Roundtable "Proactive Safety Indicators: What Really Works and What Becomes a Fiction?"

Transitioning from a Reactive to a Proactive Approach: Why New Metrics are Needed

The development of an HSE management system inevitably requires a transition from reacting to accomplished facts to managing risks before they materialize. During the roundtable, the speaker explains why traditional reactive indicators, such as LTIFR (Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate), remain important for the strategic level but are insufficient for operational management. Proactive metrics are necessary to change the mindset of line managers, develop their leadership qualities, and build the skill to foresee and eliminate hazards.

Decomposing Goals: From Strategy to Specific Actions

The presentation details the process of implementing proactive indicators. A key mistake is introducing a metric for the sake of the metric itself, without understanding its connection to the company's strategy. The speaker emphasizes the importance of decomposing the global goal (zero injuries) into clear tasks for each management level. This allows not just cascading the indicator from top to bottom, but creating tools with which every manager can influence safety in their area.

Practical Examples of Proactive Indicators

Using their company as an example, the speaker shows which metrics actually work in practice. These include:

• Reducing the number of violations identified by supervisory authorities: stimulates internal control and self-assessment of workplace conditions.
• Reducing workplaces with harmful working conditions: focuses on eliminating the root causes of risks, not just on compensation.
• The number of accepted and implemented safety improvements: transitioning from formal collection of suggestions to evaluating their quality and actual implementation.

Behavioral Audits: From Quantity to Quality

Special attention is paid to the indicator of the number of personnel work observations conducted. At the initial stage of implementation, the goal is to form a habit among managers to go out "into the field" and develop a "trained eye" — the ability to see and analyze risks. The speaker notes that even formal filling out of checklists at first makes one think about the state of safety. Later, thanks to automation and analytics (Business Intelligence), the company moves to assessing the quality of observations: identifying best practices and actually eliminating non-conformities.

What you will learn from this webinar:

• How to properly decompose strategic safety goals to the level of line managers?
• Why is it important to evaluate not only the number of submitted improvement proposals but also their implementation percentage?
• How to develop a "trained eye" in managers using behavioral audits?
• In what cases do simple metrics work better than complex composite indicators?
• How does data collection automation help transition from formalism to real risk management?