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SAFETY PERFORMANCE has long been measured using lagging indicators such as total recordable incident rate (TRIR) that involve counting the number of injuries that occur over time. However, recent research has shown that these metrics suffer from severe limitations in terms of validity, reliability and relevance (Hallowell et al., 2021). For example, it is well established that recordable injuries are underreported in industries such as construction (Probst et al., 2008) and even over millions of worker hours, changes in TRIR are almost never predictive because the occurrence of injuries is rare, and the timing of an injury is almost entirely random (Salas, 2020). Despite these limitations, TRIR and other lagging safety indicators are still used to make critical business decisions such as comparing business units, evaluating manager performance, prequalifying contractors, tracking safety performance and evaluating the effectiveness of safety interventions (Hallowell et al., 2021).
Although reliance on lagging indicators is still extensive and ubiquitous, some organizations have begun to move beyond using only lagging indicators as measures of safety performance and have explored measuring safety system elements as an alternative. Put simply, safety practitioners have begun to measure what they do to keep people safe as a measure of safety. These metrics are often referred to as leading indicators (Alruqi & Hallowell, 2019) and are arguably preferred over lagging metrics because they can prompt action before injuries occur (Guo & Yiu, 2016; Hopkins, 2009; Lingard et al, 2017).
When safety activities are used as leading indicators of safety performance, they are usually measured by the frequency with which they are performed (e.g., the rate of prejob safety briefs or safety observations; Hinze et al, 2013). This rationale stems from the theory that a higher quantity of safety actions and activities correlates with a higher capacity to manage and mitigate risks of incidents. Research has shown that these Quantitative measures of a safety system correlate with future lagging indicators (Salas & Hallowell, 2016). However, measuring only the quantity of safety activities may promote a checking-the-box mentality to meet quotas and targets. The authors contend that the strength of a safety system is ultimately the product of the quality and quantity of the organizational activities performed to promote safety. Although measures of quantity are relatively easy to...