With the end of the year approaching, it’s typically a time of self-reflection and annual metric evaluation. We are usually looking at year-over-year performance and monthly trends of key metrics we are tracking. We’re also looking for ways to change outcomes and improve our numbers in the next year. In this post, we’ll look at how critical contextual data is when trying to understand metrics and what action to take to change outcomes, diving deep into examples in the Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) space.
When looking to improve EHS outcomes it is critical to understand contextual data if we wish to drive better investigations, root cause, and corrective action outcomes. It’s time to stop relying solely on interviews and Excel pivot tables to do the work our systems should automatically do for us.
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Most companies are measuring some variation of the top EHS metrics listed at the bottom of this article. One of the challenges we face when looking for ways to improve outcomes is that the data we are collecting gives us general trends but not insights into specific areas for improvement. Sure, we may have a specific site or procedure we can identify as a cause with CAPA, but typically we lack contextual data to find more nuanced issues and trends.
Even simple things like number of incidents or types of incidents at a specific location or class of worker usually take manual data manipulation to report. Why are we either spending time manually manipulating this data or missing opportunities to improve our EHS outcomes by not having this immediately available?
One common response to this lack of contextual data is to balloon our EHS incident reporting with additional questions. This slows down our incident response process and wastes time that is better spent on business activities. Bloated incident reporting forms create a bad experience for our incident reporters and discourage reporting when we make it too cumbersome to complete.
Manual data entry is also error prone. Asking users to manually enter data is prone to entry errors. Even the most well-intentioned reports miss key or select the wrong values.
The better approach is to use a modern EHS reporting system, like Serenity EHS, that utilizes feeds from our human resources, facilities, and operational systems and make that instantly available during the incident reporting, investigation and reporting processes. Why collect data the organization already has. We can ask incident responders to quickly confirm data and expedite the process. Efficient incident reporting ensures higher data accuracy and encourages more individuals to submit incidents.
How does automated data enrichment work? Modern EHS systems either already have enriching data in the system or can easily add this information. Let’s review the following example:
In our example, we have an EHS incident for a spill. In our incident report, we are confirming the specific location of the incident, providing a description, and then have the option to specify if any people were impacted by the incident and add any additional notes. We have a simple incident report that efficiently captures everything we need to know.
Our incident is assigned for immediate remediation, and an investigation starts to identify the cause. The investigator notices the spill is water from a nearby cooler. It is discovered that the cooler’s drain is blocked. Then the root causes analysis begins to discover why the drain became blocked. By looking at the asset (the cooler) we learn cleaning the drain is part of a monthly inspection process and was just inspected a few weeks prior. We also see the cooler has an annual cleaning maintenance schedule. All of this is easily presented to the investigator because of modern EHS system data relationship like the diagram below.
We also notice from the asset record that this cooler was recently installed. The root cause analysis uncovers that the new cooler has a smaller drain than the model it replaced and that unless a mirror is used, it’s impossible to visually inspect the entire drain in the cooler. Tasks are assigned to update the inspection process and change the maintenance schedule.
While we don’t eliminate the need to interview related people and use critical investigative skills, having a system that can instantaneously present related data exposes likely candidates quickly. No more manual correlation and Excel pivot tables to provide enriching incident data.
Here is a list of the most common EHS metrics we see reported. As noted in the section above, we typically lack the enriching data to make these metrics actionable.
It’s time for us to get actionable data to change EHS outcomes in 2025. If you’re interested in learning more, contact Workpact or our partner Serenity EHS to learn how 2025 can be your year of improved EHS outcomes.
