Creating a safety culture that drives world-class performance typically involves traditional reporting tools such as injury statistics, vehicle accident statistics and disability costs. However, forward-thinking safety leadership requires leading indicators, which enable the understanding of the effectiveness of the safety efforts underway at an operation. Management that dedicates time to continuous improvement uses leading indicators not only as a way to prevent injuries, but also to continuously improve productivity and quality in plants. 

Because they measure proactive efforts, leading indicators can uncover weak spots before they develop into large-scale problems.  For example, observing significant tire wear suggests replacement. But recognizing uneven tire wear as an indicator for improper inflation leads to better maintenance and tire operation – and thus reduced likelihood of losing vehicle control and injury.  In this way, leading indicators serve not just as a way to prevent injuries, but as a way of continuously improving productivity and quality. 

Trailing indicators and current indicators are a reaction to past and current efforts.  Trailing indicators, such as injury and illness statistics, reveal how well we have done in the past.  Current indicators, like safety audit findings and training records, tell us where we are now and how thoroughly we have institutionalized safety.  But measuring safety performance through leading indicators provides the best opportunity to prevent harm and losses from happening at all. 

Determining Leading Indicators

Organizations can turn facts into leading indicators by using their own experience and knowledge to infer relationships between facts and results.  For example, if you observed a disorderly workstation with tools in disarray, you would react by removing the tripping hazards. But if you treated clutter as an indicator of poor attitude towards safety, you should be driven to motivate the organization to live up to higher standards of safe behavior.

Leading indicators become valuable tools only if they are used to take corrective action in order to negate their implications on the outcome. This methodology can be useful in using leading indicator data to help manage safety performance. Figure 1 shows how comparing desired performance with an aspect of actual performance (leading indicators) generates correction. As performance approaches the goal, the required correction diminishes. But even small deviations create corrective action. Maintaining performance at the desired level to achieve and maintain goal performance is determined by both the effectiveness of the process and the relationship of the leading indicators to the output and results.

Implementing Leading Indicators

Many safety performance parameters can be used as leading indicators, but some are better than others as tools to help improve performance. Characteristics of effective leading indicators in managing safety are:

• Simple, close connectivity to the outcome/results
• Objectively and reliably measurable
• Interpreted by different groups in the same way
• Broadly applicable across company operations
• Easily and accurately communicated

Some examples of leading indicators include: percent of audit deficiencies corrected on time, near-miss reporting and analysis, quality and quantity of employee safety suggestions, scope of the training plan and compliance with standards and guidelines.

Injuries may be viewed as trailing indicators in that they have already occurred. However, if we consider them in terms of the probability of similar future incidents and use the learnings to change our processes, then we are treating them as leading indicators. In this light, accurate data on repetitive incidents can yield especially effective leading indicators. 

Leading indicators should be a mix of qualitative and quantitative information and built on a reliable system of data management.  Effective data collection and analysis can be challenging, therefore I stress that managers prioritize the indicators they plan to track.  Consider the areas that are most important to your safety performance, then commit to track and follow up on these measures.  Put in place a robust reporting, tracking and correction system so that you have the capability to zero in on opportunities and fix deficiencies. 

Leading indicators inform the organization of its progress by tracking each small step to improvement. They enable employees to access the quality of their efforts, the rate of their improvement and the health of their programs. Most importantly, leading indicators drive continuous improvement in an organization that results in safer employees. By attacking the base of the hazard pyramid to reduce at-risk behavior and unsafe thinking, important differences are made that reduce injuries and fatalities.