The Great Safety Hypocrisy: Why Metrics Are Failing Workers | Risk Matrix Episode 137
Risk Matrix #137: The Great Safety Hypocrisy: Why Metrics Are Failing Workers
The safety industry has been debating metrics for decades. Meanwhile, the fatality rate has barely moved. This episode released during Workers Memorial Week, April 20-24, is a reminder that we are still losing roughly 5,500 workers every year.
This week Dr. Martin and James dig into Dr. Martin’s LinkedIn article “The Great Safety Hypocrisy” to examine why measuring compliance is not the same as measuring effectiveness, and what it actually takes to evaluate whether a safety management system is working.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Any metric can be manipulated. When you tell people what they will be measured on, they optimize for the metric, not the outcome.
- A company with a world-class safety program can lose hundreds of millions in contracts after a single incident when hiring clients evaluate on metrics alone with no context for the strength of the safety management system behind them.
- Pre-qualification is a starting point, not a finish line. The only way to know if a contractor’s safety management system is real is to go see if they actually do what they say they do.
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