“due to an inept engineer’s mistake and I was blamed for it” “repaired 12 years later because manager had the same accident” - “hourly workers are punished by loss of bonus money” “I tried to lift too much. No, we are still working short handed” All quotes from Telos report for BP 3 months before the 2005 TX City explosion “special attention to safety incentive and discipline programs that have been shown to discourage workers from reporting injuries and illnesses” Quote from OSHA presentation to National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, May 2010 - OSHA speaker rather scathing not only of BP but the US onshore oil sector in general.

Indeed Billibob, these same directors appear to have no difficulty in cutting health and safety budgets, introducing zero accidents policies and mandatory PPE!

Of course if you have a Zero accident philosophy, promote mandatory PPE and control the cost of your Health and Safety budget (Like you would any other element of your business) it is assumed that you don't have leading indicators. Or you could actually be keeping your people and processes safe through a holistic approach to Health and Safety and these are just one element of that approach.

Jake, my comments were not specifically aimed at you and thanks for the link. Really interesting article. I measure leading and lagging indicators but slightly differently. I like the +/- concept.