Dashboard Dynamic: Track Incidents to Help Keep Staff Safe

It’s often said in management circles that “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” While experts dispute the origins of this statement, few would question its value in at least one area: safety. Elevating safety tracking through the use of a dashboard system that gives managers ready access to this data is the focus of a forthcoming article in Textile Services magazine.

Brian Varner, an adviser and consultant for Safety Solutions for Healthcare, Denver, authored the article dubbed, “Why Safety and Risk Dashboards Matter,” for February’s issue of Textile Services. In it, Varner outlines a program for tracking safety incidents through the use of a software application to keep managers apprised of trends and key developments in the area of incident prevention.

Varner’s article describes the use of dashboard tracking of safety data as the best way for laundry managers to get a clear view of their incident-prevention efforts and how to improve employee protection. “As a laundry operator, when the data is obtained, it’s important to understand what you’re reviewing and what actions are needed to improve or maintain performance,” Varner writes. “A safety-and-risk dashboard is a great tool that leaders can refer to on a monthly basis for a snapshot of how the company’s incident-prevention program is performing. The dashboard is often displayed in a graphical format (see example nearby), and in a few minutes, leadership can assess the staff’s performance.”

In operational terms, laundry managers and staff need to treat safety in a fashion similar to other operating standards such as gallons per pounds used to launder textiles. The point is to establish baselines and focus on continuous improvement. “The starting point for developing a safety-and-risk dashboard is to determine the key performance indicators (KPIs) that your company monitors to ensure that performance targets are achieved and maintained,” Varner writes. “This tool is used to compare results, evaluate safety performance and track changes aimed at improving outcomes.” He adds that KPIs are important because they help align the program to advance strategic goals. These include reducing claims and time lost due to work injuries. Safety KPIs also help operators set goals for increasing training participation and boosting health and safety audit scores.

Varner notes that operators can use online safety dashboards to track metrics used to determine insurance rates and that can lead to costly citations from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). These common measures include a laundry’s Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) and the Days Away Restricted or Transfer (DART) rate. The former measure tracks the number of “recordable” incidents per 100 full-time employees during a one-year period. Incidents such as work-related employee fatalities or any injury or illness that goes beyond basic first-aid or requires a doctor’s diagnosis qualifies as “OSHA-recordable.” The DART metric reflects how many work-related illnesses and/or injuries caused affected employees to remain away from work, restricted their work activities or resulted in transfer to another job.

Employers should strive to get injured staff back to work as quickly as possible, even if they are reassigned to “modified duties” for a temporary period, Varner said. “Ensuring that the workers’ compensation clinics and claim adjusters know that your company has modified duties is key to reducing the DART rate,” Varner writes. He adds that “Failing to monitor DART and not having an effective return-to-work program can lead to a higher premium.” Operators can compare their own performance to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) DART or TRIR averages for the linen or uniform industry, which are updated annually.

Unless operators systematically track and audit performance in these and other key safety KPIs, they are putting their companies at a disadvantage in terms of incident-prevention efforts, as well as avoiding runaway workers’ compensation costs. For details, click here to see a PDF version of February’s article on safety dashboards.

Varner will also address this topic during a presentation at the upcoming TRSA HR, Health and Safety Summit on April 30 in Milwaukee. Click here for details or to register for the summit.