You may doubt the following observation only if you have not, as I have, been in almost every possible business and industry in hundreds of organizations all over the world. My observation is as predictable as the accuracy of a Swiss watch. A safety management system’s injury-prevention performance is directly related to the value (or absence of value) senior management place on safety. An important question addressed here is how should senior management demonstrate their support for safety as a value?
Senior management perceives usually perceives they are demonstrating involvement and support for safety when they are “looking at the organization’s data.” Unfortunately, as impressive as data analysis and presentation technology has become, providing senior managers with a method for reviewing safety data in a few seconds undermines the creation of safety as an organizational value and promotes the misperception that management supports employee safety.