Source: Enablon Insights. – Translated by Laragon.
As we begin a new year, we tend to look ahead and plan for the future. As a security professional, it is important to take time to reflect on the previous year’s events as well.
Understanding your security data from 2018 will help you prepare for 2019.
So what type of data should you review? These are some of the main categories of safety data that you should analyze each year:
- Incidents and injuries
- Audits and inspections
- Behavioral safety
- Action item response times
Incidents and injuries
Of course, it is important to review how many accidents, injuries and incidents occurred. Identifying past and current trends can help you prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.
Questions you should ask yourself include:
- How many injuries occurred last year? Diseases? Near misses?
- How many lost time incidents were there?
- How many cases involve days away from work?
You should also look at the detail data for each incident to determine if there are any additional trends. Examples include:
- Nature of injury
- Time of day
- Affected body part
- Location of the incident
- Cause of incident
An Incident Management System can help you quickly and easily monitor this security data.
With this information you can mitigate risks and improve security performance. You will know which hazards to focus on in the New Year. And you will be able to reduce the number of incidents in the workplace.
Audits and inspections
Another aspect you will want to review is any Audits or Inspections from the previous year.
Did your company have any OSHA visits? If so, what were some of your findings? Are there any open actions that still need to be pursued?
You should also analyze the safety data from your internal audits.
Don’t just review the audit results (although that’s important too), but also think about when and how you conducted them. Ask yourself the following questions:
- How many internal audits did we do last year?
- Who completed them?
- Do we have many repeat findings?
You will want to look for trends and patterns, just as you did for incidents and injuries. Find out which hazards and areas appear most frequently. Then, work with supervisors and employees at those locations to make improvements.
Behavioral safety
Does your company follow a behavior-based safety program?
A BBS program can help you identify risky behaviors and trends. The program aims to improve a company’s safety culture. Analyzing your BBS Data is one of the best ways to use this type of program.
You can gain valuable information from this data, such as risks and trends that you didn’t even realize existed. Early identification is crucial, so these data should be analyzed throughout the year.
In fact, all safety data outlined in this post should be reviewed regularly. In addition, obtaining an annual summary helps you communicate more effectively with senior management and key decision makers.
Action item response times
The last category to be considered is not related to hazards or incidents, but to the timeliness of their response.
How long does it normally take to close an investigation? How long does it take to complete the action points? These are two great questions that will help you understand how quickly your company responds to security concerns.
If your findings reveal missed deadlines and numerous open actions, you may want to implement a task management system.
A Task Management System can help you monitor action plans, check progress, alert team members to make sure required actions meet their deadlines, etc.
Not only is this important for keeping your workers safe, but it is also an excellent way to demonstrate that your company is truly committed to safety.
Tips for analyzing safety data
Without an EHS Software System, analyzing your safety data can be an arduous task. It will take time, energy and resources that may be needed elsewhere.
That’s why many companies are starting to take advantage of EHS software. This also allows the security professional to get out of his office and be more present with his employees.
If you do not currently have a software system, and you want to analyze your 2018 data, then you may need to hire resources to collect and analyze the data. Or, simply plan to spend the first two weeks of the New Year in data analysis.
One way or another, safety data analysis should always be included in your EHS program. For more information on the Enablon software system, please contact Laragon. We can help you get it up and running.
