Denver – Changing how EHS performance is measured and evaluated is a theme at this year’s National Safety Congress, which began Monday Sept 15 in the Mile High City. It’s been a high priority topic in the EHS field for years now.

At Monday morning’s Campbell Institute annual forum of companies with leading EHS processes, preventing serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs) and the need to anticipate potential SIF events and move away from the traditional total recordable incident rate (TRIR) was discussed for 90 minutes.

Here key takeaways:

• TRIR is not predictive of future TRIR.
• TRIR is not predictive of fatalities.
• TRIR is not required by OSHA.
• TRIR is approximately 98% recording of random events.
• Lagging indicators of failure such as the TRIR are not improving SIF incidents rates. Companies with excellent TRIRs have SIF rates tracking notably higher.
• Identifying high energy hazards is the first step to anticipating SIFs.
• High-energy hazards are known as STKY – Stuff That Can Kill You.
• The percentage of high energy hazards that are under control is a good leading indicator of SIF prevention.
• ASTM E2920 standard is being revised and will be issued in November to define SIFs and potential SIFs (pSIF). ASTM will also soon issue related standards defining and giving guidance to leadership and employee engagement and identifying and controlling critical risks. The three ASTM standards will combine to offer step by step guidance to prevent SIFs.
• Presence does not equal engagement, a critical step in SIF prevention. Presence can be a leader walking the floor glad-handing and giving out tokens. Engagement requires face to face non-judgmental questioning and listening. Ask an employee: Where do you think the next serious incident will occur?
• Ask the critical question of “why.’ Why will the next serious incident happen?
• Don’t solely focus on negatives. Ask, What are we doing right to make your job safe? Why do you feel your job is safe?
• Training needs to go beyond the classroom. Hours of classroom training leads to boredom and “malicious compliance” – forced compliance done without commitment.
• Don’t sell SIF prevention as a program or initiative. Too many EHS efforts are known as flavor of the month projects. SIF prevention involves operations and quality as well as EHS and should be presented as a business operations imperative.
• Create time and space for SIF prevention tactics such as pre-job briefings, risk reviews, post-job debriefs and learning teams. Without the necessary time and creating space for these engagements you end up with malicious compliance. You want “tangible engagement.”
• Moving away from TRIR reliance won’t happen overnight. It is a journey. Change is hard. Expect pushback from senior leaders who have only known safety in terms of TRIR.
• Shift your focus from who failed to what failed? To build trust and tangible engagement get away from the blame game.
• There is no one best leading indicator. Ask 50 pros and you’ll probably receive 50 different leading indicators. Benchmark and talk to other companies. Pre-job safety briefings and safe focused observations are two good leading indicators.