Data analytics may seem like the expertise of computer engineers, business owners and other eggheads. But they’re also vital for any good safety professional who wants to improve their craft and help guide their organization to lower risk and fewer accidents.
Injury rates in all industries, particularly the construction industry, are increasing year over year. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2.8 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses occurred in 2022, up 7.5% from 2021. Of those injuries and illnesses, 174,100 occurred in the construction industry alone. It’s hard to avoid it – accidents are happening more often than ever. So, what can safety managers do about it?
Building a proactive, robust safety program is a great place to start. But it’s hard to know what’s working and what isn’t unless you’re tracking in-depth data for day to day safety operations. Data analytics allow safety managers to uncover trends and provide valuable insights to make safety improvements that benefit workers and the company.
So how does this process work? It involves using software and data to find patterns and generate meaningful insights. High-risk industries worldwide can (and should) employ data analysis to enhance their operations and achieve better safety outcomes. For effective data analytics in any industry, two requirements need to be met:
- Quality, accessible data.
- The ability to draw meaningful insights from the data.
Basically, you can’t learn what’s working well if you’re not systematically tracking daily performance from the front line. Whether a data point is positive or negative, knowing how to record and read those events is essential to replicating success and correcting issues.
Key Components of Safety Data
As a safety manager, understanding the key elements of successful data collection will make it much easier to find success. Tools are only as effective as the person using them, after all. For an efficient, impactful analytics system, you need to master data collection, analysis, modeling, and visualization.
Collection
The first step in leveraging data analytics for safety management is collecting quality data. This involves gathering information from various sources you’ve identified as key performance indicators (more on these soon). The data must be accurate, comprehensive, and timely to be useful. If you’re gathering information in too short of a timeframe, or the information is skewed and inaccurate, it could affect your analysis in the long term.
Here are a few sources of data you can consider gathering for your analytics:
- Incident Reports: Detailed accounts of accidents and near-misses, providing critical insights into what went wrong.
- Safety Inspections: Regular checks to identify potential hazards and ensure compliance with safety regulations.
- Employee Feedback: Insights from workers on the ground about unsafe conditions or practices.
- Equipment Logs: Maintenance records and usage data to monitor the health and performance of machinery.
Analysis
Once you’ve collected your data, it needs to be analyzed to identify patterns and trends. This involves using statistical tools or software to process the data. Uncovering insights that can help you improve your safety strategies is the goal you’re trying to achieve with this step. Data analysis can reveal the root causes of accidents, common hazardous practices, and areas needing improvement.
Reporting and Visualization
Once you’ve analyzed your data, you need to make it easy to parse for other stakeholders in your organization. Simple charts, graphs and reports are always going to be more effective in getting buy-in for your plans. Data visualization tools like dashboards and graphs make it easier to understand complex data. Clear and concise reports help safety managers, and other stakeholders, make informed decisions quickly. Here are a few ways you can report your data to others:
- Dashboards: Interactive displays that provide real-time updates on key safety metrics.
- Graphs and Charts: Visual tools to highlight trends, anomalies, and correlations.
- Automated Reporting: Systems that generate regular reports, reducing the manual effort required.
Predictive Modeling
Safety data can also be manipulated by software to help provide predictive modeling for future incidents. Simply put, if you see in your analytics tool that the most accidents happen in a specific area of your job sites, you can use that information to better train frontline workers. Predictive models can indicate when and where accidents are likely to occur, allowing for targeted interventions.
Here are a few tools and techniques that are used in developing a solid predictive model.
- Machine Learning Algorithms: Techniques such as regression analysis, decision trees, and neural networks.
- Forecasting Tools: Software like SAS or IBM SPSS for building and validating predictive models.
- Scenario Analysis: Simulating different situations to understand potential outcomes and plan accordingly.
Continuous Improvement
All this data analysis doesn’t matter if you can’t learn from it! Continuous improvement involves regularly reviewing safety data to make ongoing enhancements to your safety practices. Nobody is going to get it right the first time, and tailoring your safety program to the front line’s needs can make sure everyone is on the same page and working safely.
By consistently monitoring and analyzing data, organizations can adapt their strategies to new challenges and opportunities, fostering a stronger safety culture. Here are a few ways to measure performance and identify areas for improvement.
- Feedback Loops: Regularly updating safety protocols based on new data insights and frontline feedback.
- Benchmarking: Comparing performance against industry standards to identify areas for improvement.
- Training Programs: Ongoing training to ensure all employees are up to date with the latest safety practices.
Interdependent vs. Reactive Safety Programs
For many organizations, the difference in safety can be measured by the safety culture and how employees and leadership respond to incidents and manage compliance. Some places (bless their hearts) will react to an incident, report it, and discipline whoever caused the accident. But they’ll rarely look inward and determine how an issue happened and take the time to develop safeguards.
On the other hand, successful organizations will take safety to heart and develop an internal culture of safety. Employees are properly trained, frontline workers are more careful, and leadership is invested in reducing risk on the job site. These supportive, safer crews tend to be more productive and experience greater return on investment – nearly $3 back for every dollar spent on improving safety. Accidents still might happen, but they are far less common since the job site is overall safer and more organized.
An organization’s safety status can be measured against their injury rates using a concept called the DuPont Bradley Curve. This graph (pictured below) illustrates the stages of safety culture maturity within an organization, ranging from reactive to interdependent. As organizations grow closer to interdependence, they experience less accidents and injuries due to a stronger internal safety culture.
Here are the four sections of the DuPont Bradley Curve, and what they mean:
- Reactive: Workplaces in this stage only respond to accidents after they occur. There are little to no preventative measures in place, just basic compliance with safety organizations like OSHA.
- Dependent: These workplaces have some training and safety measures, but they are generally enforced through fear of discipline.
- Independent: Frontline workers follow safety practices because they value personal safety. They view safety as an important goal.
- Interdependent: Employees take pride in working at a safe organization and collaborate to enhance safety practices and procedures.
Why Does This Matter?
Achieving interdependence in safety culture significantly reduces injury rates. Lower injury rates lead to better performance, reduced risk, and increased return on investment (ROI). A safer organization will be more profitable, more efficient, and have a stronger reputation within the given industry. Fewer accidents mean fewer Worker’s Compensation claims. Additionally, you can likely expect fewer OSHA audits, and little to no corrective action.
The bottom line: Safety matters more than just preventing occasional injuries.
How to Get Better Safety Data
So now that we know how the maturity of your safety program affects culture and productivity, let’s talk about building and improving your data analytics. Identifying metrics and defining data pipelines and workflows can be intimidating for newcomers, but remembering these three things can help make the difference in gathering analytics:
- You don’t need to nail it on the first try. If something doesn’t work, change it up and see if it helps.
- You’re not in this alone. Leadership and frontline workers should both be invested in helping you succeed.
- Take the time up front to define your Key Progress Indicators and other factors in your data analysis.
Identify Key Progress Indicators
Getting actionable data begins with a conversation between safety managers and leadership to identify key progress indicators (KPIs) and metrics that need to be tracked. These should include:
- Risks: Potential hazards and their likelihood of occurring.
- Leading Indicators: Proactive measures to prevent incidents.
- Lagging Indicators: Reactive measures that record incidents after they occur.
Effectively, this stage should include spending time out in the field examining the job site to identify possible hazards. Considering many accidents include slips and falls, identifying ways that may happen could be a good start. Walk through the risks you’ve found with leadership to show how they could affect your organization, but don’t forget to discuss what works well. To identify areas of improvement, you need to honestly track positive and negative performance across the jobsite.
Establish a Scoring System
Create a scoring system for your organization’s KPIs to weigh leading and lagging indicators accurately. Since not all incidents have the same impact, it’s helpful to prioritize safety efforts and allocate resources effectively.
- Weighted Scoring: Assign different weights to various indicators based on their importance. For example, a minor cut will probably have less weight than a struck by incident.
- Thresholds: Set benchmarks for acceptable performance levels. These should include positive and negative actions, like observations submitted or accidents on-site.
- Regular Reviews: Periodically reassess the scoring system to ensure it remains relevant.
The bottom line: Your data analytics will be less effective unless you rank all the data that’s flowing into the system.
Get Buy-In from Leadership and Workers
Both leadership and frontline workers need to understand the importance of a robust safety system. If you don’t have support from either end, it can be difficult to get actionable data and meaningful change across the board. Tips for getting leadership on board can include:
- Presenting Data: Show how safety investments lead to a positive ROI. Some research, like this article from the American Society of Safety Professionals, can provide some solid examples.
- Sharing Success Stories: Highlight examples from other organizations that have benefited from strong safety programs. OSHA has case studies on their site that could fit the bill.
- Compliance Benefits: Emphasize the importance of meeting regulatory requirements to avoid fines and legal issues.
Ultimately, you don’t absolutely need buy-in from senior management and CEOs to make your safety program and data analytics work. It does, however, help lead frontline workers by example. If your worker’s immediate supervisors care about their safety, they’ll likely pitch in and do their part. According to workplace safety expert Kevin Burns, building a strong safety culture requires ongoing conversations and investment into everyone at an organization.
Simply put: Show people you care, why safety matters, and they should come around.
Establish Data Collection Workflows
Set up workflows for gathering data through daily and weekly logs, reports, and observations. Every organization is different and requires various forms and reports depending on what’s happening any given day. These can include:
- Safety Inspection Checklists: Regularly updated forms to ensure all aspects of the job site are properly maintained and safe.
- Incident and Near-Miss Reports: Comprehensive forms that are mandated by OSHA and other regulatory organizations.
- Employee Feedback Forms: Anonymous surveys and observations to encourage honest reporting.
- Observation Reports: Reports designed to provide a snapshot of daily safety compliance.
- Equipment Maintenance Logs: Detailed records of maintenance activities and equipment conditions.
Many of these reports and forms will likely be in place already for an established safety plan, but you may need to add new reports to your existing procedures based on your needs. Say you start using a crane or forklift on the job site – it could be beneficial to ask the operators to fill out a daily JHA or JSA to keep track of daily operations.
As time goes on, you’ll likely need to add new forms to your safety program as needed to keep your data comprehensive. Make sure to set expectations with frontline workers – nobody likes extra paperwork, but stressing the importance of every piece of data you’re trying to collect will go a long way. If needed, hold regular training on proper form and report completion to make sure the data you’re receiving is accurate.
Leading and Lagging Indicators
Before we dive into data analysis, let’s talk about leading and lagging indicators. These are specific types of data that signify events and performance on the job site. According to OSHA, lagging indicators will alert you to hazards and areas for improvement.
Leading indicators show proactive actions that promote safety and can come in many forms. They can include attendance rates for safety meetings, completed pre-task plans, or training sessions held. Here are a few examples of qualities to look for in solid leading indicators:
- Is your leading indicator tracking an item relevant to your goals?
- Can you achieve that goal withing a reasonable timeframe?
- Are you tracking leading indicators regularly enough to see trends in your data?
Ideally, your leading indicators should show daily performance over the course of an extended period, like a full quarter of the year (four months).
Lagging indicators are reactive measures and recorded incidents that show failure in your safety system. Don’t freak out at the idea of reporting these – 99% of workplace accidents are preventable, but they’ll still happen. It’s essential to be honest in your reporting and track the good with the bad. Otherwise, how can you prevent an incident from happening again?
Examples of lagging indicators include:
- Recordable and Reportable Accidents: Documented injuries that require medical treatment.
- Theft Incidents: Records of stolen property, which can indicate security weaknesses.
- Equipment Malfunctions: Logs of machinery failures that could lead to accidents.
What to Do with Your Safety Data
Identifying and systematically tracking leading and lagging indicators isn’t your only steps to success – once you have your data recorded, you need to know how to read it. From a high level, data analysis falls under three actions: review, visualize, and improve. We’ll break down each step.
Review the Data
After your safety data is collected, it needs to be reviewed. Having several KPIs and a variety of positive and negative indicators can be overwhelming without a clear understanding of what to look for. Data visualization tools like Safety Mojo can help organize and interpret data. Generally, these will include aggregated spreadsheets and graphs. Some analytics tools will show improvement over time, or a meter detailing your progress towards success.
Whatever analytics solution you use, make sure you understand how data enters your system, how it’s analyzed and manipulated, and how to read it. Here are a few tools and tactics to systematically organize and interpret your data.
- Data Dashboards: Interactive displays that monitor real-time data. These can be manually adjusted or automated depending on your setup.
- Trend Analysis: Use graphs and charts to review performance over time.
- Anomaly Detection: Spotting unusual data points that may indicate emerging issues can help you predict and prevent incidents.
By analyzing and reviewing data, you can see what’s going on from a high level and make changes to improve safety. For example, if you see reports of improper PPE use or increased near misses, you can take the steps necessary to stop it.
Visualizing Data
While you may understand the method to your madness, dashboards can make it easier for frontline workers and supervisors to recognize trends and improvements in safety. Instead of skimming through a spreadsheet, most analytics dashboards provide data breakdowns in the form of simplified graphs and charts that can be filtered to identify how leading and lagging indicators are affecting your organization.
Keeping filters and reports simple and direct allows everyone to see successes and opportunities for improvement. Here are a few options to get started.
- Line Graphs: Track changes in key metrics over time.
- Bar Charts: Compare different data points side-by-side.
- Heat Maps: Visualize the frequency of incidents in different areas.
Continuous Improvement
If the current system isn’t working, don’t be afraid to make changes. You’re not going to master safety – or analytics – overnight, but you can learn and improve your processes. Learning from data is essential in predicting and preventing future incidents, and refining your presentation will get more coworkers onboard with your efforts. Regularly review and update data collection and analysis processes to stay ahead. Aside from self-improvement, here are a few ways you can get the feedback you need to improve.
- Feedback Mechanisms: Collect input from employees on the effectiveness of safety measures. These can be anonymous to encourage honesty, but don’t be afraid of criticism.
- Iterative Processes: Continuously refine safety strategies based on data insights. You’ll have opportunities to improve your data collection and analysis as you gain more experience, so don’t miss these opportunities.
- Performance Audits: Conduct regular assessments to ensure ongoing compliance and improvement. Keep an eye on your processes and procedures, and don’t be afraid to talk to the frontline if something isn’t working the way you need it to.
Benefits of Better Safety Analytics
If set up correctly, your dashboards will provide valuable safety insights thanks to predictive modeling, automatic alerts, and real-time information. The best way to prevent an accident is to know when and where it might happen; data analysis is your tool to do so.
Identify and Prevent Risk Factors
As previously mentioned, 99% of all accidents are preventable. Considering injuries account for $161 billion in losses every year, you just need to know what to look out for, and that’s where analytics comes in. Safety analytics help identify potential risks and prevent incidents before they occur. This proactive approach leads to safer work environments and reduced injury rates.
While some accidents can be hard to forecast and prevent, keeping track of the state of safety can still help educate workers and mitigate the possibility of careless acts.
Improved Safety Compliance
Maintaining compliance with OSHA standards is a natural result of maintaining safety and reducing risk on the job site. OSHA regulations act as the floor for safety, and businesses are expected to meet those standards or face a fine, inspections, and other corrective actions.
Accurate data tracking and reporting help organizations stay ahead of compliance by providing a paper trail that shows your organization is in line with safety standards.
Reduced Costs, Improved Productivity
In addition to improved ROI from safety expenses, you can expect to see greater profits across the organization. Accidents will usually result in time away from work due to medical treatment, which also leads to Worker’s Compensation payouts. The average settlement for an injured employee is $20,000, which can add up if injuries happen often.
When your workplace is safer, employees are happier, more consistent, and able to do their job quickly and efficiently. Fewer accidents also lead to less downtime, which means an organization can be more cost-effective in the long run. Remember – for every dollar spent on safety, expect an ROI of $3 or more.
Stronger Safety Culture
Keeping track of safety data doesn’t just act as a paper trail for an auditor. Dashboards can be an educational tool for everyone within an organization. By educating employees on the state of safety, you can move the frontline towards a more interdependent state, which means safer overall behaviors.
Additionally, safety professionals can encourage a healthier workplace free of safety cop mentality. Strong safety culture encourages proactive, collaborative mentalities, rather than holding threats of disciplinary action over employees’ heads.
Get Actionable Real-Time Data with Safety Mojo Dashboards
If the idea of building your own dashboards and establishing data pipelines is stressful, don’t worry. Safety Mojo’s Dashboards take the complexity of building and analyzing data and streamlines it for easy browsing. Instead of developing custom formulas and manually uploading data, our all-in-one safety platform will provide real-time updates so you can focus on the results.
So why choose our platform? Here’s how Safety Mojo’s AI-based features benefit any Safety Pro.
Custom-built Data Dashboards
Don’t stress about spending hours building your own dashboards – The Safety Mojo team is ready and waiting to design custom dashboards to fit your needs. Whether you want to see the ROI of your safety program or the total number of observations and incidents, we can help develop the pipeline for any data set you want to keep track of.
Safety Scorecards and Alerts
Want to show leadership just how well any element of your safety program is working? Set up custom scorecards to easily report metrics at a glance. These can be designed upon request to provide easy access to aggregated data sets for any situation.
Dashboards also include real-time alerts for leading and lagging indicators. You’ll get automatic in-app and SMS alerts, if incidents occur above a certain threshold, giving you the chance to review the data and make improvements.
Real-Time Charts and Graphs
You don’t need to wait for monthly data dumps to review your dashboards. Safety Mojo’s digital platform automatically adds all reports and forms to your dataset, giving you real-time information you need to make smarter, safer decisions.
AI-Powered Filtering
Do you want to see the percentage of signed PTPs for a specific month (or any hard-to-find data point), but you’re not sure where to look? Just ask Safety Mojo, and the platform will automatically find the information that you need. Our AI-driven prompts allow you to customize and adjust your dashboards on the fly without needing to sort through drop-down menus and complex views.
Any good safety professional can benefit from strong data analytics. In addition to staying ahead of the curve and preventing accidents, analytics help provide justification for future improvements to safety programs.
Want to see how Safety Mojo can transform safety and streamline your analytics? Visit www.getmojo.ai today to request a free demo.
