The traditional approach to measuring health and safety performance

The traditional approach to measuring health and safety performance 

Senior managers often measure company performance by using, for example, percentage profit, return on investment or market share. A common feature of the measures would be that they are generally positive in nature - which demonstrates achievement - rather than negative, which demonstrates failure. 

if senior managers are asked how they measure their companies health and safety performance, It is likely that the only measure would be accident or Injury statistics. While the general business performance of an organization is subject to a range of positive measures, for health and safety it too often comes down to one negative measure, injury and ill-health statistics -measures of failures. 

Health and safety differs from many areas measured by managers because improvement in performance means fewer outcomes from the measure (injuries or ill-health) rather than more. A low injury or ill-health rate trend over years is still no guarantee that risks are being controlled and that incidents will not happen in the future. This is particularly true in organizations where major hazards are present but there is a low probability of accidents. 

There is no single reliable measure of health and safety performance. What is required is a basket of measures, providing information on a range of health and safety issues. 

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