John Nolan
July 22, 2015
A key performance indicator (KPI) is a measurement of a certain type of activity that a company or organization partakes in. When that measurement is a direct reflection on your workforce’s health and well-being within your ISO 45001:2018 system, then the KPIs themselves are even more important than normal. When a business establishes KPIs, this is usually done relatively quickly and agreeably; targets for gross profits, sales, and so forth can usually be agreed on fairly easily. In the context of employee health and safety, this can be a slightly more complex issue to agree on. Measuring the number of accidents in a workplace utilizes negative language, but needs to be done. But, surely, the number of accidents doesn’t tell the whole story about a company’s health and safety performance – and, critically for the future, its culture. And, when a company does decide on these critical KPIs, how are they then measured and actions taken to control and improve them?
As with most management systems, it is good practice to measure where your results are now, and project where you want to be in the future. Any OH&S system will have “number of accidents and incidents at work” as a critical KPI, as that measurement alone signifies instances of concern where normally immediate corrective action must be taken, which you can read about in Seven Steps for corrective and preventive action within the OH&S management system. But, one single measurement does not represent every facet of a company’s health and safety performance, so what else can we use if we are to formulate a meaningful set of KPIs?
Of course, many organizations will view their OHS&S responsibilities differently depending on what sector they operate in, and may well measure other aspects such as time lost due to accidents and incidents. Construction companies or those operating in a sector where heavy machinery use is common, for example, may choose to develop KPIs that are closely tied to constant assessment of risk, where outcomes of incidents and accidents would be more severe. Some businesses even measure their own response time to changes in legislation. The secret is to ensure that you and your stakeholders consider all external and internal factors, and choose the KPIs that are best suited to your business.
It is vital that an organization evaluates and reviews its KPIs regularly. In a world where legislation, technology, competition, and expectations change so quickly, constant review of your KPIs, as well as their results, will ensure that you remain ahead of the game, which is critical in the prevention of accidents in the workplace. KPIs should be agreed on and set at the Management Review, which you can read more about in the article: How to perform the Management Review in ISO 45001, but stakeholder opinion should also be sought. Your OH&S forum or action team can then review the suitability of KPIs on a regular basis, and make recommendations for improvement to the management team for consideration. As with all health and safety issues, suggestions for improvement from the process owners and swift action to mitigate risk are the keys to continual improvement, as well as accident and incident avoidance. Ensuring your KPIs are correctly framed and constantly evaluated will allow your OHSMS system to perform to its maximum potential.
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