International Journal of Occupational Safety and
Ergonomics
ISSN: 1080-3548 (Print) 2376-9130 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tose20
Safety Performance Factor
Naray Venkataraman
To cite this article: Naray Venkataraman (2008) Safety Performance Factor,
International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics, 14:3, 327-331, DOI:
10.1080/10803548.2008.11076772
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10803548.2008.11076772
Published online: 08 Jan 2015.
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International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics (JOSE) 2008, Vol. 14, No. 3, 327–331
Safety Performance Factor
Naray Venkataraman
M+W Zander (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Shanghai, China
Workplace safety performance is computed using frequency rate (FR) and severity rate (SR). Only work time
lost due to occupational incidents that need to be reported is counted. FR and SR are the 2 most important
safety performance indicators that are applied universally; however, calculations differ from country to
country. All injuries and time lost should be considered while calculating safety performance. The extent of
severity does not matter as every incident is counted. So, a new factor has to be defined; it should be based
on the hours or days lost due to each occupational incident, irrespective of its severity. The new safety
performance factor is defined as the average human-hour unit lost due to occupational accidents/incidents,
including fatalities, first-aid incidents, bruises and cuts. The formula is simple and easy to apply.
frequency rate severity rate accident human-hours
1. INTRODUCTION There are many parameters that can be used to
benchmark safety performance at the workplace,
The strength and success of any company lies in e.g., the number of safety training courses
the effective management of productivity, quality, conducted, percentage of staff trained in safety,
safety, health and the environment, in addition the number of safety inspections and percentage
to marketing and finance. The environment of legal compliance. There are other occupational
is governed by outdoor/external factors while safety and health performance measurements
safety and health are governed by indoor/internal based on personal safety behavior and many more.
considerations. Commitment towards employees’ Two prominent safety performance indicators have
safety and health is well demonstrated by been used worldwide for industries, factories and
companies’ safety performance. other workplaces. They are frequency rate (FR)
and severity rate (SR).
The International Labour Office [1] classifies
2. BACKGROUND
occupational accident as follows: (a) total number
Effective risk control is founded on an effective of victims (accidents resulting in death or non-
health and safety management system. To achieve fatal injuries resulting in incapacity for work of
an outcome of no injuries or work-related ill at least 3 consecutive days, excluding the day of
health, and to satisfy stakeholders, health and the accident); (b) total days lost, including the first
safety risks need to be controlled. Most countries 3 days, for nonfatal injuries.
exclude road, air and sea accidents from their According to section 51 of chapter 104 of the
definition of occupational accidents/incidents; they Factories Act of the Ministry of Manpower,
also exclude self-employment ones, although some Singapore (MOM) [2] an accident (a) causes loss
countries recognize self-employment accidents/ of life to a person employed in the factory; (b)
incidents as occupational in terms of reporting and disables any such person for more than 3 days from
investigation. earning full wages at the work at which he/she
was employed; (c) causes any injury to any such
Correspondence and requests for offprints should be sent to Naray Venkataraman, M+W Zander (Shanghai) Co Ltd, Main Building,
4F, Yishan Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai – 200233, China. E-mail: <[email protected]>.
328 N. VENKATARAMAN
person which requires such person to be detained 3. OBJECTIVE
in a hospital for at least 24 hrs for observation or
treatment. The method of calculating FR and SR varies
An ordinance/regulation on incident reporting from country to country. Further, in all those
in China [3] categorizes incidents in terms of calculations, minor injuries or first-aid incidents
casualties and direct economic loss as follows: involving few human-hours lost are not
(a) extremely significant incidents are those considered.
resulting in the death of over 30 people, serious The objective of this paper is to devise a
injury of over 100 people or direct economic formula which can be applied universally,
loss of over 100 million CNY (~9 million EUR1 taking into account all the human-hours lost
or ~15 million USD2); (b) significant incidents and to benchmark it within industrial sectors
are those resulting in the death of over 10 but or on a national level. Further, to benchmark
fewer than 30 people, serious injury of over 50 occupational safety and health management
but fewer than 100 people or direct economic between workplaces and even among countries,
loss of over 50 but less than 100 million CNY; a universal safety performance factor (SPF) or
(c) relatively significant incidents are those indicator is required.
resulting in the death of over 3 but fewer than 10
people, serious injury of over 10 but fewer than
4. METHODS
50 people or direct economic loss of over 10
but less than 50 million CNY; and (d) common Fatalities and serious injuries are normally
incidents are those resulting in the death of reported. To derive a universally accepted
fewer than 3 people, major injury of fewer than formula, it is important to understand the present
10 people or direct economic loss of less than (traditional) method of calculating FR and SR
10 million CNY. in various countries. Following are sample
Thus, there are different ways accidents are calculations.
classified and interpreted. The calculation of
FR and SR is based on the number of hours the
4.1. Singapore
employees had worked in the company over a
particular period of time—usually this is one Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower [2] defines
year. Some of the typical problems encountered FR as the number of accidents per one million
while computing FR and SR follow. human-hours worked (i.e., FR = number of
industrial accidents reported per number of
• The exact human-hours calculation is very human-hours worked) × 1 000 000). SR is the
difficult, especially for organizations with a number of industrial human-days lost per one
large employee base, as employees’ overtime million human-hours worked (i.e., SR = number
and leave are to be tracked and counted. of reported human-days lost × 1 000 000/number
• Only reportable accidents are considered in the of human-hours worked).
calculations. This means an accident involving
a certain number of human-days lost is not
4.2. USA
considered in the computation of FR and SR.
• A company with large manpower base will The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health
tend to have lower FR and SR. Administration [4] defines incidence rate as the
• These methods of calculating safety number of injuries/illnesses × 200 000/employee-
performance do not include dangerous hours worked, where 200 000 represents the
occurrences (i.e., those incidents where there is equivalent of 100 employees working for 40 hrs
human injury but no property loss). per week, 50 weeks per year. SR is the total
1
10.83 CNY = 1 EUR
2
6.85 CNY = 1 USD
JOSE 2008, Vol. 14, No. 3
SAFETY PERFORMANCE 329
number of lost workdays per year × 200 000 on a 12-month rolling period and is calculated per
work hrs/number of workers in a job (or a 100 000 hrs worked.
department) × 2 000 hrs. Incidence rate is usually
expressed as the number of cases per 100 workers 4.6. SPF
per year.
After analyzing the traditional method of
calculating FR and SR, a new definition for SPF
4.3. Korea
is devised:
The Korea Occupational Safety and Health total man - hours lost
Agency [5] defines accident rate as the number SPF = .
total number of incidents
of workers covered by the industrial accident
compensation insurance act × 100, fatality rate as
the number of workers covered by the industrial 5. RESULTS
accident compensation insurance act × 10 000,
morbidity rate as the number of workers covered Statistical data to compare with the formula in
by the industrial accident compensation insurance section 4.6. could not be obtained, as obtaining
act × 1 000 and SR as (work days lost/annual that information from the industries was
hours worked) × 1 000. practically impossible. Hence, realistic theoretical
examples were used to test the hypothesis.
4.4. Japan If a company has zero FR and SR that does not
mean that it is absolutely safe and no incidents
The Japan Industrial Safety and Health have taken place. Let us consider a company
Administration [6] defines an occupational that had no accidents as defined by Singapore’s
accident as death, injury or disease suffered by Ministry of Manpower and had many incidents/
a worker due to causes attributable to buildings, accidents and each incident involved employees
equipment, raw materials, gases, vapors, dust and having fewer than 3 days of medical leave due
other phenomenon related to work or as a result to occupational injuries. Technically FR and
of a worker’s conduct while he/she is at work. SR will be zero. When the corporate world is
Accidents while commuting to and from work considering total safety culture, it is important to
are not included. Further, the Administration report all occupational accidents, including first-
defines a serious accident as an accident that aid incidents, so long as there are human-hours
results in three or more deaths or injuries. Annual lost by a company.
accident rate per 1 000 workers is defined as the There are only two main elements that are to be
total number of casualties in one year × 1 000/ considered while calculating safety performance:
average number of workers in one year. Accident the number of incidents and the total number
frequency rate is defined as the number of deaths of lost human-hours. Even if an employee has
and injuries in occupational accidents × 1 000 000/ a minor injury resulting in a one-hour rest, it
aggregate number of human-hours, and accident should be considered. The extent of severity does
severity as the number of workdays lost not matter as every incident is counted. So, a new
rate × 1 000 000/aggregate number of human- factor has to be defined; it should be based on the
hours. Further, the number of workdays lost is hours or days lost as a result of each occupational
computed based on 300 work days per year. incident, irrespective of how severe it may be.
The new SPF is defined as the average human-
4.5. UK hour unit lost due to occupational accidents/
The UK’s Health and Safety Executive [7] incidents, including fatalities, first-aid incidents,
defines lost time accidents as those that result in bruises and cuts.
more than one day of lost time and FR is based When calculating SPF, it is to be noted that
an incident leading to death should be translated
into an equivalent number of lost human-hours.
JOSE 2008, Vol. 14, No. 3
330 N. VENKATARAMAN
Human-hours lost due to death are calculated as Calculations based on SPF are simple and
the company’s retirement age less the employee’s realistic, relevant and measurable. They account
present age, and the resulting value is converted for all incidents, irrespective of the type of injury,
into human-hours. If there is more than one the extent of property loss or the type of incident,
fatality, the individual human-hours lost should and include those that are currently unreported
be added. The same applies to other injuries (e.g., first-aid incidents); can be understood by
including permanent disabilities. For property a lay person; are true indicators of performance;
damage, the equivalent lost time can be calculated are reliable, providing the same results when
on the basis of time of restoration (which begins done by different people; provide sufficiently,
from the date of loss or damage and ends when but not excessively so, accurate information;
the property is repaired, replaced or rebuilt). include all occupational incidents/accidents;
allow employers to have greater accountability
for all occupational incidents; and eliminate the
6. AN EXAMPLE OF TRADITIONAL need to calculate human-hours worked by all the
FR AND SR VERSUS SPF employees in the company.
CALCULATIONS The rationale for calculating SPF is that any
injury to the employee is painful irrespective of
Company A has 620 employees, each working
its severity; greater (reportable) or lesser severity
42 hrs per week. There were seven incidents
in terms of days lost should not be a yardstick for
(including first-aid ones) with 70 hrs lost, out
determining the company’s safety; many first-
of which two were reportable accidents (56 hrs
aid or minor incidents are much more dangerous
or 7 human-days lost). Company B has 1 200
than no major reportable accidents; in a true
employees, each working 42 hrs per week. There
safety culture, all injuries and time lost should be
were 10 incidents (including first-aid ones)
counted; and in times when economic conditions
with 120 hrs lost, out of which one reportable
are worsening, there will be fewer workers and
accident resulted in more than 3 days of medical
with workers’ behavior always changing, the
leave. If FR and SR are calculated for the two
number of occupational injuries may increase.
companies, it appears that company B is better. If
SPF is calculated, company A is much safer than
company B (Table 1).
TABLE 1. A Comparison of Frequency Rate (FR), Severity Rate (SR) and Safety Performance Factor
(SPF)
Description Company A Company B Remarks
Traditional
FR* 2 • 1 000 000/(42 • 620 • 52) = 1.47 1 • 1 000 000/(42 • 1 200 • 52) = 0.38 company B is better,
SR* 7 • 1 000 000/(42 • 620 • 52) = 5.20 3 • 1 000 000/(42 • 1 200 • 52) = 1.15 with lower SR and FR
New
SPF 70/7 = 10 120/10 = 12 company A is better
Notes. *— based on Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower’s definition of FR and SR [2].
7. DISCUSSION 8. CONCLUSION
To obtain the best SPF results, all incidents Reliance on traditional calculations of FR and
should be reported. This poses a great challenge SR is insufficient, especially with corporate
to industries and national safety organizations. governance and behavior-based safety gaining
With the new SPF, the trend can be achieved importance. Sooner or later, companies will
more realistically and hence be able to influence be required to report safety performance, just
management towards positive safety culture. like listed companies are willing to report
JOSE 2008, Vol. 14, No. 3
SAFETY PERFORMANCE 331
environmental performance. Every occupational 2. Ministry of Manpower [Singapore]. Work
injury reflects the employees’ and the place safety and health indicators by
management’s safety attitudes and behavior. The industry, 2006. Retrieved July 12, 2007,
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medialib/mom_library/Workplace_Safety/
to make all incidents reportable and calculated.
files6.Par.28567.File.tmp/Workplace/Safety
Thus, a capacity building exercise might be
3. Safety watchdog urges public to report.
required on incident reporting and performance
China Daily. June 17, 2007. Retrieved July 1,
benchmarking. This has to be done on the
2008, from: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/
organizational level as well as the country level. china/2007-06/17/content_895977.htm
Calculating SPF—lost time per number of
4. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of
incidents—is a reliable and simple tool, which Labor Statistics. How to compute a firm’s
clearly spells out the company’s safety culture incidence rate for safety management.
and performance. This formula is easy to Retrieved July 12, 2007, from: http://www
calculate and does not depend on the number .bls.gov/iif/osheval.htm
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