The LinkedIn groups are at it again and again I will defend their latest outrage. This time it is “safety metrics”. So let’s recap; so far they have attacked the safety management system, root cause analysis, and risk matrices, and now we move to safety metrics. And like the times before, their rhetoric is way over the top, using terms like “evil” and comparing safety metrics to the communist leader Stalin. And just like the other safety tools, safety metrics are NOT the problem, and they are certainly NOT evil. Safety metrics play a critical role in a functioning safety management system; the KEY to these metrics is WHAT IS BEING MEASURED.
I replied to one of my LinkedIn contacts with the following defense of safety metrics:
Take this concept to the finance department and let’s see how much it’s embraced. But remember, a business does not simply count the number of bounced checks they issue. They actually have leading indicator metrics to tell them if they can write the checks. The problem is not measuring safety – the problem is too many only measure their “bounced checks” and not the actual safety process. Another way to look at this is to flip this concept on its head.
Many businesses celebrate (and rightfully so) when they go some period of time without an injury. But too often this can simply be LUCK (laws of probability at work) and not real safety at work. But with a mature safety process, one can reflect on all the activities that were invested in safety that influenced the result. When you visit a facility and they brag about its safety turnaround and its graph shows that in 2019, its safety numbers fell off a cliff and you ask what happened in 2019 to cause such a dramatic improvement in safety… they will either say “we got serious about safety” which is code for we squashed reporting of incidents OR they will begin to explain their safety process and all the things they routinely do to reduce risks.
Take this concept to the production department and inform them that all the manufacturing metrics are evil and are being removed. The only metric that will be used is “customer complaints”. Operators will not have the means to measure temperatures, pressures, flows, etc. They will just do “the best they can” and we will ship the products to the customers.
Sound insane? It is! But when all we measure is injuries and/or their severity, we are managing our safety process exactly like this. It is a failure just like writing bad checks!
