A Fresh Approach to Risk

Safety Professionals are asked by their employers to prevent injuries, from first aids to fatalities. This causes safety professionals to focus on the lagging indicators of outcome based safety measurements.

But what if safety professionals stopped focusing on injury outcomes and instead focused on reducing the behaviors that cause injuries?

If the behaviors related to injury reduction and prevention are measured, front-line supervision will have better information to recognize, address, and reduce the frequency of reoccurrence.

Better yet, if the behaviors related to injury reduction and prevention are both measured and also have a severity rating applied, this allows employers and its front line supervision to focus on causal behaviors with the highest potential injury severities.

This paper looks to examine the below.

  • The difference in the measurement of behavioral direct causes versus injury outcomes

  • Why employers and safety professionals should be critical of outcome based safety measurements

  • Why it's important to challenge the concept of risk and its measurement

  • Why better categorization of hazards equals better corrective measures

  • Why consistent severity rankings are critical.

  • How behavioral focused measurements can help front-line supervisors drive reduction in frequency of exposure.

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