What is Health and Safety Performance Measurement

In order to manage health and safety successfully there needs to be some measure of performance. Health and safety performance measurement is a critical part of the management system. As they say:

Checking that risks are being managed in an organization is a vital step and is essential to demonstrate that enough is being done to keep on top of health and safety and to identify how things could be improved in the future.

One response to the question: “Why measure health and safety performance?” is: “How else will you know how well you are doing?” If you do not measure performance, you will have no idea of how far away you are from where you want to be, and whether your plans are actually working.

The purposes of performance measurement include to:

• Assess the effectiveness and appropriateness of health and safety objectives and arrangements in terms of Hardware (plant, premises, substances) & Software (people, procedures, systems).
• Measure and reward success (not to penalize failure!).
• Use the results as a basis for making recommendations for a review of current management systems.
• Maintain and improve health and safety performance.

Measuring health and safety performance provides information on the progress and current status of the strategies, processes, and activities used by an organization to control risks to health and safety. It sustains the operation and development of the health and safety management system, and 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.
• Providing feedback and motivation.