Safety in Numbers With all the talk about safety and zero we would have to wonder how ZERO will ever be achieved. Recently there was a job that had about 30 first aid cases. (These ranged from a minor scratch to a sprained wrist.) What the company decided was that there had not been enough […]
Safety Statistics
Target Trade-Offs and Numeric Goals
Target Trade-Offs and Numeric Goals We learn recently that Victorian Police – a supposed institution of trust, has fabricated numbers over the past 5 years in order to meet targets. It is reported today that Victoria Police have fabricated 258,000 breath tests in order to meet targets. How is this relevant for safety? I hear […]
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The Tyranny of Metrics
The Tyranny of Metrics This is the title of a very easy to read book on the obsession of metrics by Jerry Z. Muller. It should be mandatory reading for anyone in the safety industry. ‘The challenges of ‘tick and flick’ in the culture of safety is endemic. We know from the research by Herbert […]
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By What Method?
By What Method? One of the strange beliefs of Safety is that the publication of injury statistics invokes change? Ah, how does it do that? Since when did information become motivation? When one looks at the many promises made in the safety industry and all the propaganda about zero, injury reduction etc. there are three […]
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I am a Spreadsheet King
I am a Spreadsheet King I have had numerous conversations with safety people this week who lament the amount of time they have to spend doing spreadsheets reporting on everything from injury rates, TRIFR, near miss etc. One a GM of a tier 1 organisation tells me he hasn’t had time to walk the floor […]
