Nowadays it seems that anywhere you go, where there are activities besides offices there is a big sign that says: "we have worked X days without accidents, and our record is ? ! If you already know this sign at the entrance or anywhere is a bad idea, hit the like button, subscribe, see you the next video.
But if you want to talk a little more, and understand what is behind it, hold on, another episode begins Measuring safety by the days without accidents, the n of accidents or even by accident rates is the most traditional way of showing good safety performance It is clear that organizations that have a good safety performance and do an excellent job of safeguarding workers will have fewer accidents But simply turning that argument and say that because you had few accidents in the past 30, 60, 100, 300, 1. 000 days can be a trap. A reason for this was mentioned in the episode of accident triangle.
A classic example is the Macondo accident, with the BP platform, theme of the Deep Water Horizon movie. If you want to know more there in a NatGeo documentary and a great Hollywood movie to watch. The platform was celebrating 6 years without accidents.
The executives flew into the platform for a celebration The day after the celebration the platform exploded People died, many were injured Thousands of liters of oil spilled onto the ocean Causing a terrible environmental impact for mankind Surely, I've worked in sites with the board and I had to zero the board myself. And the main reason this bothered me was the feeling it caused on the people involved in the accident. No-one cared about their needs or health condition Everyone wanted to know who was to blame, who'd screwed up enough to zero the board Lots of executives and company leaders believe they can measure safety by the absence of accidents.
They try to compare business units and regions by the number of days, or by the number of accidents that didn't happen However the risks, activities, the region itself, and the context in which workers perform their tasks in the different business units in the different regions are completely different The very definition of accident, or lost days or reportable accident varies with the context, the culture, learning, and history of the professionals So there will be a lot of inconsistency in how accidents are recorded or reported I've seen this in practice many times. The safety team works with operation and doctors to change the dose of a medicine, so it won't exceed reportability criteria A forklift turns upside down and gets reported as near miss as "nothing happened" Let's put the person on admin tasks because then it doesn't count as lost time Time invested in these discussions is time we could invest in caring for the people involved in that accident. OK!
So we don't count as lost days or number of accidents Let's turn it into a rate. Maybe that's even worst! Because you will need a denominator.
Have you really tried to count the worked man-hours in your company? What happens when people who punch clocks? Are overtimes really calculated precisely?
Are these hours of exposure to hazards, or all worked hours? What about home office? And corporate travels?
Maybe your organization uses the rates only to verify your performance year on year Still, you are fooling yourself. The amount of data that most organizations have, make their rates no more than statistical noise Remember the elections, when candidate X and candidate Y are technically tied due to the margin of error? It is something similar, as if in one year there was 1 accident and the next you had 6, these years are "tied", due to the margin of error If you'd like to know more, there is a good study in the construction business The link is down below, take a look, then come back and let me know your thoughts.
Maybe now you're thinking. Ok we'll stop tracking the accident rate. And tomorrow I will tear off that sign from my company!
I'm sure that, by starting this discussion, or take this action, people, maybe your leaders, will ask What are we replacing it with? I recommend watching this roundtable, when great safety professionals, deeply discuss what to use to replace the accident board. The major problem is not what to measure, but how your organization sees safety.
Measuring performance through an accident rate or accident numbers is defining safety as the absence of accidents The New View proposes that safety is the presence of capacity to perform your tasks, execute your work successfully Imagine a beautiful Sunday morning, clear skies, You decide to take your children out to play In the neighborhood playground. You are sitting, maybe watching an YouTube video. Or just reading something.
While your children play. It looks pretty safe, right? Most people do this without accidents occurring.
But what if, perhaps, your children spot something interesting or a ball rolls out into the street, and they run after it. What is your capacity to stop them from being hurt? And how do you measure capacity within your organization?
Most likely the best people to answer are already in your payroll. Talk to the people who actually get the job done. What do they need to be successful everyday at work?
After all, we don't promote safety by eliminating the "bad stuff". We promote safety improving our processes our planning, our operations. Let's keep talking!
Comment what ideas you had What type of discussions you plan to initiate with your team or your colleagues Don't forget to subscribe, hit the like button, and I'll see you in the next video. That's all for today. Big hug, take care, and don't forget to have fun!
