Safety Metrics and KPIs that Matter: OSHA Recommendations for EHS Leaders

A leading manufacturing company with multiple facilities across the US faced rising safety incidents, particularly in one of its high-risk manufacturing plants. The Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) and Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred (DART) rate were significantly higher than industry benchmarks. Near-miss incidents were frequently reported, but there was no systematic way to track and analyze them effectively. The company needed a solution to:

• Centralize safety data, including all leading and lagging indicators
• Identify the root causes of incidents or near-misses with agility
• Implement effective corrective actions
• Setup a proactive process for risk identification and management
• Rally people together to build an organization-wide culture of safety

By implementing a Next-Gen Safety Management solution to enhance its safety performance tracking, the company could automate the collection and reporting of safety metrics such as TRIR, DART, and near-miss reporting rates. The solution’s AI-powered analytics engine enabled the identification of patterns in incident data, such as specific shifts and equipment associated with higher incident rates.

The company achieved a significant reduction in TRIR and DART rates. Thanks to the streamlined reporting process, near-miss reporting increased as employees became more engaged in proactive hazard identification. The AI insights allowed the company to target specific problem areas, such as equipment maintenance schedules and safety training for certain shifts, leading to a more focused and effective safety strategy.

Why Track Safety Metrics?

Workplace safety is critical due to many factors:

• It impacts employee morale and productivity
• It is a regulatory requirement
• It affects customer loyalty and brand reputation
• Revenue growth and profitability can slide due to penalties, litigation, absenteeism, etc.

The stakes are high, and the ability to measure, track, and improve safety performance is critical. Metrics serve as the backbone of effective safety management, providing EHS leaders with the data they need to ensure compliance, identify hazards, and foster a culture of continuous improvement. OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) plays a pivotal role in guiding these efforts by recommending essential metrics that help organizations maintain a safe and healthy work environment.

OSHA emphasizes the importance of tracking specific safety metrics to ensure compliance and improve safety performance. These metrics provide a clear picture of workplace safety and help organizations identify areas that need improvement.

The key OSHA-recommended metrics include:

• Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR): TRIR measures the total number of work-related injuries and illnesses per 100 full-time employees during a one-year period. It is a fundamental metric that OSHA requires organizations to track and report. A lower TRIR indicates better safety performance.
• Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred (DART) Rate: The DART rate tracks the number of work-related injuries and illnesses that result in employees missing work, being restricted in their duties, or being transferred to another job. This metric provides insight into the severity of incidents and helps organizations assess the impact of injuries on their workforce.
• Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR): LTIFR measures the number of work-related injuries that result in an employee being unable to work for a day or more, per one million hours worked. This metric focuses on the frequency of more severe incidents that lead to lost time.
• Severity Rate: This metric measures the total number of days lost due to work-related injuries and illnesses per 100 full-time employees. A high severity rate may indicate that while the number of incidents isn’t increasing, the impact of those incidents is growing, necessitating more effective safety interventions.
• Near-Miss Reporting Rate: Near-miss incidents are potential safety hazards that did not result in injury but could have. OSHA recommends tracking near-miss reporting as a proactive measure to prevent future incidents. A high reporting rate reflects an engaged workforce that is actively identifying and mitigating hazards before they result in injury.

Impact of Metrics on Continuous Improvement

Regulatory bodies recommend a risk-based approach to safety management with continuous improvement by consistently evaluating performance and making data-driven decisions to enhance safety outcomes. OSHA recommends metrics to be tracked and monitored to allow organizations to:

• Identify Trends and Patterns: Regular analysis of safety data helps in recognizing trends, such as increasing near-miss incidents in a specific area, which could indicate emerging risks that need to be addressed before they lead to injuries.
• Benchmark Performance: By comparing metrics against industry standards or previous performance, organizations can set realistic safety goals and determine areas requiring improvement.
• Drive Accountability: Transparent reporting of safety metrics fosters a culture of accountability. When everyone, from leadership to employees, understands the impact of their actions on safety performance, it encourages a collective responsibility for maintaining a safe workplace.
• Enable Informed Decision-Making: Data-driven insights empower EHS leaders to prioritize safety initiatives, allocate resources effectively, and implement corrective actions where needed.

The Challenges of Tracking Safety Metrics with Manual and Legacy Methods

In the rapidly evolving workplace safety landscape, accurately tracking safety metrics is crucial for ensuring a safe and compliant environment. However, many organizations still rely on manual or legacy methods to manage their safety data. While these traditional approaches may seem familiar, they come with significant challenges that can impede effective safety management.

Data Accuracy and Consistency Issues

One of the biggest challenges with manual tracking methods is the risk of human error. When data is entered by hand, mistakes are almost inevitable, whether it's a simple typo or a misinterpretation of safety incidents. These errors can lead to inaccurate safety metrics, which in turn can misinform safety strategies. Additionally, when different teams or departments use inconsistent methods for recording data, it becomes difficult to maintain uniformity, leading to unreliable metrics that don't give a clear picture of the organization's safety performance.

Time-Consuming Processes

Manual data collection and analysis are labor-intensive and time-consuming. Safety professionals often spend hours compiling and processing data, which not only drains valuable resources but also delays the identification of safety issues. This lag in data processing can prevent timely corrective actions, potentially leaving hazards unaddressed for longer periods and increasing the risk of incidents.

Limited Data Insights

Legacy systems typically lack the analytical tools needed to delve deep into safety data. These methods are often limited to basic reporting, which can overlook underlying trends or patterns that signal emerging risks. Without the ability to perform advanced analytics, organizations miss out on opportunities to predict and prevent incidents, resulting in a reactive rather than proactive safety management approach.

Difficulty Tracking Leading Indicators

Leading indicators, such as near-miss reporting and employee engagement in safety programs, are essential for preventing accidents before they happen. However, manual systems struggle to capture these proactive metrics effectively. As a result, organizations may over-rely on lagging indicators, like injury rates, which only reflect past incidents and don’t offer the foresight needed to prevent future issues.

Scalability Problems

As organizations grow, manual and legacy methods become increasingly difficult to scale. What might work for a small team or single location quickly becomes unmanageable across multiple sites or larger workforces. This can lead to fragmented data collection processes, inconsistent reporting, and significant gaps in safety monitoring, all of which compromise the ability to maintain a cohesive safety strategy.

Inefficient Reporting

Generating reports manually is not only time-consuming but also prone to delays. In fast-paced environments, the time it takes to compile and analyze data for reporting can result in outdated information being presented to key stakeholders. This inefficiency can hinder decision-making, slow down compliance efforts, and weaken overall safety management.

Role of AI-Powered Safety Management in Measuring Performance

In the whitepaper, Safety Intelligent Analytics, we point out the role of AI in empowering safety leaders with actionable insights to ensure proactive safety and risk mitigation. AI-powered safety management software also plays a pivotal role in tracking safety metrics. Some of the key features that enable this include:

• Real-time data analysis
• Predictive insights
• Automated reporting

These advanced systems can process vast amounts of safety data, identifying patterns and trends that may indicate potential risks before they materialize. For instance, AI can analyze incident reports to pinpoint recurring issues, such as specific equipment failures or risky employee behaviors, enabling proactive interventions. This can help determine the key performance indicators that must be tracked and monitored to assess the health and effectiveness of the safety management system in meeting safety goals.

AI-driven platforms can help streamline the tracking of key metrics such as Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR), Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred (DART) rate, and near-miss incidents. By automating data collection and analysis, these tools reduce human error, enhance accuracy, and free up EHS professionals to focus on strategic decision-making. AI-powered safety management software empowers organizations to maintain a safer work environment through continuous monitoring, early hazard detection, and data-driven improvements.

ComplianceQuest's Safety Management Solution: Designed for Continuous Improvement

ComplianceQuest’s Safety Management Solution is a cloud-based, AI-powered solution designed to help organizations achieve continuous improvement by providing a comprehensive suite of tools for tracking and analyzing safety performance. It enables the following:

• Comprehensive Metric Tracking: ComplianceQuest’s platform allows organizations to track OSHA-recommended metrics such as TRIR, DART, and near-miss reporting rates. Real-time dashboards provide visibility into safety performance, making it easy to identify risks, trends, and areas for improvement.
• AI-Powered Insights: Leveraging AI, ComplianceQuest’s platform offers predictive analytics that helps organizations stay ahead of potential safety risks. The system can analyze data to identify emerging hazards and recommend corrective actions, enabling a proactive approach to safety management.
• Customizable Reporting: The platform’s customizable reporting features make it easy to generate reports tailored to specific organizational needs, ensuring compliance with OSHA standards and providing valuable insights for decision-making.
• Continuous Improvement: ComplianceQuest’s Safety Management Solution is built for continuous improvement. It includes tools for tracking corrective and preventive actions (CAPAs), ensuring that lessons learned from past incidents are integrated into future safety strategies, and driving ongoing improvements in safety performance.

In today's dynamic workplace environment, measuring and improving safety performance is crucial for ensuring a safe and healthy work environment. OSHA-recommended metrics provide the foundation for effective safety management, while AI-powered tools like ComplianceQuest's Safety Management Solution enhance the ability to track, analyze, and improve these metrics. By using these tools, organizations can achieve continuous improvement in safety management, leading to a safer and more productive workplace.