneficial if you’re setting achievable goals.
Are actionable, predictive and relevant to objectives
Identify hazards before an incident occurs (Allow preventative actions before the hazard manifests )
Allow response to changing circumstances through Indicate that circumstances have changed require control (MOC)
Measure the effectiveness of control systems
Measures inputs and conditions
Direct toward and influence a wanted outcome or away
Give indications of system conditions
Measure what might go wrong and why
Provide proactive monitoring of the desired state
Are useful for internal tracking of a H&S performance

Leading Indicators Focus on compliance

Organizations that are in the early stages of developing their OHS program, or whose OHS performance level requires improvement, can come up with a few key leading indicators to confirm compliance with legislated requirements. Examples might be confirming whether hazard assessments are actually being completed and ensuring workers are involved in the process. Then employers can build upon their list of key leading indicators later by monitoring how many job tasks, risks and control measures were identified during formal hazard assessments (information), whether or not workers know the results of those assessments as legislation requires (possible solution), and addressing the hazards (corrective actions).

Leading Indicators Focus on improvement

Organizations with more established OHS programs/stronger OHS performance levels (beyond basic compliance), might introduce leading indicators to grow and refine their existing programs for continued improvement. Examples could include asking what per cent of the workforce has OHS training beyond basic legislated compliance, how often health and safety is discussed at meetings, or how often management walks the floor.

Leading Indicators Focus on continuous learning

Organizations with a mature OHS culture/a consistently high level of OHS performance (low incident rates) can select leading indicators to drill down for deeper knowledge, drawing out information about their health and safety culture. They might select leading indicators to track what per cent of their communication budget is dedicated to OHS, or how many different avenues the organization uses to communicate OHS messaging.

Refer : www.hse.gov.uk

For Example : In the construction industry, common leading indicators tracked by EHS managers are:

1. Unsafe Act and unsafe condition analysis - potentially-disastrous situations that have been avoided, including the factors that caused them, follow-up and corrective actions.

2. On-time preventive action – how much time it takes to address issues

3. Legal Compliance assurance – plans to mature to a highly interactive and engaging relationship with regulators

4. Operational risk assessments – initiatives to reduce risks by proactively assessing procedures, PPE, ergonomic controls etc.

5. Employee peer-to-peer observations – monthly safety P2P observations that help improve safety processes

6. Time spent on new hire safety orientation and training, including expectations and responsibilities, rules, hazard communication and performance evaluation and record-keeping.

7. Implementation of substance abuse programs including strict rules for drug and alcohol use, pre-hire testing and education program.

8. Involvement in site safety committee meetings that help raise and correct safety concerns.

9. Refresher trainings on job sites to improve new employees’ knowledge and performance.

10. Site-specific safety orientation, including site-specific policies and procedures, hazards and operations, company safety core values.

Lagging Indicators (What is a lagging indicator?)

Lagging indicators measure a company’s H&S performance by tracking accident statistics. They’re a record of things that have already happened. Since they record things after the fact, they inform a reactive H&S culture.

As per HSG254

Lagging indicators are a form of reactive monitoring requiring the reporting and investigation of specific incidents and events to discover weaknesses in that system.
These incidents or events do not have to result in major damage or injury or even a loss of containment, providing that they represent a failure of a significant control system which guards against or limits the consequences of a major incident.
Lagging indicators show when a desired safety outcome has failed, or has not been achieved.

Example: The number of trips and falls is a lagging indicator.

Lagging indicators for H&S Performance Monitoring

Lagging Indicators examples include:

Incidents rate (accident rate), near-miss rate, near-misses , work-related injuries , LTI, LTA;
injury frequency and severity rate ,
Absenteeism// Absence-Rate,
sickness rates,
staff turnover rate
level of compliance with H&S rules and procedures (not followed / complied)
Enforcement Action
complaints about working conditions
Medical Cost expenditure
workers’ compensation claims
Civil and Criminal Proceedings
Improvement Notice/ Prohibition Notice
Damage to property
Deficient H&S performance
OSH management system failures
Worker’s rehabilitation and health-restoration programmes
Number of first aid treatment cases recorded weekly.
Number of Near-Miss Reports recorded weekly.(after accident at same)
Number of Unsafe Acts/Unsafe Conditions recorded weekly.(after accident)
Number of employee absenteeism from work weekly.
Number of Safe systems of work failure recorded weekly.
Number of fatalities
incidents rate and near misses rate ,
Injury frequency and severity rate
Total lost work days / lost workdays (LTIs), /Restricted work days
workers’ compensation costs / trends
Sickness rate / illness rate
Asset/property damage / Vehicle mishaps
Chemical releases (based on the actual conditions at site)
No. of Enforcement Notices
etc.

What are the importance of Lagging Indicator and what they do

Are retrospective, focusing on past behaviours and incidents
Identify hazards after an incident occurs
Require corrective actions to prevent another incident itself as an incident
implementing control measure before an incident measures to be implemented after the incident
Measures failure of control systems / Measure system failures (Measure what has gone wrong )

Measures outcomes (Measure the current outcome without influencing it from an unwanted outcome)
Provide reactive monitoring of undesired effects
Can be useful for external benchmarking
Identify weaknesses through incidents
Are easy to identify and measure ,
Evolve as organisational needs change
Are static and measure past incidents
Are challenging to identify and measure

The Pros and Cons of lagging indicators

The downside to using only lagging indicators of safety performance is that lagging indicators don’t tell you how well your company is doing at preventing incidents and accidents.
Lagging indicators only report on what has already happened – that is, they ‘lag’ behind reality.
For example, when an employer sees a low number of lost workdays they may believe that they do not have a safety issue.
This false sense of security leads them to ignore the possibility that there are health and safety issues in the workplace that could contribute to a future increase in lost workdays.
Lagging indicators show when a desired safety outcome has failed, or when a health and safety objective has not been achieved. The learning comes from recognizing a past mistake, and results in the implementation of reactive rather than proactive measures.
Regardless, it is important to monitor lagging indicator data because evidence of increasing incidence of work injury and/or illness is a signal that improvements are needed in the workplace safety system. It’s worth noting however, that many workplaces have too few injuries to be able to distinguish real trends from random occurrences, and there is also the possibility that not all injuries are reported

Difference Between Leading & Lagging Indicators

Importance of leading and lagging indicators for measuring the performance of each critical element of a Process Safety Management System :

Refer: www.hse.gov.uk

Another view on these Indicators:

If we provide the more training for specific potential safety critical issues, we can prevent that accident , so we can achieve the good performance of lagging indicators also.

Poor leading indicator performance is not advisable to corelate with Good Lagging Indicator Performance . But Poor Lagging Indicator performance may be due to Poor leading indicator performance also . These are two different indicators. Leading Indicators before the event. Lagging indicator after the event.

For inevitable accident, the Leading performance indicators can not help like External Floating Tank RIM seal failure due to Lightening impact during thunderstorm in a Process Industry.

For general accident , the performance of Leading Indicators help to achieve the good performance of lagging Indicators. (Like more training , supervision and monitoring will avert the unsafe condition at workplace like leakage or corrosion found in production lines found during the Safety Inspection. These unsafe condition has been rectified immediately by the maintenance team . So, this will help to prevent the major/minor accident at Workplace and we achieve the good Lagging indicator performance also.