Leading and Lagging Indicators - What they are and the Surprising Reason you Need Both

How do you decide which metrics to guide your safety program?

Hey there,

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Safety First Journal.

Trying to base your safety program on only lagging indicators is like trying to drive forward while looking in the rear view mirror. At the same time, focusing only on leading indicators doesn’t tell you whether those indicators are meaningful in the real world. You need a blend of both to keep your program on track.

In this week’s edition, we’re going to talk about what leading and lagging indicators are, some examples of each, and why you need to pay attention to both in order to make your safety program the best it can.

Lagging indicators

A lagging indicator is a measure of events that have already happened in your safety program. It’s called a ‘lagging’ indicator because it’s happened in the past. Some examples of lagging indicators are:

· Total recordable injury rate (TRIR).

· Lost time incident rate (LTIR).

· Number of incidents in the past week/month/year etc.

· WCB surcharge.

These all reflect incidents that have hap…