For an organization to have an effective safety and health program, they must develop a process to evaluate its effectiveness.  Historically, workplaces have concentrated on key performance outcomes or lagging indicators.  These metrics provide valuable insights into your program; however, they do not provide the full picture.  The addition of leading indicators, along with a review of incident statistics, will provide your organization with information to effectively measure its safety and health performance.

What are lagging indicators?
Lagging metrics are reactive and measure the outcomes of safety performance after an incident has occurred.  They reflect past safety performance and provide insights into the overall performance of an organization’s safety and health program.  Examples include: 

• Injury statistics

• Number of days lost

• Injury severity rate

• Investigation outcomes

• WCB assessment rate

Analyzing lagging indicators can be valuable for conducting comparative analyses and benchmarking your program’s performance.

What are leading indicators?
Leading indicators focus on what is being done within your safety and health program to prevent injuries and illnesses to your workers.  They focus on behaviours and activities that can reduce the risk of incidents.  Examples include:

• Number of safety inspections completed

• Percentage of workforce trained in a specific program

• Number of safety audits completed

• Number of near miss reports

• Number of safety and health meetings 

• Number of safety huddles 

• Number of safety concerns reported

• Results from safety program audits

Leading indicators are proactive and can be beneficial at addressing hazards before they result in an incident.  Reviewing these metrics also assists organizations to focus on continuous improvement to the workplace safety and health management system.

Setting Safety Program Goals
Understanding and setting goals for both leading and lagging metrics is essential to maintaining and improving the safety and health performance for your organization.  Program goals should be set in consultation with the workplace safety and health committee to ensure the goals align with the work of the committee.  When setting goals for leading indicators, determine which proactive activities are most relevant to your safety goals.  For lagging indicators, consider analyzing past incident data to identify metrics that reflect previous safety performance.

Set S.M.A.R.T. goals – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.  For instance, rather than setting vague goals such as “improve safety training”, a S.M.A.R.T. goal for leading indicators would be to “increase the number of safety training sessions offered this quarter from 5 to 10 to enhance worker’s safety knowledge and reduce incidents”. For lagging indicators, a goal such as “decrease lost time claims” would be turned into a S.M.A.R.T. goal by being specific and setting a goal to decrease lost time claims by 10% in the next calendar year.

The Workplace Safety & Health Committee’s Role
The workplace safety and health committee plays a crucial role in ensuring the effectiveness of the safety program in a workplace. The committee monitors the program’s effectiveness by using a variety of strategies and methods, such as:

• Regular inspections and audits of the program to identify hazards and risks.

• Reviewing incident and near miss reporting to identify trends or recurring safety issues.

• Soliciting feedback from workers to understand their perceptions of workplace safety and the effectiveness of the program.

• Monitoring safety training programs to ensure their effectiveness.

• Assessing corrective actions from incident investigations or inspections to ensure they are implemented and effectively address the concern. 

Data collected by the committee should be utilized to assess whether the program goals are being met or if any changes are necessary to improve the program’s efficiency.

The Leadership Team’s Role
Safety program goals should also be reviewed at regular intervals by senior leadership, management, and supervisors to ensure the safety and health program’s success.  Safety program goals should be assessed against program data to determine its effectiveness.   Regular monitoring and adjustments based on feedback and data help the program to stay responsive to changing conditions and hazards.  Lastly, to support a culture of safety within your organization, engage workers in the safety program improvement process by sharing metrics and goals, seeking their input regularly, and recognizing their contributions.  


References:
https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/hsprograms/leading-and-lagging-indicators.html

https://www.safemanitoba.com/safetyculture/Pages/LaggingLeadingIndicators.aspx