Performance management

Measuring safety performance is an increasing challenge. Many companies are now searching for more reliable means of assessing how good they really are. The reliance on output measures such as accidents and incidents becomes less informative as performance improves. The need is to measure those activities that keep the company safe - safety inputs.

The problem here is how to identify those activities that most reliably predict good safety performance. Typically, this will involve a focus on a range of different inputs including audits and inspections, toolbox talks, safety meetings, closing-out of safety actions etc. The measures will also need to focus on both activity levels and the quality of the events.

In addition to a focus on these safety input activities, organisations should also look to measure levels of risk. Such a measure can provide useful insight into whether progress is being made once output measures have been brought to consistently low levels. Risk measures might include information obtained from near miss reports and other means through which safe and unsafe behaviour is monitored. The occurrence of high potential incidents would also fall into this category.

Having identified input and risk measures, a further challenge involves making sense of what are likely to be a variety of metrics so as to produce a clear and comparitive indicator of progress. What is required here is a single score that can be compared month by month.

Measuring safety performance is a source of performance feedback to your company's Leadership Team. However, the use of such measures has much wider significance. Providing teams with such performance feedback can be a factor in getting them interested in improving their performance. The need here is to devise systems such that local teams have easy and regular access to performance feedback which relates specifically to their own performance.

Many companies have at least considered some form of reward and recognition programme for safety performance. This is a tricky area. Rewarding good safety results may mean that you have rewarded good fortune rather than good practice. Managed and targeted correctly, the use of some form of recognition programme can have a significant impact on effort and motivation. The challenge is in the design and the operation of the measurement and recognition process. Get it right and you have the means to continuously improve both your safety effort and achievement.

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• Behavioural safety
• Human factors & incident investigation
• Stress management
• Performance management
• Organisational change
• Assessment and development