• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

SafetyRisk.net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE
    • Slogans
      • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
      • When Slogans Don’t Work
      • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
      • 500 OF THE BEST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
      • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
      • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
      • Safety Acronyms
      • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
      • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
      • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
      • Safety Slogans List
      • Road Safety Slogans 2023
      • How to write your own safety slogans
      • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
      • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
      • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
      • Safety Slogans for Work
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • Free Hotel and Resort Risk Management Checklist
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Social Psychology Of Risk
    • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Dr Long Posts
    • ALL POSTS
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no Hierarchy of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • THEMES
    • Risk Myths
    • Safety Myths
    • Safety Culture Silences
    • Safety Culture
    • Psychological Health and Safety
    • Zero Harm
    • Due Diligence
  • Free Learning
    • Introduction to SPoR – Free
    • FREE RISK and SAFETY EBOOKS
    • FREE ebook – Guidance for the beginning OHS professional
    • Free EBook – Effective Safety Management Systems
    • Free EBook – Lessons I Have Learnt
  • Psychological Safety
    • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
    • Managing psychosocial hazards at work
    • Psychological Safety – has it become the next Maslow’s hammer?
    • What is Psychosocial Safety
    • Psychological Safety Slogans and Quotes
    • What is Psychological Safety?
    • Understanding Psychological Terminology
    • Psycho-Social and Socio-Psychological, What’s the Difference?
    • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
    • It’s not weird – it’s a psychological safety initiative!
You are here: Home / Safety Statistics / General Motors Stops Using Safety Metrics

General Motors Stops Using Safety Metrics

November 19, 2015 by Admin Leave a Comment

GM Throws Out the Safety Metrics

Depositphotos_32082083_s-2015An interesting article below by EHS Today on some big statements made by GM’s Senior Manager for Health and Safety that they are to begin “throwing out the safety metrics”. You will see that their focus is still on counting, measuring and controlling hazards – only lots more data ie some 4000 near misses which they call ‘sentinel events’ – a sentinel event means one that is unanticipated.  Their desire to “want to know everything” is a bit of a worry and just another example of power and control discourse from the top. But this a start and a great realisation and admission by a Multinational – how long before others start to get it?

Do you think this really is a “Paradigm Shift” or just more corporate spin? How long before we see “ZERO SENTINELS” embroidered on every worker’s shirt?

Here is an interesting article from the Harvard Business Review about the weak culture at GM – their new tactic seems similar to what Ford tried to do in regards to speaking up? https://hbr.org/2014/03/fixing-a-weak-safety-culture-at-general-motors. The article says:

Clearly, GM’s safety culture is, and has been for quite some time, badly broken. A strong safety culture stems from psychological safety — the ability, at all levels, to speak up with any and all concerns, mistakes, failures, and questions related to even the most tentative issues. Simply appointing a safety chief will not create this culture unless he and the CEO model a certain kind of leadership.

Related articles:

When the Safety Tool Becomes the Method

When institutionalized tools become enshrined in organizational culture, they are like concrete shoes, they seem to fit but the weight of the problem over time seems only good for getting us quicker to the bottom. What tools am I thinking of? Well, many of the tools we have accepted to measure safety or performance. For example, Bird’s or Heinrich’s Pyramid, Lost Time Injury data or Frequency of Injury data. …… Enjoy the rest of the article >>>>>

‘Measuring’ does things to people…. (and what to do about it)

It has become fashionable for organisations to use positive or leading indicators as a way to ‘measure’ their risk and safety ‘performance’. Leaders in some organisations have proudly told me how they are ‘progressive’, ‘generative’ and ‘world class’ because they focus …… Enjoy the rest of the article >>>>>

 

General Motors Ends the Metrics Game, Extract (see the whole article, first published here)

EHS Today reports that:

In his presentation at EHS Today’s Safety Leadership Conference last week, GM’s Senior Manager for health and Safety, Mike Douglas, explained that GM’s road to safety begins by throwing out the metrics.

"When you have folks trying to get their numbers down, it quells reporting," he said. "People play with the numbers to get them into range."

That, he said, defeats the whole point of safety. It’s not about meeting some corporate goals; it’s about getting your people home safe. Requiring a certain drop in metrics does nothing to alter the real state of safety.

So GM changed their reporting objectives.

"We got away from this idea of tracking numbers," Douglas explained. "We don’t care about that. We want to know everything."

So, rather than the usual metrics, the company has turned to sentinel events – any and every situation anywhere across its production or supply chains that could have killed someone, caused a life-altering injury, or resulted in hospitalization. Even if no one was ever harmed.

As Douglas explains, it’s a system of measuring "how many folks by sheer luck or variables out of their control escaped an event that could have resulted in a fatality."

Basically, he said, this means tapping into the water cooler talk about what really happens day to day in the plants — about all of the close calls and could-ofs that workers deal with in their jobs. Falling chains, rusted fixtures, that time someone on the line almost got nailed.

"In your place of work, there are [potentially dangerous] things happening every day," he says. "We had to learn to listen to what is really going on."

The results of this shift are rather remarkable.

It’s not a corporate game. It’s not meeting quotas and fudging numbers. It’s real improvements to real hazards, eliminating risk before an event ever occurs.

(see the whole article, first published here)

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Safety Statistics Tagged With: hazards, lti, measurement

Reader Interactions

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Search and Discover More on this Site

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,497 other subscribers

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

SAFETY MYTHS SERIES

The Mythic Symbology of Safety

Posture Myths and Holistic Ergonomics

Safety Mythbusters

Don’t Be Emotional! Another Safety Myth

Tackling the Challenge of Heuristics in Safety

The Myth of Normal

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

Recent Comments

  • Rob Long on Posture Myths and Holistic Ergonomics
  • Linda McKendry on Posture Myths and Holistic Ergonomics
  • Rob long on Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • Matt Thorne on Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • Anonymous on Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • Jason on How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Rob Long on How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Admin on How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Rob Long on 400,000 Free Downloads
  • Gustavo Saralegui on 400,000 Free Downloads
  • Rob long on To Err is Human, You Better Believe It
  • Wynand on To Err is Human, You Better Believe It
  • Rob Long on To Err is Human, You Better Believe It
  • simon cassin on To Err is Human, You Better Believe It
  • Rob Long on Records of safety activities: evidence of safety or non-compliance?
  • Matt Thorne on Free Online Workshops
  • Rob long on No Good Reason to Follow Reason
  • Brian Edwin Darlington on No Good Reason to Follow Reason
  • Risk Diversity on Book Launch – For the Love of Zero – in Portuguese
  • Rob Long on No Good Reason to Follow Reason

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Footer

VIRAL POST – The Risk Matrix Myth

Top Posts & Pages. Sad that most are so dumb but this is what safety luves

  • 500 OF THE BEST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023
  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Safety Acronyms
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
  • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity

Recent Posts

  • Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • Thinking of Mortality
  • Safety is the Wrong Anchor
  • Foresight Blindness, Hindsight Bias and Risk
  • Getting the Balance Right in Tackling Risk
  • What is SPoR?
  • How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Afraid to Let Go of What Doesn’t Work in Safety
  • When You Don’t Know What to do in Safety, Have Another Blitz!!!
  • Gloves and Glasses Compliance
  • A Case of Desensitisation – What Would You Do?
  • How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • The Mythic Symbology of Safety
  • Dark Waters, The True Story of DuPont and Zero
  • 400,000 Free Downloads
  • Am I stupid? I didn’t think of that…
  • Don’t Look Now Safety, Your Metaphor is Showing
  • Ratio Delusions and Heinrich’s Hoax
  • To Err is Human, You Better Believe It
  • Culture as a Wicked Problem, for Safety
  • Safety Leadership Training
  • Cultural Orientation in Risk
  • The Stanford Experiment and The Social Psychology of Risk
  • Objectivity, Audits and Attribution When Calculating Risk
  • Records of safety activities: evidence of safety or non-compliance?
  • Zero, The Seeking of Infinity
  • Safety Leadership Essentials
  • What Can Indiana Jones Tell Us About Culture
  • Safety as a Worldview
  • The Loathing of Limits
  • Culture Cannot be Framed Through Safety
  • Free Online Workshops
  • Safety Culture–Hudson’s Model
  • Book Launch – For the Love of Zero – in Portuguese
  • Advancing Backwards in Safety
  • The ‘Noise’ of Safety, Silence and Practicing of Mindfulness
  • All Things Must Pass in Risk
  • I’m just not that into safety anymore
  • Sticks and Stones and the Nonsense of Zero Harm
  • Courting Infallibility in Safety
  • Indicators of Risk
  • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
  • No Good Reason to Follow Reason
  • Just as Well Culture Doesn’t Listen to Safety
  • What Are the Benefits Of Social Psychology of Risk?
  • Short-Sighted Lenses by Safety
  • Is Safety the Empire of Non-Sense?
  • No Wonder Safety is Confused About Culture
  • Building High Performance Safety Cultures
  • Understanding iCue, a Visual, Verbal, Semiotic Method for Tackling Risk

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

King of the World – Why is Sociopathy and Psychopathy so prevalent ‘at the top’?

Courage to Challenge the Great TRIFR and LTIFR Delusion

How Do We Know?

Sensemaking and ‘Hapori’ – Essential for Tackling Risk in New Zealand

The Mystery and Paradox of Being an Individual in a Social World

Safety Cries Wolf!

Tackling Risk, A Field Guide to Risk and Learning

Towards Dumb

The Curse of Dataism

The Learning (and unlearning) that Revealed my Vocation

When ‘Hearts and Minds’ are not ‘Hearts and Minds’

Zero Accident Vision Non-Sense

Sticks and Stones and the Nonsense of Zero Harm

Risk and Safety as a Social Psychological Problem

The Benefits of SPOR

The Art of the Open Question

I’ve got a feeling this isn’t right, but…..

What Are the Benefits Of Social Psychology of Risk?

The Safetyization of Normal Life

C. G. Jung on Risk and Safety

Selective and Slow Harm is not Zero Harm

Social Psychology of Risk – Body of Knowledge

200,000 SPoR Book Downloads

The Challenging Psychology of Ergonomics

Why Safety Isn’t a Choice You Make

An Introduction to Semiotics and Risk

The Last Thing is, Don’t Start with Safety

Censorship and Taboos in Safety

The Great Heinrich Hoax

What is a Safety and Risk ‘Thinking Group’?

Binary Opposites and Safety Goal Strategy

SEEK Investigations Workshop

Safety is an Art

Speaking a New Language in Safety

A Poetics of Safety

Safety Giveaways–Free Stuff!

Moral Fundamentalism in Safety

Safety as a Worldview

What Can Safety Learn from Barbie

A Culture of Care (and sackings…)

More Posts from this Category

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,497 other subscribers

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY?

What is Psychological Safety at Work?