'You can't manage what you can't measure' – Drucker

‘If you don’t know where you are going, chances are you will end up somewhere else’ – Yogi Berra

Measurement has been a problem in the safety field for years. Despite analyzing the standards over and over again, it has been difficult to come up with meaningful measures of safety performance.

Safety metrics are very important for many reasons. Through safety metrics you can track your progress either up or down.

The primary purpose of measuring health and safety performance is to provide information on the progress and current status of the strategies, processes and activities used by an organization to control risks to health and safety.

Measurement information sustains the operation and development of the health and safety management system, and so the control of risk, by:

• providing information on how the system operates in practice;
• identifying areas where remedial action is required;
• providing a basis for continual improvement; and
• providing feedback and motivation.

The following flow chart presents the role of performance measure in a Health & Safety Management System.