When considering how to apply best practices to your company’s safety management, it’s impossible to ignore the importance of safety leading indicators. However, few mid-sized organizations are able to successfully make use of safety leading indicators within their regular processes as a method of continuous improvement.
According to the National Safety Council and Campbell Institute, while 89% of organizations viewed safety leading indicators as extremely or very important, 61% of organizations had an imbalance in favor of lagging indicators, and 69% of organizations had difficulty identifying corrective or preventative actions (CAPA’s) from safety leading indicators. The results of the study show that organizations understand the importance of leading indicators at a high level, but seem to have difficulty implementing and maintaining them throughout their organization.
How do safety and operational professionals often articulate this frustration?
Every day, safety professionals are burdened with a significant number of administrative tasks rather than the things they know will make a difference to workplace safety. From incident reports, to tracking training requirements, to maintaining compliance with legislations, the tasks on their “to-do” lists are often endless. When they’re only getting a third of the information that they should be getting from the field and are spending the majority of your time in the collection and gathering stages, reporting and forecasting using leading indicators is often deprioritized. Most safety managers are snowed under with paper-based processes.
We know there are several benefits to safety leading indicators, but without properly implementing them, you aren’t getting the full benefits of all your hard work. We’ve highlighted the top three areas to focus on to ensure success with executing leading indicators.
- Defining the Right Leading Indicators
Ask yourself what the risks are, the controls for those risks, and the leading indicators that can directly link to those controls or risks? Once you’ve defined your leading indicators, prioritize them in relation to your company, and ensure your list is as up to date as possible at all times.
- Improve your Information by Defining Quality and Quantity
Predicting the outcome of a football match without knowing the historical performance of each team is a near impossibility. In the same example, imagine if you knew who won or lost but didn’t know the score. Quantitative and qualitative information both work in tandem toward driving better decisions. Acquiring more relevant information results in more meaningful and accurate leading indicators.
- Ensure your information is in “Real-Time”
The accuracy of your information is what determines how valuable it will be to your organization. With mission critical safety information at our disposal on a daily basis, we need to ensure the velocity of our information is constantly improving.
In organizations with different facilities and departments across many geographies technology must be used to push data quality/quantity in the direction of real-time information.
Implementing technology will help capture and track safety leading indicators but Safety Managers need to decide where is the best place to start. Based on a study performed by Verdantix in 2017, where they interviewed 382 EHS professionals globally, organizations are focusing on the following areas to capture the data which will give them the leading indicators they require to reduce workplace accidents and injuries and therefore improve workplace safety.
- 17% of respondents stated they would invest or upgrade their safety management software in 2018
- 16% of respondents stated they would invest or upgrade their incident management software in 2018
IMEC Technologies provides Safety Management Software to increase worker safety and aid compliance. IMEC’s Safety Management Software will manage inspections and audits, provides hazard identification, incident reporting, management of corrective and preventative actions from generation to closure. IMEC provides lock out tag out software solutions that will allow users to create lockout tagout procedures using an intuitive Mobile App and Manage Lockout Tagout Procedures, also the Review and Execution of those Lockout Tagout Procedures using the Mobile App. Annual Lockout Tagout Procedures audits are conducted using a Mobile App. The Mobile Inspection App allow users to perform inspections and audits, for example the system can be used as a Fire Extinguisher Barcode Inspection Software system to manage monthly fire extinguisher inspections and general fire safety inspections and also to record safety observations and manage corrective actions, anywhere and anytime. The solution can be used as a fire extinguisher barcode inspection software system or life safety inspection system to aid compliance in Higher Education, Healthcare, Industrial and Commercial Organizations. Benefits from a Fire Extinguisher Barcode System include the elimination of paperwork and reducing the burden of compliance with regulations such as NFPA, The Joint Commission. The Incident Reporting App allows users to easily and quickly report incidents, hazards and near-misses, these are then sent to the appropriate people for action and are managed to closure. Web Apps provide features such as, setup, management, scheduling tools, analysis, reporting and dashboards etc with the ability to report incidents to government bodies such as OSHA and RIDDOR. HazMat T&T is a hazardous waste management software solution designed for Environmental Service Companies and companies who generate a large quantity of hazardous waste. The solution tracks hazardous waste from cradle to grave aiding compliance, providing accurate waste inventory, increasing waste handling efficiency, reducing risk and also helps manage waste costs. HazMat T&T Hazardous Waste Management Software can be deployed in a number of deployment scenarios, from Large Hazardous Waste Generators, tracking their hazardous waste at their site to Environmental Service and Waste Management Companies using it track and manage hazardous waste at transfer and disposal sites. For more information visit our website www.imectechnologies.com