How to conduct a performance review

RISK MANAGEMENT

How to conduct a performance review

Performance reviews indicate whether your health and safety system is effective in managing risk and protecting people. But it can be difficult to know what key indicators to include and how often it should be reviewed. Where should you start?

Why do you need to review?

Continuous development within your organisation means you need to constantly and consistently review whether you are meeting the requirement of your health and safety policy and to learn from any failings. The HSE has recognised this as being so important that reg 5 Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 specifically requires you to have arrangements in place for monitoring and review. A failure to achieve this could land you in trouble with an inspector.

Core actions

As a minimum you should review health and safety performance at least once a year. However, if you operate in a high risk environment this may not be enough; you may need to adopt shorter, monthly reviews. The review process should:

• examine whether the health and safety policy reflects the organisation’s current priorities, plans and targets

• examine whether all other health and safety systems have been effectively reported

• report and review health and safety shortcomings

• decide actions to address any weaknesses and a system to monitor their implementation.

Types of indicator

There are two types of indicator that can be considered for your review: proactive and reactive. A good approach is to use a “mix and match” of measurements to give a balanced view. Which indicators you choose should be decided at the annual review.

Proactive indicators can be checking documentation, e.g. the number of suitable risk assessments, training records, workplace inspections, behavioural monitoring, etc. All these show that systems are in place before an incident occurs. On the other hand, reactive measures include first aid reports, the number and value of personal injury claims, the number of improvement notices issued, etc.

Note. Is a near-miss reactive or proactive? Some view this as a reactive measure and think it encourages staff to complain, but in a positive environment thorough investigation demonstrates management commitment and can be seen as a proactive way to prevent incidents.

Methods of measurement

You may have so few incidents that you can simply report on numbers, but if you are in a larger organisation, or one that has several sites, it may be more relevant to apply an accident ratio. These come in three main forms:

• Incident rate - number of incidents in a period divided by the average number of employees multiplied by 1,000

• Frequency rate - number of accidents in a period divided by the total hours worked during a period multiplied by 100,000

• Severity rate - total number of days lost divided by the total hours worked during a period multiplied by 100,000.

Feedback

Whichever indicators you use it is vital to feed back results to your employees, as they are central to your performance. Recognition to staff goes a long way to believing you are credible and putting their health safety and welfare at the top of the business agenda.

Decide how often to review your health and safety performance and what data you will measure. Using accident data, e.g. risk assessments, insurance claims, etc. can identify any shortcomings and help you plan ahead. Make sure you show an inspector or insurance assessor how you are keeping up to date and share good performance with your staff.