, Vice President, APAC, DEKRA Insight

Serious injury and fatality (SIF) prevention has long been considered a matter of numbers. Reduce “smaller” events, the thinking goes, and you will also reduce more serious ones. This conventional wisdom has not served leaders well. Despite widespread advances in safety generally, serious injuries and fatalities (SIF) continue to happen with alarming frequency. The persistence of SIFs—even as the rate of other injuries improves—is largely due to misunderstanding their unique exposures. The key is to track leading indicators that could result in an SIF. Evaluating near-miss and incident reports for SIF exposure potential, identifying SIF precursors through field verifications of critical SIF controls, and improving effectiveness of corrective and preventive actions are all essential elements of SIF prevention and control strategies.

Based on research into the specific nature of serious and fatal injuries, this presentation is designed for anyone concerned about assuring the safety of individuals in the workplace. We will evaluate current and proposed SIF leading indicators that are proving to be highly useful for ensuring that attention is placed on the management systems, operations, and behaviors that are making a difference in SIF prevention. Creating visibility to SIF exposures across the organization positions leaders to track the frequency with which SIF events and potential events are occurring, and use that data to intervene before an event can occur.