03: Why Stats and Numbers Matter in Health & Safety

Transmit Safety: Occupational Health And Safety on All Frequencies

In today’s episode of Transmit Safety, Aimee brings up an ongoing conversation that’s essential for the continuous improvement of workplace Health & Safety.

There are many ways that Health & Safety practitioners are required to collect, sort, and analyze data related to workplace Health & Safety. If you are like me and not the best of friends with maths, this might not be as easy. But I am here to explain why and remind you that how we do this MATTERS.

Join me in this vital conversation that is shaping the Health & Safety profession right now.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• [00:30] The difference between Health & Safety practitioners and statisticians
• [02:09] More about the H&S Industry Standards in North America
• [02:58] To uncover and challenge some H&S-related acronyms
• [06:00] Understand the idea behind the ever-present “Smoke Shack Stat”
• [13:11] My take on how we, as H&S practitioners, should approach this conversation

The Transmit Safety Podcast is here to help health and safety practitioners achieve a holistic approach to workplace health and safety so they can become impactful leaders and put the value of safety into action.

Resources and links

Today's episode was sponsored by Transmit Safety, a consulting business where I help streamline and simplify health and safety management systems through education, program development, audits, and coaching.

Learn how to work with Aimee: transmitsafety.com/ways-to-work-together

For more on the Transmit Safety Podcast: transmitsafety.com/podcast

As promised in the episode, you can find the Construction Safety Research Alliance report titled “The Statistical Invalidity of TRIR as a Measure of Safety Performance” that I mentioned HERE.

Quotes from this episode

“... I do defer to these industry standards on what types of Health and Safety statistics should health and safety practitioners be collecting. But these are just numbers. It is how these numbers are being used and interpreted, that can cause issues or success when discussing workplace health and safety.”

“... each number on your injury statistics spreadsheet is a person. Each number on that injury statistics spreadsheet has a ripple effect into your workplace, into families, into communities. So how we collect, sort, analyze, and communicate Workplace Health & Safety data matters.”

Connect with Aimee Arsenault
Aimee Arsenault is a CRSP and CHSC. She is the founder of Transmit Safety, a business that helps you simplify and streamline health & safety management systems.
Linkedin: Aimee Arsenault
Instagram: @transmit.safety
Twitter: @transmitsafety
Website: transmitsafety.com