It is common now adays for good performing sites to post boards proclaiming their days since last serious accidents. Personnally I haven't used these but I imagine when performance is good and the achievement is significant they boost morale for employees and serve to remind them of the importance of their safety. My questions are:- 1) Does the panel think that they boost morale when the current performance is poor and time since last lost time accident is only a few weeks 2) what is the effect on reporting of serious accidents - are people less inclined to report? 3) what is the effect on morale when somebody does have an accident? thanks for any reply and discussion Martin

Most of the sites/ clients that we deal with have these. Do they boost morale when the stats are lowered by an accident? My experience is that initially morale does drop and only recovers when the stats start moving in the right direction. I have direct experience of a site with 500+ accident free days dropping back to zero because of accident to one of our guys. Not a nice time for me. The guy recovered far more quickly than the stat did. The reporting of serious accidents remains good but you do get the feeling that some senior people only want to preserve their stats. I personally strongly encourage the guys to report everything. When somebody has an accident it's how you react that matters. Yes, morale can take a battering but an accident focuses the minds of people. I guess I am a bit cynical though.

Chemical plants I worked on used these, displaying our number of days and contractors number of days. A big board on the way reminds all safety is taken seriously. However I agree with above comments, it is not a good day to be the newbie who resets the 499 to 0 when there was a reward for reaching 500! One plant also tied the number to profit share!!!! Have a reportable incident and loose 10%. One things for sure reportable incident rates drop, but for all the wrong reasons... My very rapid waffled point is this is all about culture and perception, it can work with the right attitude but can also be very disruptive OK point made very badly but I have a meeting in 2 minutes and still have to prep :)

Any accident statistical reporting can be criticized and manipulated so suit - all industries have different cultures - so get the buy in from all parties and agree on a format whether that be site boards or whatever the balance and fairness should be addressed. I have used many systems and I have yet to implement one that has not had a negative somewhere.

Can also lead to "lost time" being avoided by enforced leave or other ploy to avoid appropriate recording, and undermine the legal obligation wrt >3 day RIDDOR reporting criteria.

Thia practice has been around for years in certain industries, I also have to agree with Ray - lots of negatives. I personally don't like them!

I was once asked to initiate such a sign for a large engineering construction project. We had already agreed for the project that safety was of equal overall importance to cost and schedule - i.e no 'safety first' tokenism which would have been unrealistic. My response to his simplistic suggestion was that if he was willing to compile and display data about how far the project was ahead of/behind cost and schedule plans, I would supply the accident-free stats. There was no further attempt to pursue such childish communications as these sorts of display imply.

Well tabs, I think you are in the minority...does not make you a bad person though. :)

I recently had occasion to query an American company's very proudly claimed 75million man days on a project without a lost time injury. When I pointed out that if a project staff of 180 men had worked since Christ was nailed to the cross- they still wouldn't have achieved this rather startling record... the numbers went away. Test it, take it with a pinch of salt, and don't claim it unless you deserve it please. As for the gate boards - I'm agin 'em for all the reasons given by others.

Tabs, I termed this communication method 'childish' for the following reasons: - It is one-way, like an adult communicating to a small child and not expecting anything back; - It is a VERY over-simplistic way to measure OSH outputs if it is based on just a single number, as is usually the case; - Research evidence shows that most signs rapidly become 'wallpaper' and regular viewers no longer take any information from them. If your sign results in regular 2-way communications about real OSH management issues, then I apologise - the adjective clearly doesn't apply in your case. But I suspect, as others have indicated, that your site is very much a minority.

I wonder if you may have shown your hand! I assume that you don’t think that it has been much of a debate, because the discussions have not served the purpose, or provided the answers that you sought? Similarly, can I suggest that Tabs post wasn’t the only ’well constructed’ view? I think you can reasonably assume that what you have is a cross section of safety [practitioners (unless all of a sudden those that support the idea of lost time signs have miraculously disappeared or are keeping quiet!). Personally, I have always treated such signs with a certain amount of suspicion and scepticism, for the reasons that others have alluded to. I am struggling to understand how the number of days since the last the last serious accident is necessarily a measure of good performance, other than in a very superficial way. Although ultimately I guess that is what we are all seeking. I think that this is at the heart of many of the other replies on the thread. It has always been my contention that a low incidence of reported/reportable accidents is not necessarily a measure of good performance (think about it), although conversely a high incidence would pretty reasonably suggest the opposite. Similarly I would ask what a serious accident is? I assume serious is determined merely by the outcome; which in fairness is I suppose not a bad measure, but doesn’t tell the whole picture of what would then be less serious accidents. The point being that such a measure takes little account of the potential of the incident/accident. Where incentives are offered, then I would suggest that such a system would serve to discourage the reporting of accidents, ‘pushing accidents underground’ with a resulting lost opportunity that could potentially lead to further and perhaps ‘more serious’ accidents. And that, to the vast majority of practitioners is likely to be something of an anathema. You were keen for more views!!!!! Ramble over.

I am not in disagreement with many who have posted as there are plus and minus's for all. If I recall the reasons for compiling the stats ( near miss, unsafe acts, unsafe conditions ,first aid cases, etc were supposedly to be able to predict trends and prevent future accidents. i.e. Frank Bird founded this many years ago to provide the pyramid of vision for statistics. However, I like others feel that senior management wish to use them to puff up their feathers and have only chosen to report the LTI apsect where they can gain some credence and not for the true crystal ball effect of looking into the future or at how well we are performing in various sections . Yes! many are massaged, ochestrated and manipulated as all stats are..............what a shame and a loss of good information. Wizard