• 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 AND WORST 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
    • Psychosocial Safety
    • Resiliencing
    • 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
  • Psychosocial Safety
    • What is Psychosocial Safety
    • 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 / How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators

How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators

How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Meaningless Workplace Health and Safety Indicators

Many inquiries around the world have identified that a focus on personal injury rates is not a good indicator of the effectiveness of the health and safety management system, and on occasions, the focus on personal injury rate management can distract an organisation from managing the critical health and safety risks in its business. (see Deepwater Horizon)

I know you feel uncomfortable about the validity of measuring safety this way but you probably don’t have a choice? Imagine, just for a moment, what workplace safety would look like if you didn’t have to “prove” safety? This is probably one of the best safety articles ever published: PROVING SAFETY

Worth a read:

Everything is Green: The delusion of health and safety reporting

Great article by WHS Lawyer Greg Smith. Quotes from the article: “How do you know the or managers are not just wandering around practicing random acts of safety, reinforcing unsafe behaviors and generally just pissing everybody off?” “What is your health and safety reporting really telling you, as opposed to the assumptions you choose to make?  …… Enjoy the rest of the article >>>>>

****** REMEMBER ZERO REPORTED INJURIES DOES NOT EQUAL SAFETY ******

This is a dangerous illusion!!

Download our Free Injury Data and Statistics Spreadsheet

First some other articles which perhaps you should read before worrying about calculating LTIFR to 5 decimal places:

Courage to Challenge the Great TRIFR and LTI Delusion
Courage to Challenge the Great TRIFR and LTI Delusion It was Marx (The German Ideology) who said ‘as individuals express their life, so they are’. At the heart of this aphorism is the idea that what is normalized in a culture comprises what the culture is. One of the things that have become normalized in the culture …… Enjoy the rest of the article >>>>>

LTIFR – A Measure of Safety Performance?

Bizarre… definitely but not quite as bizarre as the wide spread use of the Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate or LTIFR which is an almost … www.safetyrisk.net/ltifr-a-measure-of-safety-performance/

Difficulties Calculating LTIFR and Other Safety Indicators • Safety Risk

The difficulties often encountered when calculating LTIFR, TRIFR and other safety indicators are not with the calculation itself but with the data. www.safetyrisk.net/difficulties-calculating-ltifr-and-other-safety-indicators/

Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate • Safety Risk

The Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate is the principal measure of safety performance in many companies in Australia. The definition of L.T.I.F.R. … www.safetyrisk.net/lost-time-injury-frequency-rate/

More on 10 Sure Fire Ways To Stuff Up a Safety Management System

Some safety people cheat like hell with their L.T.I.F.R. statistics encouraged by managers with an eye to keep their key performance indicators … www.safetyrisk.net/more-on-10-sure-fire-ways-to-stuff-up-a-safety-management-system/ 

How to Calculate LTIFR, TRIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators

Knowing how to calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and other safety indicators is an important skill to have if you work in the health and safety field. Despite the fact that these indicators don’t reveal a great deal of useful information managers love them and will insist on knowing what they are. They will use them to measure internal health and safety performance and to compare you’re company’s performance with other companies. These are not difficult to calculate and this can be made even easier if you use a spread sheet.

LTIFR, TRIFR and other Health and Safety Indicators

Broadly speaking, common health and safety indicators can be divided into two – frequency rates and incidence rates. So what’s the difference?

A frequency rate is an expression of how many events happened over a given period of time by a standardised number of hours worked. An incidence rate is the number of events that happened over a given period time by a standardised number of employees (usually lower than the standardised number of hours). For example, an LTIFR which stands for Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate, is the number of Lost Time Injuries (LTI) that occurred over a period time per 1 000 000 or 100 000 or some other number of hours worked in that period. This could be over a month or a quarter or a year depending on the reporting requirements of your business. To convert this to an incidence rate just substitute the number of employees for the number of hours.

What deoes Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate (TRIFR) mean?

The total recordable injury frequency rate (TRIFR), or total recordable injury rate, is the number of fatalities, lost time injuries, alternate work, and other injuries requiring medical treatment per million hours worked.

The TRIFR is not to be confused with the similarly named LTIFR (lost time injury frequency rate). This latter metric is limited to the number of fatalities and lost time injuries per million employees and does not include other types of injuries.

A lot of things are presented in this manner. As well as lost time injuries there are Medical Treatment Injuries (MTI) another is significant injuries which are often categorized as LTIs plus MTIs. A slight variation is the severity rate which is usually a measure of the amount of time lost due to work related injury by some standardised figure that is used to indicate the severity of injuries.

Calculating Frequency Rates

The formula to calculate these indicators is really very simple. Let’s say we want the number of lost time injuries per 1 000 000 hours worked for the last year. You need to get two pieces of information – the number of TRI’s or LTIs that happened in the last year and the number of hours worked in the last year. You could probably get the number of LTIs from your workers compensation claims manager or insurance company and your payroll section should be able to tell you the number of hours worked over the period.

Multiply the number of LTIs by 1 000 000 and divide the result by the number of hours worked and there you have it – the LTIFR. To show it using numbers. Say there were 7 LTIs in the past year and 2 451 679 hours worked. So, 7 X 1 000 000 = 7 000 000. Divide that by 2 451 679 and you get 2.86 – go on, grab your calculator and try for yourself.

What does that mean? It means that this business experienced 2.86 LTIs for every 1 000 000 hours worked over the past year.

Calculating Incidence Rates

Now, to calculate the LTIIR (Lost Time Injury Incidence Rate) which is the number of LTIs per 100 (or whatever figure you want) employees we just substitute the number of employees for the number of hours and multiply the number of LTIs by the standardizing factor which is 100.

So say this mythical business had 791 employees, we get 7 X 100 = 700. Divide this by the number of employees – 791 – and we get 0.88. So for every 100 employees this firm experienced 0.88 LTIs.

Calculating Severity Rates

Finally the severity rate. Depending on how this is expressed you will need at least the information from above and the number of work days lost over the year. Say its 73. Most often the severity rate is expressed as an average by simply dividing the number of days lost by the number of LTIs. So, using the figures we have we get 73 divided by 7 which gives 10.43. That is, on average each LTI will result in 10.5 days off work. It can be converted to a frequency or incidence rate by multiplying the result by a standardizing factor. This, of course will increase the result which is why you don’t see it very often – who wants a severity rate of 104 days off per 100 LTIs?

So there you have it. Not very hard and if you know even a little bit about spreadsheets you can easily insert the formulas into specific cells to calculate these indicators automatically.

This article explains more of the difficulties of calculating these injury rates: https://safetyrisk.net/difficulties-calculating-ltifr-and-other-safety-indicators/

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)

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Mara de Kock says

    August 25, 2022 at 4:49 PM

    Morning

    Can a Quarterly LTIR Target be set? If yes, what is the formula.

    Reply
    • Wynand says

      August 25, 2022 at 5:39 PM

      Yes, a target can be set. Any formula would probably work, since injury rate targets are pretty useless. Nobody goes to work to get injured, so what is the point of a target to not get injured?

      Reply
  2. Jayesh Patel says

    August 18, 2022 at 1:51 AM

    what is factor 1000000 (1 million )?
    where it comes from?

    Reply
    • Admin says

      August 18, 2022 at 2:20 PM

      it signifies per 1 million worked hours – It is because for very long periods of time people do a great job without incident

      Reply
  3. Rob Long says

    August 4, 2021 at 1:57 PM

    All counting of injury rates is meaningless nonsense.

    Reply
  4. Edwin says

    May 10, 2019 at 3:50 PM

    I’ve seen another indicator, DISR, would this be “disruption rate”?

    Reply
    • Dave Collins says

      May 11, 2019 at 11:14 AM

      Dunno? Probably just another acronym for another meaningless measure that adds to the illusion of things being in control?

      Reply
    • Richard Threnoworth says

      October 15, 2019 at 11:24 AM

      Disabling Injury Frequency Rate. LTIs and RWIs.

      Reply
  5. Rob Long says

    May 10, 2019 at 9:40 AM

    Of course, TRIFR and LTI calculations are a complete waste of time and are not a measure of safety.

    Reply
  6. Rob Long says

    May 10, 2019 at 9:39 AM

    Dave, such language is counterproductive and discredits the activity of ‘helping’ others tackle risk. It sets up safety people as an elite class and this mitigates any chance of ‘helping’.

    Reply
  7. John Vivian McLellan says

    May 9, 2019 at 9:03 AM

    THIS INFO IS EXCELLENT…THE BEST AND SIMPLEST EXPLANATIONS I HAVE SEEN TO DATE….I FIRMLY BELIEVE IN THE K.I.S.S. PRINCIPLE SO WELL DONE TO THE AUTHOR(S). Please keep up the good work…you’re efforts have/are probably saved/saving a life somewhere…..

    Reply
    • Dave Collins says

      May 9, 2019 at 7:35 PM

      Thanks but not so sure that safety people should think of themselves as lifesavers – that’s very different from telling someone to be careful and counting injuries……

      Reply
    • DON says

      August 3, 2021 at 8:49 PM

      hi john what is the KISS PRINCIPLE?

      Reply
      • Anonymous says

        August 4, 2021 at 1:58 AM

        KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid
        When u make things complicated people will invariable find a way around it
        If a system or an instruction is made simple and easy to understand it has more chance of success

        Reply

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 7,521 other subscribers

Recent Comments

  • Rob Long on It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Chris. on It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Pierre Joubert on Zero Doesn’t Work, Road Fatalities Increase
  • James on We are all equal
  • Rob Long on We are all equal
  • James Parkinson on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Admin on We are all equal
  • James Parkinson on We are all equal
  • Rob Long on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on We are all equal
  • Brent Charlton on What Does Safety Achieve?
  • Simon Cassin on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Simon Cassin on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • Rob Long on You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time

RECOMMENDED READING

viral post – iso 45003 and what it cannot do

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

Psychosocial Safety and Mental Health Series

It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe

The KISS of Death in Safety

Is Your Safety World Too Small?

You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time

When Safety (Zero) is Abusive

Hands Up the Best Safety Fraud!

Communicating Professionally in Risk

How NOT to be Professional in Safety

How NOT to do Anything About Culture in Building and Construction

Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline

More Posts from this Category

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

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

  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • When Safety Delights in ‘I Told You So’!
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
  • Ratio Delusions and Heinrich’s Hoax
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS
  • Safety Acronyms

Recent Posts

  • When Safety Delights in ‘I Told You So’!
  • My Story is Better than Yours
  • Understanding Safety as a Cultural Reproductive Process
  • The Unconscious and the Soap Dispenser
  • Thinking Outside the Safety Bubble
  • Understanding Language Influencing, A Video
  • Safetie
  • You are NOT the Sum of Safety
  • Update on SPoR in India, Brazil and Europe
  • It is NOT My Responsibility to Keep You Safe
  • Safety at the Margins
  • Research Basics for Safety
  • We Need Communities and They Need Us
  • Researching Within The Safety Echo Chamber
  • Confirmation Bias, Risk and Being Offensive
  • Lemmings for Lemmings in Leadership and Risk
  • Expertise by Regurgitation and Re-Badging
  • Zero Doesn’t Work, Road Fatalities Increase
  • Can There Be Other Valid Worldviews Than Safety?
  • Evaluating Value by the Value of What You Don’t Know
  • Reality vs Theory, The Binary Divide
  • No Paradigm Shift with BBS
  • The KISS of Death in Safety
  • Is Your Safety World Too Small?
  • What Does Safety Achieve?
  • In Praise of Balance in Risk and the Threat of Extremism
  • We are all equal
  • You Can Fool Someone Some of the Time but, You Can Fool Safety All of the Time
  • What in the (Risk & Safety) World is Imagination?
  • iCue Engagement Process
  • SPoR, Metanoia and a Podcast on Change with Nippin Anand
  • For the Monarchists of Safety
  • The Sully Effect
  • All Things Must Pass in Risk
  • Scapegoating and Safety
  • Understanding Habit, Habituation and Change
  • Don’t Mention the War
  • Safety in Design for Who by Who?
  • Beyond ‘What We Do Around Here’
  • Asking the Wrong Questions
  • When Safety (Zero) is Abusive
  • Mandala as a Method for Tackling an Ethic of Risk (a Video)
  • Safety Cosmetics
  • Visualising the EHS Role
  • Towards Dumb
  • Workshops with Dr Long – Vienna, Austria 26-30 June 2023
  • Visual, Verbal and Relational Mapping in Risk Assessment
  • Abduction in Risk and Safety
  • Creating Myths and Rituals in Safety
  • The Safe Christmas Psychosis

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

Snap, Crackle, Pop. That’s the Sound we Love to Hear

European Tour Dr Long 1-5 June 2020

Visualising Risk

Safety Justifies Anything and Everything

Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk

Safety is NOT a Choice

Questioning Skills and Investigations

The Curse of Dataism

Making Sense of Semiotics and Safety

Ten Secrets to Risk and Safety Motivation and Ownership

Body Memory and Safety

It’s the –ism That Matters

Knowledge and Curriculum for Risk and Safety People

Safety as Avoidance

The Last Thing is, Don’t Start with Safety

Prepositions for Risk and Safety Leadership

Is Choice The First Casualty in the Worker’s Compensation War?

Push or Pull – It’s Not Your Fault – It’s a Norman Door!

Perth Workshops

Look With Your Heart and Not With Your Eyes

Free Online Introduction to the Social Psychology of Risk

Something’s gotta give..

Adverse Events: Eliminate or Anticipate?

Coronavirus and the Dunny Paper Effect

The Sacred Bra Tree

Is there “Common Sense” in safety?

Think Different, Act Differently in Risk

Human Dymensions Feb17 Newsletter and Competition

Zero as Morally Wicked

SOCD – Safety Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Online Inductions and Safety Effectiveness

What in the (Risk & Safety) World is Imagination?

Test Your Reaction Times

Safety Aphorisms and Platitudes

Safety as Ritual Performance

When Art Speaks to Harm

A Semiotic Map for Safety

I DON’T KNOW

The Paradox of Positivism for Safety

By What Method Do You Tackle Risk?

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 7,521 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?


WHAT IS PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY

x
x