Ep.74 Is a capacity index a good replacement for incident-count safety metrics?

The Safety of Work

This topic interested us mainly because of a paper we encountered. It’s a very new peer-reviewed study that has only just been published online. We will use that paper as the framing device for our conversation.

Join us for this interesting and exciting conversation about the capacity index.

Topics:

• The belief in required metrics.
• Low injury rates and what they actually mean.
• The regulator paradox.
• The six capacities.
• Due diligence.
• The problem with the study’s names for metrics.
• Measuring activities.
• Practical takeaways.

Quotes:

“Injury rates aren’t predictive of the future, so using them to manage safety, using them as your guide, doesn’t work.”

“And while I think you could always argue that there are different capacities that you could measure, as well, I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with the capacities that they have suggested.”

“Basically, what we’re doing is we’re measuring activities and all of those things are about measuring activities. Now, unless you already know for sure that those activities provide the capacity that you’re looking for, then measuring the activity doesn’t tell you anything about capacity.”

Resources:

A Capacity Index to Replace Flawed Incident-Based Metrics for Worker Safety

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