Leading OHS indicators
Occupational health and safety (OHS) leading indicators are performance measures that help predict injuries and illnesses, allowing workplaces and system partners to gauge an organization’s health and safety climate, culture and performance before injuries and illnesses occur. Their opposite is lagging indicators such as injury and claims rates, which measure performance based on injuries and illnesses that have already occurred. IWH research focuses on finding and validating the measures that will accurately gauge the likelihood of an organization’s future OHS performance, as well as the best way to use leading indicators to prevent future work-related injuries, illnesses and deaths.
Featured
At Work article
Construction safety association develops OHS assessment tool with IWH’s expertise
Construction Safety Association of Manitoba teams up with IWH to produce health and safety leading indicator dashboard and benchmarks for members
Published: July 30, 2019
At Work article
What research can do: SAFE Work Manitoba incorporates IWH tool into safety culture framework
‘Credibility’ a reason provincial agency uses IWH-OPM to define safety culture and measure improvement efforts
Published: February 13, 2019
At Work article
Construction safety association develops OHS assessment tool with IWH’s expertise
Building construction employers in Manitoba can now use an evidence-based online dashboard to assess their OHS performance—and see how it stacks up against those of industry peers—thanks to a collaboration between IWH and a sector safety association.
Published: July 2019
Research Highlights
How do OHS leaders use health and safety benchmarking?
Workplace health and safety leaders use benchmarking reports on health and safety performance to help inform decision-making and improve occupational health and safety performance. That's according to an interview-based study of OHS leaders who took part in an IWH leading indicators research project.
Published: July 2019
At Work article
What research can do: SAFE Work Manitoba incorporates IWH tool into safety culture framework
They had a five-year plan with initiatives related to building a culture of safety across Manitoba. But they were missing a definition of safety culture—and a way to measure it. That was when SAFE Work Manitoba turned to IWH expertise.
Published: February 2019
Impact case study
Safety culture framework in Manitoba incorporates IWH expertise, tools
SAFE Work Manitoba incorporated IWH expertise and tools into the framework of its ambitious safety culture initiative, which aims to make workplace injury prevention a genuine priority among all segments of the population across the province.
Published: November 2018
Project
Project
Identifying relevant OHS leading indicators in Manitoba's construction sector
IWH is collaborating with the Construction Safety Association of Manitoba (CSAM) to identify relevant leading indicators of injury and illness in the province’s construction sector, and to encourage their use through tools that creates a conversation about best practices in the sector.
Status: Ongoing
Impact case study
IWH eight-item tool helping WorkSafeBC assess workplace cultures, interact with employers
The IWH Organizational Performance Metric (IWH-OPM) helps WorksafeBC act on a review recommendation to assess safety culture in the province's workplaces.
Published: December 2016
At Work article
OPM follow-up questions now available to help firms act on leading indicator scores
IWH and Ontario's health and safety associations collaborate to create follow-up questions to IWH-OPM score results.
Published: April 2016
Tools and guides
IWH Organizational Performance Metric
This evidence-based, eight-item questionnaire helps organizations assess and improve their health and safety performance by indicating where improvements might be made to health and safety policies and practices in order to prevent injuries or illnesses from occurring.
Published: January 2016
Tools and guides
OHS Vulnerability Measure
This tool assesses the extent to which a worker may be vulnerable to occupational health and safety (OHS) risks at work in four areas: hazard exposure; workplace policies and procedures; worker awareness of hazards and OHS rights and responsibilities; and worker empowerment to participate in injury and illness prevention.
Published: January 2016
Impact case study
IWH leading indicator tool wins over advocates across Canada
The eight-item IWH-OPM is used in several provinces to strengthen safety performance in workplaces.
Published: December 2015