We have our LTIs split - those arising from critical risks and others. The others are generally minor strains/sprains while we have 10 critical risks identified for the company. The annual targets have also been set base on this - 0 from critical risks and <6 for others to recognise that we can't always prevent, for example, a rolled ankle that results in time off

Hi Jan, personally I think Safeguard should ban conversations that promote the use of LTIs, TRIFR etc :-)
Seriously though, I don't think your approach is the right thing to do. Rather than focusing on the little and often injuries you should focus on the potentially major but infrequent events. Little and often is mostly within an organization's risk tolerance level, while major and infrequent isn't. The approach you suggest held us back for years until we finally convinced the higher-ups otherwise. Yes we did reduce many of our lesser injuries which is of course a good thing - you don't ignore these - but it did noting for our serious incidents which seriously hurt or were fatal.
A focus on critical risks, as Alex says, is essential.

If only someone could come up with some kind of Critical Risk Indicator that can be reported to senior management and board in a way that generates appropriate actions if controls are insufficient. Then CRI would naturally tend to displace the misleading and attention-diverting LTI/TRIFR.

Actually Peter we have started this process through our CR verification programme, just in the process of designing governance reporting at the moment once we begin the verifications. Maybe we can chat later about it?

We most certainly can!

Obviously you can measure and report on both "minor and often" and "major and rare". Companies I have worked for have measured severity as well as frequency of lost time injuries (variations on total time lost per injury per hours worked). My current employer also has targets and reporting around critical risks (e.g. completion of in-field verification, closing actions after high-potential incidents, and undertaking specific projects).
Also consider that most measures - particularly lag indicators - can be "manipulated" to make things look better than they are - especially if performance bonuses are at stake!

I don't report LTI's - its a terrible measure. And totally pointless.

If you have to do something I suggest a proportional response. Put absolutely minimal effort into the trivial things. And put maximum effort into things that can be realistically 'catastrophic" (however you choose to define that.)

While I don't record LTI's I do record productive time lost. It might be through injury (work related or non work related), sickness, bereavements, general absence etc. Its mainly just an academic exercise of interest - but I loose a huge amount more productive time due to non-work injuries than I do work ones.

Maybe you can look at WHODAS? Just Google it :-)

Due Diligence and LTIs

This is very good. To the point, and Andrew (above), I don't understand why organization's track LTIs - what do they actually measure?

While leaders in organisations may act in a conscious way in carrying out activities associated with leading indicators, it is the non-conscious (and automatic) responses and actions that we in the risk and safety industry should be on the lookout for.

This poses a problem for people in risk and safety. While many may understand that ‘measuring does things to people’, they are bound by the requirement of most organisations who insist on measuring activities to ‘measure’ risk and safety and often struggle with how to deal with this.

So, here are some tips for you to consider in your organisation if it too is focused on measuring:

• Firstly, check in with yourself and take time out to think through each item you want to quantify. The worst thing you could do is just agree with common ideas without thinking through things yourself, more thinking the better!
• Use this paper as a discussion topic with your leaders if you feel they are up for the discussion. Ask them what impact the safety measures you have in place has on your culture. Is the focus on quality or quantity and what does this mean for your organisation and your people?
• Lead the way yourself, how do you go about your ‘safety interactions’, does the measure drive behaviour and does it focus on quantity over quality? What can you do about this?
• Rather than trying to change to whole organisation, can you do it through ‘bite size chunks’ and focus on the better leaders in your organisation and work with them to influence others?

There is a big difference between what we value (outcome and object) and what is a value (principle/ethic) when we consider strategy and thinking in risk and safety. The confusion of the two confuses understanding and blurs boundaries in learning in organisations. We see this when safety is articulated as an organizational ‘value’. The difference between what we value, and a value should be quite simple. I value my children, but my children are not a value, I value my car, but my car is not a value and I value money, but money is not a value. I care and love my children so; care and love are the values. It is important to know what values drive what we value. If we cannot tell the difference between a principle and an outcome, between process and trajectory, we will also confuse ethical and philosophical foundations.

It doesn't help that many organisations (of all sizes and types of industry) and even many safety managers / advisors / consultants still haven't properly come to terms with concepts (and distinctions) of hazard, risk, likelihood, severity, control, and effective risk management processes. Then they will be able to effectively identify critical risks and relevant management protocols for those risks. I have seen too many risk registers from said safety managers / advisors / consultants that lack sufficient detail and clarity for them to be useful as risk management tools.

Once the risk registers have been appropriately created - including consultation with relevant workers and use of tools such as Bow Tie Risk Assessment, even tailoring HACCP protocols for each context - Critical Risks can be prioritised, and effectiveness of control of these could be monitored using information such as tracking and reporting use of key designated controls - ie the monitoring piece that should accompany the controls. It would be quite an undertaking to set up, but once in place could provide valuable insights to officers of the company to conduct due diligence without getting dragged down into the details.

I can kind of visualise how it could work - hard to explain in a few paragraphs, but I am sure it would work if the system was designed appropriately, and it would focus much more on leading indicators than lag indicators.