Active Reactive

You get different types of measures and they usually cover a large range. Usually these measures are considered active or reactive and can be used in conjunction with the other areas previously discussed:

• Qualitative (descriptive, less precise).
• Quantitative (factual information, more accurate).
• Objective (non-biased).
• Subjective (opinion based).

ACTIVE

• Audits (internal and external).
• Periodic examination of documents (e.g. appraisals, assessment of training records.).
• Systematic workplace inspections.
• Safety tours.
• Inspections to check safety related parts of specific equipment.
• Safety sampling.
• Safety surveys.
• Environmental sampling.
• Behaviour sampling.
• Benchmarking.
• Regularly reporting and reviewing results.

REACTIVE

• Identification.
• Reporting.
• Investigation.
• Collation and analysis of data and statistics.

The events monitored include:

• Injury accidents.
• Damage only incidents.
• Near-misses.
• Ill-health.
• Sickness absence.
• Complaints from the workforce and other external stakeholders.
• Enforcement action by the national enforcement agency, or criminal prosecution.
• Civil claims for compensation submitted by workers.

Ideally the measures used should incorporate all of the above in order to obtain a good balanced overview that can be seen in context of the working environment. This makes it easier for senior management to make decisions based on the measures reported.