Beyond TRIF: Introducing the Proactive Safety Performance Index (PSPI)

As a seasoned safety professional with extensive experience across high-risk industries such as construction and oil and gas, I've had the opportunity over the years to evaluate and contribute to the enhancement of an array of safety performance metrics within several organizations. Among these, Total Recordable Incident Frequency (TRIF -alternatively, TRIR) has often been the most prioritized. However, insightful and constructive conversations with other safety professionals time and time again (and you know who you are), has led me to believe that overreliance on TRIF tends to not only distort the genuine understanding of an organization's safety performance, but also unintentionally nurture a culture of underreporting and complacency. As a result, I propose the implementation of a more comprehensive safety performance measurement model that I have spent quite a bit of time conceptualizing that I refer to as the Proactive Safety Performance Index (PSPI), and which, in my opinion has the ability to place the appropriate emphasis on leading indicators and severity rates, thereby providing a more accurate depiction of safety management.

But first, let’s recap the TRIF metric which is calculated by combining the number of incidents resulting in lost time, medical treatment, and restricted work cases over a certain period, and which initially appears to provide a simple way to gauge safety. However, its straightforwardness conceals critical shortcomings.

To begin with, TRIF inherently favours larger companies for whom a single incident might have a negligible impact on their TRIF due to the vast number of work hours which contribute to its calculation. Conversely, smaller companies experience a significant surge in their TRIF from one incident alone. When TRIF is used as the primary qualifier for contracts, this scenario discriminately disadvantages smaller organizations. To put this into a simplified context, an employer of 1000 staff with 10 recordable injuries a year would be perceived as a safer company than one who employed 20 employees with only 1 recordable since TRIF results are based on estimating the annual number of injuries per 100 full-time employees. Furthermore, the pressure to maintain a low TRIF to stay competitive often indirectly stimulates a culture of underreporting (and in some cases, misreporting) incidents rather than learning from them.

Moreover, TRIF provides no insight into the severity of incidents or near-miss events. It fails to distinguish between a minor injury and a severe one and does not consider incidents that nearly resulted in harm. Using the same sized companies for comparison, a 1000 employee-staffed firm could experience 4 fatalities every year and still be considered a significantly safer organization than a company with a staff of twenty who annually sent only 2 of their staff to the hospital for cuts, bruises, strains, and sprains if they resulted in medication or modified work being prescribed. Lastly, TRIF, being a lagging indicator, only reflects past incidents, offering no insights into an organization's preparedness for preventing future incidents.

Given these significant limitations, I think it's past due we move beyond TRIF and adopt a more comprehensive, nuanced safety metric, which I call the Proactive Safety Performance Index (PSPI).

The PSPI is designed to act as a balanced safety scorecard by integrating a combination of leading and lagging injury indicators, along with a severity rate.

While lagging indicators essentially focus on the failures of safety, leading indicators are proactive, preventive measures that reflect ongoing efforts to improve safety. These encompass metrics such as the number of safety trainings completed, workplace inspections conducted, emergency drills performed, and safety meetings held. Emphasizing these indicators enables organizations to better identify and mitigate risks before incidents occur, which aligns with the "Proactive" element in PSPI.

Incorporated into the PSPI is the severity rate, calculated as the number of days lost per recordable incident. By differentiating between minor and major incidents, it provides a more sophisticated understanding of an organization's safety performance.

To prevent underreporting, it's essential to foster a safety culture that promotes transparency and learning from mistakes. Routine employee feedback and safety culture/climate surveys can be employed to measure this facet of an organization's safety performance, therefore contributing to the "Performance" aspect of PSPI.

This is best demonstrated with a formula which I feel best expresses this concept through careful consideration of the weightings given to each of the different components. The choice of these specific weights was based on the philosophy underlying the PSPI: that proactive measures are crucial for preventing safety incidents. Hence, leading indicators (L), which include proactive measures such as safety trainings, inspections, drills, and meetings, are given the highest weight of 0.4. Severity rate (S) and safety culture (C) are also important components of safety performance. However, they are reactive in nature, reflecting the impact of incidents that have already occurred and the prevailing attitudes towards safety, respectively. Therefore, they are given slightly lower weights of 0.3 each.

While the exact weightings can be tailored to each organization's unique circumstances, this is what I believe to be a base example of how a PSPI formula should look:

PSPI = (0.4 * L) + (0.3 * S) + (0.3 * C)

Where:

- L is the score for leading indicators (range 0-100),

- S is the score for the severity rate (range 0-100), and

- C is the score for the safety culture survey (range 0-100).

In this formula, leading indicators have been given the most weight (40%), reflecting the proactive and preventive focus of the PSPI. The severity rate and safety culture each carry a 30% weight, underlining their importance in understanding the actual impact of incidents and the overall safety mindset of the organization.

The PSPI has been developed to ensure that all scores are normalized to a standard range (like 0-100 in this case), to allow for accurate and meaningful comparisons. So let’s see how this formula would be used to gauge the safety performance of a fictional company we will call “ConstructSafe”:

1. **Leading Indicators (L)**: ConstructSafe has a robust safety program in place. It conducts regular safety training, and equipment and workplace inspections, carries out frequent ERP drills, and holds weekly toolbox talks. Its practices are consistently maintained, and the quality of these activities is high. As a result, it scores 85 on a scale of 0 to 100 for leading indicators.

2. **Severity Rate (S)**: Despite its strong safety practices, ConstructSafe has had a few incidents over the past year. However, these incidents were mostly minor, resulting in a small number of lost workdays. The company's severity rate is therefore relatively low, earning it a score of 75 on a scale of 0 to 100.

3. **Safety Culture (C)**: ConstructSafe places a high value on safety culture. It has programs in place that discourage underreporting and encourage learning from mistakes. It frequently conducts safety culture surveys that receive high participation rates and positive feedback, earning it a score of 90 on a scale of 0 to 100.

Now we can apply these scores to the PSPI formula:

PSPI = (0.4 * L) + (0.3 * S) + (0.3 * C)

PSPI = (0.4 * 85) + (0.3 * 75) + (0.3 * 90)  

PSPI = 34 + 22.5 + 27

PSPI = 83.5

Therefore, in this scenario, ConstructSafe's PSPI is 83.5, which indicates a strong overall safety performance. However, the lower sub-score for severity rates indicates that there is room for improvement, particularly in preventing incidents that lead to lost time injuries. As a result, ConstructSafe decides to invest more resources into hazard identification and mitigation, with the aim of further improving its PSPI in the future.

Lastly, while I truly believe the PSPI can provide valuable insights into an organization's safety performance, it should always be used alongside other information and professional judgement to guide decision making and improvement efforts.

In conclusion, as the complexities of work and associated risks in all industries continue to evolve, so too must our approach to safety metrics. By transitioning from an exclusive focus on TRIF to a model such as the Proactive Safety Performance Index (PSPI), I truly believe we can achieve a more accurate depiction of an organization's safety performance. Moreover, it fosters a proactive, transparent, and learning-oriented safety culture — the true hallmark of a safe organization.