OSHA TIP OF THE WEEK: METRICS HELP YOU MAINTAIN, IMPROVE YOUR SAFETY PROGRAM

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Mc Clone Insurance writes about reporting workplace incidents and hazards is a critical part of maintaining a safe environment. Yet, many employees find the process complicated or intimidating, which can lead to underreporting and increased risks. This article summary shares practical metrics to help you maintain and improve your safety program, helping organizations improve safety and compliance with OSHA standards.

• The article argues that to truly judge and improve a workplace safety program, you can’t rely only on past-incident data (what happened). That’s what are called lagging indicators — things like your incident rate, lost time case rate, DART rate, and other standard metrics used by Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) compliance reviews. 

  
  

• Lagging indicators show historic outcomes, but they don’t reveal where the safety program might be failing now or how to prevent future accidents. 

  
  

• To build a proactive, effective safety system, the article recommends combining lagging metrics with leading safety indicators — positive, forward-looking measurements like frequency of safety training, internal safety audits, hazard/near-miss reporting, employee safety perception surveys, and other preventive activities. 

  
  

• When you track both, you get a holistic view of safety performance: not just “how many injuries happened last year,” but “how likely are we to avoid injuries next month?” This helps spot weaknesses before they result in accidents. 

  
  

• The article walks through example calculations — for instance, the standard OSHA incident rate per 100 employees per year — but stresses that those numbers alone aren’t enough. The real safety advantage comes when a company actively monitors training, audits, near-misses, hazard reports, and culture as part of continuous improvement. 

  
  

• In short: a safety program shouldn’t just react to incidents. It should build layers of prevention — and the right combination of metrics and monitoring makes that possible.

Bottom line: Safety isn’t a scoreboard of past accidents — it’s a living system. Combine traditional injury data with active prevention metrics to truly manage risk and protect people.

For those interested in further resources, this week’s downloadable PDF sign-in sheet is available here:

SAFETY MEETING SIGN IN SHEET - METRICS HELP YOU MAINTAIN, IMPROVE YOUR SAFETY PROGRAM.pdf

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This post summarizes insights inspired by the article: Metrics Help You Maintain, Improve Your Safety Program by: David Collingwood, Director of Workers' Compensation Claims & Safety published by McClone Insurance. For a deeper dive into fostering supportive workplace environments that enhance safety, consider reading the full article here.