Avetta® has announced a partnership with the National Safety Council (NSC) to launch the Safety Maturity Index™ (SMI). The new index offers a systems-based approach to target health and safety weaknesses within the supply chain to help avoid serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs).

Traditional contractor safety models have lacked leading indicators and actionable insights needed for organizations to make a transformational change in their contractor safety results.

Avetta and NSC combined 15 years of NSC research, data from Avetta’s global contractor network, and insights from forward-thinking companies like Avetta clients, Entergy and Cargill, to design the SMI. The SMI goes beyond traditional metrics by identifying, assessing, and surfacing the maturity of the contractor's organizational use of their safety management systems to ensure a safer working environment. The index further focuses on risk management, enabling a comprehensive and accurate safety evaluation to verify a contractor’s Safety Management System (SMS).

“Our partnership represents joint dedication to innovation in the contractor safety space,” said Don Dama, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing of the National Safety Council. “The Council’s research combined with Avetta’s experience and ability to scale this solution represents a significant step forward in our industry. By offering a holistic approach to monitor contractors’ safety and maturity, we empower the industry to deploy more effective systems and safeguards to reduce SIFs in the future.”

Grounded in recognized industry standards such as ISO 45001 and ANSI Z-10, SMI scores are weighted based on contractor findings, evidence and verification methods, and are calculated using a 0-100 grading scale across five primary categories:

• Safety Leadership & Structure: The evaluation of leadership practices, incentives, and structures designed to produce positive safety outcomes.
• Hazard Identification & Controls: The ability for an organization and its workers to properly identify potential SIF hazards and deploy the proper controls and safeguards for these hazards. 
• Worker Training & Competency: The ability for an organization to identify worker roles, training needs, and verify competency based on role and work type.
• Incident Management & Response: An organization’s systems, methods, and practices used to investigate, learn from, and respond to incidents. 
• Improvements & Communications: The communication tools and processes used to distribute new safety improvements and knowledge across managers and employees.

The SMI is built on statistically relevant questions across these categories that have been proven over time to be leading indicators, allowing organizations to leverage actionable insights to manage risk, prevent accidents, and continually improve safety.

Research has demonstrated the presence or absence of SMS procedures and practices is the strongest leading indicator for significant improvements in an organization’s safety performance.

“For decades, contractor prequalification has focused on historical performance and policy audits,” said Taylor Allis, CPO of Avetta. “This standard needs to evolve as it's been proven that past performance isn’t a reliable indicator of future safety. By partnering with NSC, we’re shifting contractor safety interactions from compliance-based ones to improvement-focused discussions, charting a new course in contractor safety.”

The SMI will be available to select North American clients in early 2025. Avetta and NSC will also provide access to a membership package that includes safety improvement tools and resources to support contractors in the Avetta network. To learn more about the new SMI and available offerings, visit https://avetta.com/safety-maturity.