Measuring Performance
The purpose of measurement is to maintain and improve health and safety performance. This is achieved through the use of active (sometimes termed proactive) and reactive systems. An active system being a system which monitors the achievement of plans and the extent of compliance with standards. A reactive system, on the other hand, being a system which monitors accidents, ill-health and incidents. In order for the measurement of performance to be effective, procedures are needed to capture information from both active and reactive systems.
Active Monitoring
The role of active monitoring is to provide an organisation with feedback on its health and safety performance before an accident, incident or case of ill-health occurs.
Active monitoring will include the monitoring of the achievement of specific plans and objectives, the operation of the safety management system and the degree of compliance with performance standards. Active monitoring plays an important role in measuring how well the risk assessment outcomes have been translated into practical action. Such information provides a firm basis for decisions concerning improvements in risk control and health and safety management.
The following diagram illustrates some of the various forms that active monitoring can take:
It is important that active monitoring targets areas of higher risk in order to produce the greatest benefit and the greatest control of risk. HS(G)65 stresses that "key risk control systems and related workplace precautions should therefore be monitored in more detail or more often (or both) than low-risk systems or management arrangements". Obviously, risk assessments are required to identify these areas of higher risk.
Reactive Monitoring
Reactive monitoring involves the use of systems which are triggered by events. Such systems include elements relating to identifying and reporting the following:
o Injuries and causes of ill-health.
o Other losses, including damage to property.
o Incidents, including those with the potential
to cause injury, ill-health or loss.
o Hazards.
o Weaknesses or omissions in performance
standards.
Reactive monitoring often provides valuable information concerning weaknesses in the risk assessment strategy and in the systems related to active monitoring.
An accident, for example, may highlight problems that should have been identified and assessed at an earlier stage and failures in management systems which should have been investigated during auditing etc. Therefore; the accident investigation report will not only concentrate on factors specific to the particular accident, but also include recommendations to improve the risk assessment and active monitoring systems in general. This can only be achieved where active and reactive monitoring is integrated into a unified monitoring strategy.
The following diagram, based upon that in HS(G)65 illustrates such an approach:
In many ways an accident investigation is similar to a risk assessment. Both, for example, are based upon the same model of causation between cause and event.
With a risk assessment the intention is to identify possible causes, and the relationship between causes, before they result in an accident. Whereas, with an accident investigation, the process starts with the accident and works backwards in order to discover the chain of causation which resulted in the accident.
The same causation model may be constructed in both a risk assessment and an accident investigation, but the starting point will differ. For this reason, lessons learned by applying one of the techniques will prove valuable to the other technique.
The following diagrams aims to illustrate these points:
Immediate causes of accidents relate to personal and job factors, whereas underlying causes often relate to management and organisational factors. Some of the common ones of each type being:
Immediate Causes
Personal Factors Job Factors
Behaviour Adequacy of precautions for:
Suitability Premises
Competence Plant
Substances
Procedures
Systems of work
Underlying Causes
Management and Organisational Factors
Adequacy of safety policy
How work is controlled, co-ordinated and supervised
How the co-operation of employees is achieved
The adequacy of the communication of information
How competency is achieved and tested
The adequacy of planning, risk assessment etc
The adequacy of measuring and monitoring systems
The adequacy of review and auditing arrangements
Risk assessments alone are fairly useless as a means of improving safety performance within an organisation. Only when they are combined with a fully audited safety management system can powerful changes be made to the culture of the organisation and "real" improvements in workplace health and safety be achieved.
Risk assessments target the priority areas that the safety management system needs to focus upon. The monitoring aspects of the safety management system confirm both how accurate the initial targetting was and also how effective the controls introduced were to reduce those risks. The organisation benefits in a legal, humanitarian and economic sense through the introduction of such an approach.
Legal
Ensures compliance with legal requirements.
Humanitarian
Demonstrates a commitment to the health and safety of employees and
others affected by the work of the organisation.
Economic
Reduces potential losses to the organisation and can result in
more efficient work activities.