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E65: The use and abuse of safety indicators · Safe As Podcast

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  Have we become incredibly good at counting accidents but
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  relatively poor at measuring the preconditions of safe and
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  reliable work? And are our safety indicators
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  leading us astray? Let's find out.
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  First, welcome to Safe as I'm Doctor Ben Hutchinson.
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  Check out Safety insights.org for more research.
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  Now. Today's study is from Oswald ET
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  al 2018 titled The Use and Abuse of Safety Indicators in
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  Construction, published in Engineering, Construction and
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  Architectural Management. They explore systemic flaws in
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  how construction and safety is measured, drawing on 2 datasets,
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  32 semi structured interviews with industry professionals and
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  a multi level safety climate survey conducted across 12
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  construction sites. The study begins by
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  contextualising why traditional lagging indicators like lost
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  time, injuries, Ltis are fundamentally limited.
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  Prior research establishes 3 primary limitations.
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  First, the reverse relationship. Indicators intended to be
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  leading often behave like lagging ones.
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  For example, projects with high volumes with safety reporting
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  may also experience higher injury rates, either because the
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  work is inherently higher risk or because of a more transparent
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  safety climate that emphasises reporting more.
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  Second, measuring unsafety rather than safety.
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  Most commonly used indicators capture the absence of failure
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  rather than the presence of safety.
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  We count how many people were hurt, but rarely measure the
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  system's capacity to succeed to effectively control risks.
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  Third, the rearview mirror effect.
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  Because lagging indicators only capture events that have already
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  occurred, they offer very limited predictive value for
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  proactive intervention. This makes it difficult for
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  managers to act before a future catastrophe occurs.
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  So what they find in this study? The interviews revealed that
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  industry leaders remain obsessed with lagging indicators,
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  frequently requesting them as golden numbers of performance.
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  However, this obsession leads to widespread manipulation.
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  When indicators are coupled with financial bonuses or penalties,
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  the resulting data often becomes nonsense.
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  Participants admitted to manipulating statistics, for
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  example, moving an injured worker into a light duty office
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  role specifically to avoid recording a lost time injury.
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  The study notes that financial penalties imposed on contractors
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  further encouraged manipulation of statistics to maintain
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  performance. A core finding is that
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  indicators are often selected for their ease of measurement
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  rather than for their usefulness.
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  Companies focus on what is clearly measurable, such as the
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  number of sidewalks or the toolbox talks completed.
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  However, the study suggests that the most suitable indicators may
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  be harder to gather or measure, and for this reason may
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  ultimately be ignored. This creates a facade of safety
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  or deeper drivers of performance remain unexamined.
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  Even leading indicators, long promoted as their solution to
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  lagging metrics, are susceptible to abuse.
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  The study identifies plastic gestures safety activities
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  performed solely to satisfy a metric.
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  One example involved office based staff such as accountants
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  been encouraged to conduct site safety walks.
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  While this increased the recorded number of safety
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  activities, these individuals often lack the expertise to
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  identify hazards and in some cases increased risk simply by
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  being present in dangerous areas.
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  Leading indicators also frequently focus on activities
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  contractors would undertake anyway.
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  The things that we're going to do, resulting in guaranteed
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  success, on paper at least, without any meaningful
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  improvement in their hazard management.
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  By counting actions rather than evaluating their effectiveness,
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  organisations admit measures that assess the real impact of
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  safety initiatives or their systems.
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  The research found that the vast majority of indicators focused
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  on immediate physical safety, while largely neglecting worker
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  health hazards such as dust exposure, noise and mental
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  health. The authors argue that commonly
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  used health and safety indicators are subject to
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  manipulation and misinterpretation because these
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  indicators fail to reflect the full range of factors affecting
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  safety. Organisations often respond to
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  spikes in lagging indicators with a superficial shotgun
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  approach, rolling out multiple generic action items.
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  Such responses rarely address deeper systemic weaknesses.
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  The study concludes that an exclusive focus on negative
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  lagging indicators is frustrating for contractors and
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  probably everyone else because it provides little insight into
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  why poor performance occurred. And there's also the risk of
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  rewarding largely random outcomes.
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  You see the work from the Construction Safety Research
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  Alliance. So what can we make of these
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  findings? Well, to move forward, the
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  authors argue that the industry must incorporate indicators that
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  capture the complex cultural factors and socio technical
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  factors underpinning safety performance across
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  organisational project workgroup levels, rather than relying
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  solely on easily quantified metrics.
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  Ultimately, the study doesn't argue for abandoning safety
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  indicators. Instead, it warns against
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  treating them as precise or objective measures of safety,
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  whatever that is. Indicators are proxies,
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  imperfect signals that must be interpreted with humility and
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  contextual understanding. When organisations prioritise
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  numbers over meaning, measurement itself becomes a
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  source of risk. More mature approach to safety
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  requires shifting attention from counting failures or activities
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  towards understanding how work succeeds, the inputs, how
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  capacity for safe performance is created, the resources, designs,
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  climates, leadership systems, risk control, create safe and
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  efficient work. In all, it's about how people
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  create safety and sometimes unsafety.
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  Well, that's it. Unsafe as Please like and
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  subscribe and check out safetheinsights.org for more
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  research. If you want to support the
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  channel then links are in the show notes.