Vision Zero: proactive leading indicators

Gerard Zwetsloot, ISSA consultant on Vision Zero metrics, explains how to check you are on the right track for Vision Zero.

Many organisations aim to improve safety, health and wellbeing. But it is often easier said than done. Where to start? What is a logical next step? How can you keep it simple and logical? How can you develop proactivity in OSH policy, in practice and culture?

The set of proactive leading indicators that were developed for the International Social Security Organisation (ISSA) as part of its global strategy and campaign to foster Vision Zero for safety, health and wellbeing at work suggest a practical answer. The ISSA strategy focuses on the 7 Golden Rules. For each of the Golden Rules, two proactive leading indicators (PLIs) were developed.

A guide that explains the use of the proactive leading indicators is available in several languages here. This also includes a fact sheet that highlights for each indicator: the aims, key concepts, five relevant good practices, limitations, three ways to measure; and an example of graphical representation of the results (for the most advanced option).

All 14 indicators help to identify opportunities for improvement for all three aspects: safety, health and wellbeing. Using the PLIs helps organisations to become more proactive, both in their management systems and their culture.

Wide input

To ensure effectiveness and practical applicability, information and evidence from companies and other organisations associated with the ISSA Vision Zero strategy and campaign were obtained and used as input. Organisations from all continents shared their leading indicators with the development team.

To give one example: the British Safety Council emphasised the lessons learned from the construction activities for the London Olympic in 2012. In total this comprised 100 million work hours without a fatal accident, historically low accident rates and good health indicators from the wellbeing programme.

Key factors were: visible and impactful leadership (PLI 1.1 and 1.2); actively using near misses (PLI 2.2); daily activity briefings at the start of work (PLI 4.1); taking action on reports or suggestions for improvement (PLI 7.1); and recognition and reward of excellent safety and health behaviour (PLI 7.2).

Put PLIs to the test

There are three options for using the PLIs, which can be regarded as steps of increasing precision and complexity. Option one, the ‘Yes/No Checklist’, provides an organisation with an easy way to gain insight into the proactive activities it performs (or not!). This option is also useful for small and medium-sized organisations. In larger organisations it can be used for internal benchmarking among different departments or business units. Please use it now to explore opportunities for improvement.

It can be useful to let people in different position in the organisation (hierarchical levels, line or staff) use the checklist. Each ‘No’ in the checklist implies an opportunity for improvement. When various people in the organisation come up with different answers, meaningful conversations can be started around those topics. It might also be useful to read the guide for more information on the indicators. 

When the ‘Yes’ score for, say, safety is clearly higher than for health and wellbeing, the organisational experience with improving safety can be used to improve health and wellbeing in a similar way. 

When the great majority of answers are a ‘Yes’, or when the organisation prefers to take the next step, they can continue with options two or three. Option two is the ‘Frequency Estimation’ mode, which addresses the frequency with which key activities for good SHW processes are carried out in a systematic and consistent manner. The degree of systematics and consistency is estimated using five broad categories: Always or almost always, Frequently, Occasionally, Rarely, Very rarely or never. 

Option three is a more advanced approach where the key activities are quantitatively measured with either frequencies or percentages. The outcomes can also be used for internal and external benchmarking, both nationally and internationally.

A scientific paper that focuses on current thinking regarding leading indicators, and the development process of the indicators for the ISSA was published in Safety Science and is available here. 

Next: read this month's cover feature, Absolute Zero.