Canadian Occupational Safety

JuneJuly 2017

Canadian Occupational Safety (COS) magazine is the premier workplace health and safety publication in Canada. We cover a wide range of topics ranging from office to heavy industry, and from general safety management to specific workplace hazards.

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10 Canadian Occupational Safety | www.cos-mag.com Leading indicators point to desired future state Link proactive data to individual performance assessment W e are awash in data. We have so much data that we even call it "big data." But which data should we use for decision-mak- ing in safety? Lagging performance indicators or leading performance indicators? Lagging performance indicators are a measure of what hap- pened in the past, such as the fatality rate, lost-time injury rate, total record- able incident frequency and workers' compensation claim rate. Leading performance indicators tell of a future where the safety performance that is desired can be achieved. While lagging indicators do have value for highlighting opportunities for improvement, what is needed is a set of leading indicator measures — related to real safety performance — that result in change. A program that includes appropriate leading indicators can steer perfor- mance of occupational health, safety and overall employee well-being. These measures should be simple, available, well-defined, relevant, meaningful, easy to collect, time sen- sitive and they should allow for data driven analyses, such as trend anal- ysis for intra-departmental/location comparisons and inter-department/ location comparisons. Useful, proactive leading perfor- mance indicators can be obtained from simple activities, such as measuring completion of workplace inspections, near-miss investigations, hazard assessments and tailgate meetings. As the safety culture grows and advances, additional indicators that may be used to measure safety culture development may include measuring the extent to which the health and safety policy has been effectively communicated, whether health and safety plans and goals have been established, the frequency of senior leadership communication with front-line employee teams and employees' understanding and inclusion of health hazards and ergonomic hazards in their hazard assessment processes. We can do even better if we consider a few high powered leading indicators, such as the percentage of toolbox tasks that consider health and ergonomic hazards in the immediate workplace, the number of job obser vations completed and feedback presented to work teams, the number of senior leadership site visits and facilities tours to review and discuss safety performance as well as front-line employee education, training and involvement in workplace inspections and incident investigations. Most impor t a nt ly, sa fe t y professionals need to focus on leading indicators that can be correlated to the lagging indicator outcomes that we seek to achieve. If zero harm is our goal, then we need to determine what leading indicators are best correlated with this outcome. The challenge is there is a lag time between the implementation of the leading indicator activity and a change in behaviour and then performance such that the lagging indicator outcome is achieved. This takes time. This requires safety professionals create a list of signifi cant leading indicators and sequentially implement them for a period of, say, a year or two and then assess the resulting lagging indicator outcomes. If we don't see the improvement we were looking for, we need to go back to the drawing board and make the necessary enhancements to our program of intervention. If you are a safety practitioner who is relatively new in the role and report- ing into the corporate safety group or to an operations leader, you might like to focus on improving the qual- ity of a couple of safety processes that are leading indicators for improve- ment. For example, you could review the new hire onboarding process to see if it includes introducing new employees to all hazards associated with their jobs. If this element needs to be improved, volunteer to support human resources (HR) in improving this aspect of onboarding. Hazard recognition is key to front- line employees effectively assessing workplace hazards before work starts. This is a leading indicator for safety improvement. Review the current task hazard assessment or job safety analy- sis processes to assess the quality. If improvement can be made, volunteer to help during the scheduled review of these and take this opportunity to pro- vide some specifi c technical input and support. If fi eld-level hazard assess- ments are completed at the start of work, review the quality of the submis- sions for the past month. If the quality could be improved, volunteer to sit in on the pre-shift meetings when these are completed and help the work crew improve the quality. If need be, plan to do some of the hard work associated with making quality improvements. If you are an experienced safety professional reporting to the senior leadership team, your focus needs to be on expanding the conversation about the use of leading indicators to drive safety improvement. The goal needs to be on linking safety leading indicators to individual performance assessment and if possible, link these outcomes to performance incentives, such as the annual bonus. Talk with the vice-president of operations or HR and see if you can participate in the annual corporate strategic planning process. This is the best opportu- nity to introduce leading indicators for safety performance onto the company's key performance indi- cator dashboard. Suggest that they measure participation of all senior and mid-level managers in leading day-to-day safety functions, such as workplace inspections, toolbox meet- ings, incident investigations and job observations. If each employee has objectives linked to these activities, the outcomes you want to achieve will become much easier. When leading indicators are set as business goals, safety improvement is possible. Glyn Jones is a partner at EHS Part- nerships in Calgary and the regional vice-president of Alberta, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut for the Cana- dian Society of Safety Engineering. He also provides program design and instructional support to the University of New Brunswick's OHS certifi cate and diploma programs. He can be reached at gjones@ehsp.ca. GLYN JONES PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Congratulations to the following OHS professionals who have recently been granted the Canadian Registered Safety Professional (CRSP) ® Professionnel en sécurité agréé du Canada (PSAC) ® designation. The BCRSP is a self-regulating, self-governing organization accredited by the Standards Council of Canada to ISO 17024 (Personnel Certification Body) and by BSI Management Systems to ISO 9001(Quality Management System). Board of Canadian Registered Safety Professionals/Conseil canadien des professionnels en sécurité agréés 6700 Century Avenue, Suite 100, Mississauga, ON L5N 6A4 905-567-7198, 1-888-279-2777, www.bcrsp.ca Michael Agar CRSP Jaunty Aidamenbor CRSP Alex Avdyushin CRSP Macintosh Balacano CRSP Lorne Baron CRSP Calvin Barrett CRSP Clarissa Bell CRSP Corina Bohnet CRSP Michael Bush CRSP Douglas Carr CRSP Tomorr Cerriku CRSP Michele Chase CRSP Theresa Clay CRSP Roger Cook CRSP Alison Cooper CRSP Philip Cox CRSP Roger Crowley CRSP Andreas Dahle CRSP Keith Dodd CRSP Savonna Dombrosky CRSP John Doucette CRSP Dana Driver CRSP Mike Fedun CRSP Gordon Ferguson CRSP Ryan Fredrich CRSP Catherine Galay CRSP Ivan Shawn Gale CRSP Yvonne Gazzard CRSP Charles Githens CRSP Jose Francisco Gonzalez Alvarado CRSP Robert Hamm CRSP Barbara Heming CRSP Amanda Ann Hjelmeland CRSP Kurtis Holland CRSP Jacqueline Howie CRSP Shirley Huffman CRSP Renee Jones CRSP Arleen Kaur CRSP Lawrence Lau CRSP Kristyn LeBlanc CRSP Karen Lunn CRSP Christopher D. Makohn CRSP William Mann CRSP Natasha Mansfield CRSP Allison Mardell CRSP Jason McGonigle CRSP Geoffrey Craig McPherson CRSP Nadeem Memon CRSP Kody Messenger CRSP Elizabeth Milder CRSP Derek Morgan CRSP Jade Jaclyn Mugford CRSP Herbert Murray CRSP Michael Nesom CRSP Christopher Neumann CRSP Ruth O'Haire CRSP Olumuyiwa Olawuyi CRSP Lamidi Olanrewaju Oloye CRSP Tyrone O'Toole CRSP Kevin Parent CRSP Bina Patel CRSP David Paynter CRSP Melanie Pekrul CRSP Robert M. Petch CRSP Dean Pilgrim CRSP Michael Pirot CRSP Michaela Postulka CRSP Keyvan Rahbar CRSP Amanda Randall CRSP Shane Rogers CRSP Alice Skrapec CRSP Rae Sloan CRSP Wayne Smart CRSP Lindsey Smith CRSP Alex Soley CRSP Wayne Jonathan Stacey CRSP Paul Steele CRSP Christopher Surmacz CRSP Melissa Tan CRSP Eunice Tikum CRSP Wendy Tobin CRSP Totaram Dindial Tulshi CRSP Jose Boris Veizaga CRSP Jonathan Viergever CRSP Kendra Walters CRSP Zhaoming Wang CRSP Marjorie Wilson CRSP Victor Wong CRSP William Woo CRSP Tara Wright CRSP Sherman Wu CRSP Bekim Xhemaili CRSP Philip Young CRSP Board of Canadian Registered Safety Professionals BCRSP_NewCRSPAnnouncment_February2017Examination_COS Magazine.indd 1 4/21/2017 11:59:53 AM

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