NVQ Study Guide for

City & Guilds NVQ Diploma in Occupational Health and

Safety

Knowledge Unit A 6
Measuring and reviewing health and safety performance

Written by Mr Darren Platts CMIOSH MCMI

CEO Ordosafe Consultants

Edited & Unitised by Mike Watson CMIOSH Dip RSA MIIRSM FlnstLM
Chairman Specialist Vocational Training Ltd

1
 Element A 6 :

Measuring and
reviewing health
and safety
performance

Unit A:
Managing Health & Safety 2 December 2016
Element A6: Measuring and reviewing health and safety
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this element, you should be able to:

 Explain the purpose and use of performance measurement in relation to health and safety objectives
and arrangements
 Explain the need for, and the objectives and limitations of, health and safety monitoring
 Describe the variety of health and safety monitoring and measuring techniques
 Explain the need for and process of reviewing health and safety performance
References used for this element and further reading

Other Relevant references

Guidelines for auditing management systems, BS EN ISO 19011:2011
ISBN: 978-0-5807-7524-6
Reason J (1997) ‘Managing the risks of organisational accidents’
Link: N/A
Bird F E, 1974. Management guide to Loss Control, Institute Press, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Link:
Investigating accidents and incidents – a workbook for employers, unions, safety representatives and safety
professionals
Link:

INTRODUCTION
Measurement information sustains the operation and development of the health and safety management
system, and so the control of risk, by:

 providing information on how the system operates in practice;

 identifying areas where remedial action is required;
 providing a basis for continual improvement; and
 providing feedback and motivation

Information from health and safety performance measurement is needed by the people in the organisation
who have responsibilities within the health and safety management system. These will include directors,
senior managers, line managers, supervisors, health and safety professionals and employees/safety
representatives. They each need information appropriate to their position and responsibilities within the
health and safety management system.

For example, what the CEO of a multinational organisation needs to know from the performance
measurement system will differ in detail and nature from the manager of a particular location. And this may
differ in detail from a departmental manager in that location.

There needs to be overall coherence in approach so that individual measuring activities are aligned within the
overall performance measurement framework. In effect, this results in a hierarchical set of linked measures
which reflect the organisation’s structure.

Because performance measures should be derived principally to meet an internal need, there will be a limit to
the number which can be used meaningfully from organisation to organisation (i.e. for external benchmarking
purposes) rather than within the context of a particular organisation.

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A6.1 THE PURPOSE AND USE OF HEALTH AND SAFETY MEASUREMENT
Measuring performance is an accepted part of the ‘plan-do-check-act’ management process and is as much
part of a health and safety management system as financial, production or service delivery management.

Health and safety differs from many areas measured by managers because success results in the absence of
an outcome (injuries or ill-health) rather than a presence.

A low injury or ill-health rate, even over a period of years, is no guarantee that risks are being controlled and
will not lead to injuries or ill-health in the future. Historical records can be a deceptive indicator of safety
performance. Indeed, low rates may indicate a failure of reporting rather than a lack of injuries or ill-health.

We must recognise that there is no single reliable measure to gauge an organisations health and safety
performance. What is required is a combination of measures or a ‘balanced scorecard’ approach which could
provide information on a wide range of health and safety indicators.

Measuring and indeed monitoring performance is an essential aspect of managing anything; strengths and
weaknesses need to be identified and progress measured. Measuring is therefore essential to maintaining
and improving health and safety performance.

I once came across a great quote from Peter Drucker which is:

“You can’t manage what you can measure”

Health and safety performance should be monitored at all levels of the organisation from day to day
monitoring by line managers and supervisors, to periodic audits of management systems. Performance
measurement techniques fall into two broad categories:

 Reactive monitoring which monitors accidents, ill-health and incidents

 Active monitoring which measure the effectiveness of systems, compliance

Active & Reactive monitoring measures to determine if objectives have been met

So far, we have dealt with measuring activities designed to prevent the occurrence of injuries and work-
related ill health (active monitoring). Failures in risk control also need to be measured (reactive monitoring),
to provide opportunities for organisations to check performance, learn from failures and improve the health
and safety management system.

Reactive monitoring arrangements include systems to identify and report:

 injuries and work-related ill health;

 other losses such as damage to property;
 incidents, including those with the potential to cause injury, ill health or loss;
 hazards and faults; and
 weaknesses or omissions in performance standards and systems.
Investigations should:

 establish what happened;

 identify the reasons for substandard performance;
 identify the underlying failures in the health and safety management system;
 learn from events;
 prevent recurrences; and
 satisfy legal and reporting requirements.
The reactive monitoring system should answer the following questions:

 Are failures occurring (injuries/ill health/loss/incidents)?

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  Where are they occurring?
 What is the nature of the failures?
 How serious are they?
 What were the potential consequences?
 What are the reasons for the failures?
 What are the costs?
 What improvements in the health and safety management system are required?
 How do all the above points vary with time?
 Are we getting better/worse?

The health and safety culture of an organisation is an important factor in ensuring the effectiveness of risk
control. The health and safety management system is an important influence on the safety culture, which in
turn impacts on the effectiveness of the health and safety management system. Measuring aspects of the
safety culture therefore forms part of the overall process of measuring health and safety performance.

The meaning of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) and their role in setting business objectives

Key performance indicators can be described as a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively an
organisation is achieving its key objectives. KPI’s are largely used to evaluate an organisations success at
reaching (or not) its targets.

Indicators for reviewing an organisations performance can include:

 No of safety inspections for the month

 Percentage of corrective actions closed out within specified timeframe
 Lost time due to non-fatal accidents
 No of hours’ safety training in the month
Some countries have pre-prescribed key performance indicators (such as the UAE) whereby the government
has released specific metrics that a company must use to assess its health and safety performance.

Key performance indicators in the wider sense can also assist in benchmarking and the setting of clear
objectives.

Types of, and benefits and limitations of leading and lagging indicators

Trying to find the perfect measures of safety is not an easy task. Organisations need to measure a range of
items to balance the measurement of safety. To do this business use a range of leading and lagging indicators.

Firstly, what is a lagging indicator?

Lagging indicators are those measures which look at incidents and occurrences from the past, for example:

 Injury frequency and severity

 No of prosecutions
 No of safety violations
 Lost work days
Such lagging indicators are the bottom-line indicators that evaluate the overall effectiveness of the safety
programmes.

Some organisations may only use lagging indicators. This is not a balanced view and only shows how badly the
company is doing in terms of preventing incidents, accidents and non-compliances.

The reactionary nature of lagging indicators makes them a poor gauge of prevention. For example, when
managers see a low injury rate, they may become complacent and put safety on the bottom of their to-do list,
when in fact, there are numerous risk factors present in the workplace that will contribute to future injuries

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Secondly, what are leading indicators?

A leading indicator is a measure preceding or indicating a future event used to drive and measure activities
carried out to prevent and control injury, for example:

 No. of audits & inspections carried out

 Safety training hours/sessions
 No. of campaigns
Leading indicators are mostly focused on future safety performance and continuous improvement. They are
the proactive measures that report on a regular basis to assist in the prevention of incidents and accidents.

Companies dedicated to safety excellence are shifting their focus to using leading indicators to drive
continuous improvement. Lagging indicators measure failure; leading indicators measure performance

leading indicators should:

 Allow you to see improvements in performance

 Measure the positive: what people are doing versus failing to do
 Enable frequent feedback to all stakeholders
 Be credible to performers
 Be predictive
 Increase constructive problem solving around safety
 Make it clear what needs to be done to get better
 Track Impact versus Intention

Assessment of effectiveness and appropriateness of health & safety objectives and arrangements, including
control measures

We must first have both something that can be measured, and some goal or standard against which to
evaluate that measurement.
We need to set objectives in terms of things that can be measured. And it should be Specific, Measurable,
Attainable, Realistic, and Timely (SMART). Objectives need to be:

 Specific – as to what you want to achieve.

 Measurable – so you know if they have been met.
 Attainable - achievable
 Realistic – realistically achievable with the resources you have.
 Timely – set a reasonable timescale to achieve them.
If health and safety objectives are SMART, they will include specific times when specific milestones will be
achieved. Monitoring the progress with the plans should be aligned with the particular timescales for
achievement.

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Measuring Performance against Objectives

There are many different types of monitoring but they can generally be categorised as either ‘active’ or
‘reactive’:

 Active methods monitor the design, development, installation and operation of management
arrangements. These tend to be preventive in nature, for example:
 routine inspections of premises, plant and equipment by staff
 health surveillance to prevent harm to health
 planned function check regimes for key pieces of plant

 Reactive methods monitor evidence of poor health and safety practice but can also identify better
practices that may be transferred to other parts of a business, for example:
 investigating accidents and incidents
 monitoring cases of ill health and sickness absence records

Arrangements for Actioning Objectives

If something needs to be done, then the roles and responsibilities of groups and individual to be clearly
defined. There is then a standard to measure performance.
The “health and safety arrangements” section of a safety policy document usually includes systems,
procedures, standards, etc., covering such topics as:
 Accident reporting.
 Fire precautions.
 Training.
 Contractors and visitor arrangements.
 Hazard identification and risk management

Safe methods of work and permit-to-work schemes would also be detailed. All these arrangements need to
be assessed to make sure that they are (and continue to be) effective and appropriate and working as
intended.

Control Measures
An assessment of the effectiveness and the appropriateness of control measures of a company is an
important area of performance measurement.
Measurement of the degree of control is done by systematic reviews.
Such as;
 Worker & leader daily assessments
 Monthly reviews
 Quarterly review for a department
 Annual or bi-annual reviews for the organization

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Making recommendations based on performance for review of current health and safety management
systems

Either we have achieved what we set out to do or we have failed. If we have failed we need to take a look at
and understand the reasons why.

 Were the objectives impracticable or out of reach and unachievable?

 Were the right resources available?
 Were the targets too much?

Every element of the management system can be audited or examined in detail. We require a system which is
continually being improved.

Review Process
Review is usually combined with audit procedures. The audit will look at all aspects of the system - policy,
organization, planning, implementation and systems for measuring and control.
The review would likely cover:
 Assessment of degree of compliance with set standards
 Analysis of reactive data such as; accident and incident trends
 Identification of areas where improvements are required
 Assessment of specific set objectives and whether achieved or not and planning for
improvement
Reporting Techniques
 Textual: by means of a written report
 Graphical: tables, pie charts, line graphs, bar charts and histograms
 Usually a PowerPoint with both of the above

Recommendations
Recommendations are an important part of the report and review. They allow for the planning of continual
improvement and the monitoring of any trends within the organisation.
 Content tells what actions are required
 It is important that the style is clear, concise and easy to understand
 Allocates responsibility for the actions
 Likely to be time driven

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A6.2 HEALTH AND SAFETY MONITORING
Measurement is an accepted part of the ‘plan-do-check-act’ management process. Measuring performance is
as much part of a health and safety management system as financial, production or service delivery
management.

Active Performance Measures …systems which monitor the fulfilment of objectives and the extent of
change with standards.

Reactive Performance Measures …systems which monitor accidents, ill health, incidents and other
evidence of insufficient health and safety performance.

Objective Performance Measures The goal of objective measurement is to produce a reference standard
common currency for the exchange of quantitative value, so that all
research and practice relevant to a particular variable can be conducted
in uniform terms.

Objective measurement can be achieved and maintained employing a

wide variety of approaches and methods. Objective measurement
operates within the research traditions of fundamental measurement
theory, item response theory, and latent trait theory.

Subjective Performance Measures Subjective measurements are useful for quantifying elements of
product/service usage that cannot be directly measured through
objective means.

Objectives of active monitoring

Active monitoring includes safety inspections and audits, where the objective is to obtain performance
feedback, enabling corrective action to be taken prior to any failure in the system. Active monitoring is
primarily used to evaluate the level of compliance with a legal requirement, or with a stated organisational
objective.
This may involve the setting up of a health and safety group but generally risk assessments by a competent
person. This must evaluate existing procedures of work and the actual methods and systems that are
adopted.

Its main purpose is to check that:

 HSE plans have been implemented

 monitor the extent of compliance with the organisations systems/procedures and
legislative/technical standards.
Objective of reactive monitoring

So far, we have dealt with measuring activities designed to prevent the occurrence of injuries and work-
related ill health (active monitoring). Failures in risk control also need to be measured (reactive monitoring),
to provide opportunities for organisations to check performance, learn from failures and improve the health
and safety management system.

Reactive monitoring arrangements include systems to identify and report:

 injuries and work-related ill health;

 other losses such as damage to property;
 incidents, including those with the potential to cause injury, ill health or loss;
 hazards and faults; and
 weaknesses or omissions in performance standards and systems.
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Investigations should:

 establish what happened;

 identify the reasons for substandard performance;
 identify the underlying failures in the health and safety management system;
 learn from events;
 prevent recurrences; and
 satisfy legal and reporting requirements.
The reactive monitoring system should answer the following questions:

 Are failures occurring (injuries/ill health/loss/incidents)?

 Where are they occurring?
 What is the nature of the failures?
 How serious are they?
 What were the potential consequences?
 What are the reasons for the failures?
 What are the costs?
 What improvements in the health and safety management system are required?
 How do all the above points vary with time?
 Are we getting better/worse?

The health and safety culture of an organisation is an important factor in ensuring the effectiveness of risk
control. The health and safety management system is an important influence on the safety culture, which in
turn impacts on the effectiveness of the health and safety management system. Measuring aspects of the
safety culture therefore forms part of the overall process of measuring health and safety performance

The limitations of reliance on accident/incident and ill-health data

We must remember that accidents and incident data is the result of something that happened in the past.
Such data could be old and not necessarily up to date. The data may also be inaccurate due to under
reporting, which may be common in some countries. As practitioners, we must be vigilant when considering
such data to really understand its reliability.

The distinction between, and applicability of, active/reactive, objective/subjective and

qualitative/quantitative performance measure

Measuring safety performance by looking for things before they happen can never be easy. It puts the safety
practitioner in the situation of making speculative predictions. However, this is what the law requires. We
carry out risk assessments to decide what might happen and then take action. We can certainly measure
whether we have taken action in those areas where the risk assessment suggests that we do. If an accident
occurs then we can no longer suggest that this is improbable; it needs to be included in the risk assessments.

Active performance measures

Active performance measures are those that are considered beforehand, for example;
 Training hours
 No. Inspections
 No. Toolbox Talks
 No. Safety meetings

Reactive performance measures

Those measures considered “after” something has happened. For example;
 No. lost time injuries
 Lost hours

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  Fatalities

Objective performance measure

Objective performance measures are those measures that involve an impartial measurement that is without
bias or prejudice. Such measures are not subject to personal opinion or interpretation of results and it is a
clear objective measure.

Subjective performance measure

Subjective measures largely depend upon someone's personal opinion and are influenced by personal
judgement.

Qualitative

Data is not represented numerically.

Difficult to treat as an accurate measure.

Quantitative

The data describes numbers, e.g. number of accidents reported.

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A6.3 HEALTH AND SAFETY MONITORING AND MEASURING TECHNIQUES
Monitoring is a way of assessing how the business is performing in terms of its safety programmes. Data can
be gathered together from around the organisation such as ill-health data and sickness absence. This data can
be used to drive and develop strategies and targets to improve (if bad of course). Such information may also
be fed back into the senior management team to allow for inclusion and development of a company’s
occupational policies.

Next, we will look at what methods can be used to measure and monitor an organisations health and safety
status and performance.

Health and safety audits

An Audit is a systematic and, wherever possible, independent examination to determine whether activities
and related results conform to planned arrangements and whether these arrangements are implemented
effectively and are suitable to achieve the organization's policy and objectives.
(BS8800: 1996 Guide to Occupational health and safety management systems)

H&S Management audits consider the following areas:

1) Does the company have adequate procedures for identifying specific H&S requirements which apply to its
undertakings?

2) Are the procedures followed and are responsibilities set out clearly and understood?

3) Does the company's H&S policy documentation include adequate procedures for identifying hazards which
exists at the workplace, and for assessing regularly the risks to employees and others affected by the
workplace and workplace activities in order to identify the measures needed to avoid their exposure to risks
of harm?

4) Are adequate risk assessment procedures also set out for hazards of products and /or services supplied by
the company in order to identify the measures needed to avoid risks of harm to people such as distributors,
customers, end-users and members of the public?

5) Are the procedures in 3. and 4. followed, and are responsibilities set out clearly and understood?

6) Does the company have adequate procedures for setting, reviewing and revising as necessary its health and
safety standards for meeting specific H&S requirements and for meeting its general duties to protect
employees and others form risks identified in the company's risk assessments?

7) Do the procedures for setting company standards include the identification of measurable targets which
can be audited to monitor the level of compliance with company standards?

8) Are the procedures in 5. and 6. followed and are responsibilities set out clearly and understood?

9) Does the company have adequate procedures for planning, implementing, controlling, monitoring and
reviewing the measures identified in 3. and 4.?

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10) Does the company have adequate procedures for carrying out H&S audits to check that the procedures in
9. are followed and that the measures in 3. and 4. are effective?

Workplace inspections

Workplace inspections can take many forms but they are all aimed at the same end goal, to help prevent
injuries and illness. Through a critical examination of the workplace inspections serve to identify and record
hazards and indeed deviations from the norm which will result in corrective actions being assigned. Regular
workplace inspections are an important part of an organisations health and safety programme as they assist
in the monitoring of the management system implementation.

Safety tours

According to the UK’s HSE a safety tour is a general inspection of the workplace. A safety tour refers to a walk
around in the workplace to obtain a general appraisal of the working environment and safety practices. This is
visual management by the managers to monitor the compliance of safety systems in place, find the flaws or
malpractices, and to take appropriate corrective actions to make things work as they should according to set
standards and procedures.

Safety sampling

Safety sampling is the “systematic sampling of dangerous activities, certain processes or indeed a sample of
an area”. They can be used to take a random sample to identify compliance and non-compliance levels within
a selected area, for example; An organisation wants to identify the levels of compliance with the wearing of
gloves in the fabrication area. A walk around would be organised to assess the area, noting down any
deficiencies in the selected area (Gloves). This would provide a “sample” of data showing an
areas/individuals/groups compliance with norms or indeed noncompliance.

This technique is a visible technique and has the advantage of showing an organisations commitment to
improvements in the health and safety of its workforce.

Safety surveys

Safety surveys can be considered as an examination of a specific area of the organisation. Safety surveys can
also be used by the organisation to gain feedback as to how well the safety systems and controls are
performing and to gauge employee feelings.
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Safety conversations and behavioural observations

There is no one better who knows the “actual” situation of an organisation like its employees. Engaging in
conversations can often enlighten the HSE professional with information that he may not already be aware of.
Conversations can also allow you to gauge an employee’s knowledge of the hazards and risks associated with
his job or function. They can also be a good ice breaker and enable the development of a rapport with the
workforce whereby trust is earned and hence the quality of information may be more honest.

When walking around an organisation it is always good to watch and observe the behaviour of individuals and
groups. This can be done in both a discreet way and a more formal way. Behavioural observations will allow
you to identify if safe systems and methods are indeed being followed.

Health & safety practitioner’s role in audits by external/third parties

As a health and safety practitioner, you will undoubtedly be involved in audits, whether internally to the
organisation, or indeed you will be audited yourself by an external party. Practitioners can play a role by
welcoming the auditor and guiding the team through the audit. The practitioner may also;

 Participate In the opening meeting

 Host the auditor
 Act as liaison
 Assist the auditor with documentation requirements
 Provide information requested by the auditor
 Compiling a list and managing any non-conformances and findings
 Prepare responses to the auditor

Comparing performance (Benchmarking)

Gathering data will allow an organisation to ascertain its performance. The data can also be used to compare
performance with other comparable businesses within the same field. For example, the UK HSE publish sector
performance which can be used to benchmark against to ascertain good or bad performance. Where there is
no globally available data to compare against, organisations can self-benchmark. In doing so yearly
performance targets can be set to improve upon previous known performance levels.

Why benchmark on health and safety – what’s in it for you?

Managing health and safety should be just as important to organisations as managing other areas like
production, finance or customer care. You may have tried benchmarking in some of these other are a s, but
not in health and safety. Benchmarking health and safety gives you similar advantages; it helps you:

 Improve your reputation – this is increasingly important in getting and keeping contracts.
 Avoid reinventing the wheel – learn from others experiences and pick up on others good ideas by
comparing and contrasting how things are done.
 Develop relationships with your customers and suppliers, including contractors.
 Find out where you stand – you may think you’re better than average or even the best, but are you
really?
 Save money and help keep your competitive edge. Savings can come for example, from reduced
insurance premiums, increased productivity and staff turnover.
 Improve overall management of health and safety and reduce risks to people’s health and safety.

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There are five steps to benchmarking:

 Step 1 Decide what to benchmark

 Step 2 Analyse where you are

 Step 3 Selecting partners

 Step 4 Working with your partner

 Step 5 Acting on the lessons learned

Step One:

You can apply benchmarking to any aspect of health and safety. It makes sense to prioritise. High hazard and
risk topics are good places to start as these are areas where most harm could be done. You could identify
priorities by looking at the findings of your risk assessment.

Accident and ill-health patterns in your organisation or industry may also indicate priorities, especially if you
can identify any common causes. You may have other priorities, which could make equally good places to
start. Safety representatives, team leaders and trade association representatives may have good ideas on
suitable topics for health and safety benchmarking as they have good contacts with employees and other
organisations. You can encourage these people to make the most of these contacts.

Think about both your health and safety processes (how you do things) and your performance (the results of
what you do); you could benchmark both. Performance data (accident and ill-health statistics, percentage of
risk assessments completed etc) give an indication of where priorities may be.

You should be careful how you use some types of performance data, particularly accident statistics. Accident
statistics can be useful but remember that they only show the ‘tip of the iceberg.’ Process benchmarking
allows real improvement to be made as you examine what goes on and how it could be done better.

Processes may be at workplace level (e.g. how you control a particular hazard) or management level (e.g. how
you investigate incidents, carry out risk assessments).

Health and safety benchmarking work can be led by or involve various people, for example managers, safety
representatives or trade association representatives. You will need both senior management and employee
commitment and involvement at all key stages.

Step Two:

You need to identify your starting position - a re you meeting health and safety law or relevant codes of
practice in your chosen topic? HSE and other guidance can help you find out. You need to think about how
you will measure where you are and where you want to be. This will help you measure your improvement
from benchmarking. You can use measures based on numbers, for example the percentage of managers who
have completed health and safety training, or you may prefer to use qualitative measurements. If you use an
audit system you could use your results (sometimes these are ‘scores’) as a measure. Later you could
compare your results with others that use the same system.

As part of this process, you may choose to survey employees to find out what they think the current position
is. Involvement of safety representatives can help to make surveys more successful.

Check that health and safety benchmarking is the best way to progress. It may be that HSE (or other)
guidance will give you all the help you need. Preparation work in analysing your processes may reveal
problems that can be sorted without the need to benchmark.

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Step Three:

If you are part of a large organisation you could find partners both within your organisation (internal
benchmarking) and outside (external benchmarking). Smaller organisations will probably need to look
outside, as they are too small to have a wide range of potential partners to choose from inside their firms.
The chart shows the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches.

You may choose to work with one partner or a number of them. You could join a benchmarking club where
you will have a range of potential partners to choose from. Your trade association or benchmarking
organisations sometimes offer this service. ‘Off-the-shelf’ benchmarking packages are also available. The
further information section at the end of the leaflet gives more detail.

You can use different ways to find partners. Your existing networks are likely to include potential partners, for
example networks created by trade associations, local business organisations, your contractors and suppliers,
health and safety organisations, trade unions, or neighbouring firms. Initially it’s probably best to make
contact by phone - explaining who you are, why you’re contacting them, the purpose of the health and safety
benchmarking exercise, your areas of interest and, importantly, what’s ‘in it’ for them.

Confirm the arrangement. Look for an organisation that leads in your chosen topic, but is not so far in the lead
that it would be unrealistic to work together. For workplace processes (e.g. safeguarding for a machine) it is
probably best to look for partners in a similar industry with similar processes. For management processes (e.g.
carrying out risk assessment) you will have a wider choice of partners, as these processes are common across
industries. When you agree a partnership there needs to be mutual benefit - ‘give and take ’. You should be
pre p a red to give your partner something in return.

Decide whether you will need to visit your partner’s workplace. Sharing information by phone may be
enough. It is usually best to meet, so you can see for yourself, and talk to relevant people. If you decide to
visit, involve your managers and safety representatives in the visit because they are the ones who will be
helping to put in place any improvements you identify.

Step Four:

With the right planning and preparation (Steps 1 to 3), this stage should be straight forward:

 Be realistic – don’t try to do too much in one go.

 When exchanging information, you need to make sure its comparable.
 Respect your partner – remember confidentiality, give and take equally.
 During contact with partners make sure you really understand what they do, how they do it and why
it’s better. This is the information you will need to learn.
Step Five:

This is a key step - if you don’t get this right, all the work you’ve done so far will be lost! Remember the
purpose of health and safety benchmarking is not to copy but to learn from others, learn more about yourself
and, as a result, take action to improve.

Devise an action plan, based on your findings. It’s important to make sure your plan fits in with the ‘culture’ of
your organisation. Your partner may have a very different culture, and the language and methods they use
may need to be adapted for your organisation.

Make your action plan S M A R T (Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic, Timebound) .

Identify what you need to do, who should do it and when. Make sure you get senior management and
employee commitment to the action plan. Remember to involve safety representatives. Implement your
action plan and regularly review progress with it. Are you where you want to be? If there are problems, it may
be useful to contact your partner(s) again to see if they can help you overcome them. Remember continuous

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improvement – keep an eye out to see if standards have moved on. If they have, reset your benchmark and
you can start from Step 1 again. As in any other area of business, you shouldn’t stand still.

To succeed in health and safety benchmarking you need:

 Senior Management resources and commitment.

 Employee involvement.
 A commitment to an open and participative approach to health and safety, including a willingness to
share information with others.
 An ability to identify your strengths and weaknesses.
 To compare data on a meaningful ‘apples with apples’ basis.

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Managing Health & Safety 17 December 2016
A6.4 REVIEWING HEALTH AND SAFETY PERFORMANCE
Reviewing health and safety performance is an on-going activity, so in one sense the review process is
continuous. But like any other activity, review should be both efficient and effective, so the frequency with
which it takes place needs to be planned appropriately to ensure it happens on a timely basis, particularly
where no monitoring activities have stimulated it to happen.

Reviews can be both informal and formal. A formal boardroom review of health and safety performance is
essential. It allows the board to establish whether the essential health and safety principles – strong and
active leadership, worker involvement, and assessment and review – have been embedded in the
organisation. It tells you whether your system is effective in managing risk and protecting people.

Informal reviews would allow for management and supervisory actions that would occur on a day to day
basis.

The review process

An organisation’s board should review health and safety performance at least once a year. The review process
should:

 examine whether the health and safety policy reflects the organisation’s current priorities, plans and
targets;
 examine whether risk management and other health and safety systems have been effectively
reporting to the board;
 report health and safety shortcomings, and the effect of all relevant board and management
decisions;
 decide actions to address any weaknesses and a system to monitor their implementation;
 consider immediate reviews in the light of major shortcomings or events.

Good practice

 Performance on health and safety and wellbeing is increasingly being recorded in organisations'
annual reports to investors and stakeholders.
 Board members can make extra 'shop floor' visits to gather information for the formal review.
 Good health and safety performance can be celebrated at central and local level.
Case study: A leading supermarket with the involvement of all board directors was able to win reductions in
sickness absence, reportable incidents and improvements in morale and pride in working for their company.

Lessons learnt

It is important that lessons learned from incidents are shared with as many people who would benefit from it
as is possible. As a minimum, this must include different departments within an organisation. It would be
regrettable if an accident happened in one department and it was of no relevance to others, without
considering the causes.

The more that the root causes are examined the more likely the lessons are to be relevant to other
departments. An incident in one department may reveal a need to improve job induction processes, which
may affect all departments of an organisation.

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INPUTS TO A REVIEW PROCESS

As already mentioned, reviews can take on all sorts of shapes and sizes, but certain data is required to ensure
an adequate review is conducted. Standards such as ISO 9001 for quality and OHSAS 18001 for health and
safety lay out the requirements of a formal management review.

For example:

 Internal performance data

 health and safety objectives,
 organisational arrangements and change
 external standards and expectations

Internal performance data can be both the active and reactive measures that the organisation uses to
monitor overall performance. This should include injury rates and frequencies, incident data, near miss etc.
the trends in information can provide a good indicator. This can be data that has been collated over a set
period, for example one year. The data can be analysed and used to judge the business performance based on
set objectives and targets.

Health and safety objectives and targets within an organisation should be reviewed to take account of how
the organisation is performing against what it set. Using and reviewing objectives and targets can assist the
organisation in its future strategic planning. The organisation and management can ask itself, did we achieve
what we set out to? if we didn’t, why not? What can we do to improve?

Organisational arrangements and change

Most organisations will change at some point. Change can be in resources and/or indeed structure.
Organisations may also be introducing new processes and activities which should be considered at a
managerial level.

External standards and expectations should be considered during the review process. The organisation may
be influenced by performance standards such as OHSAS 18001 or ISO 14001. Such requirements can change
and should be considered in a review. Also, the expectations of clients can be important during a review to
ensure that management buy-in is gained and critical decisions are made.

OUTPUTS FROM A REVIEW PROCESS

Along with the inputs of a review there must be tangible outputs. Outputs can come in the form of:

 Actions and improvement plans

 Stakeholder reports
 Performance targets

Action and improvement plans

Clear actionable and likely measurable items for improvement should be clearly defined and approved by the
reviewers, in most cases, the management team. Action and improvement plans can be used to communicate
the management commitment to improving the organisations health and safety standards.

Stakeholder reports

Many organisations will produce a report of the outcomes of a review meeting. The information does not
need to be detailed, however, information regarding decisions and actions for the employees would be
suffice. Providing such reports to the different stakeholders within the organisation will show management
takes the lead and cares about the health and safety within the business.

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Performance targets

Through the review of performance, the organisation would likely be able to establish performance criteria
and targets to aim for. When establishing such targets, organisations need to remember that they should be
based around the SMART principle, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time driven, Performance
targets can come in many forms, for example:

 LTI frequency rate to be 50% lower than previous year (Reactive)

 Vehicle related incidents to be decreased by 20% based on last year’s figure
 20 Audits to be carried out in the year (Active)

Performance targets are a good indicator and driver within a business and can and should be used for future
reviews to judge the businesses performance. They give an organisation or some individual goals to aim for
and to achieve.

CASE STUDY

In my experience measuring and reviewing performance can be both a positive and a negative. Positive due to
the fact that it is good to see a reduction in an organisations incident and accident rates, negative in that
some people become transfixed on attaining targets based on incident data. When an organisation does this I
have found that it becomes easy to “hide” incidents ultimately giving false data.

Measuring and reviewing performance is an important part of any organisations safety programme and as
such we must remember to make best use of all available information and data.

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TOP TIPS & KEY POINTS

Monitoring & measuring techniques

Safety tours
Safety Sampling
Inspections
Safety surveys
audits

Active & reactive monitoring techniques

Active – doing something proactively such as inspections, safety tours etc

Reactive – the “after”. Injury and incident data

Objectives & targets should be SMART

Specific – as to what you want to achieve.

Measurable – so you know if they have been met.

Attainable - achievable

Realistic – realistically achievable with the resources you have.

Timely – set a reasonable timescale to achieve them.

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END >>>>>>>>>>>>>

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Managing Health & Safety 22 December 2016