Reporting – Context and Correlation

Reporting performance in Safety can be a number of things, typically, a great deal of energy is placed into outlining actions taken and activities completed. But does yours establish adequate current and future context that correlates to measuring the indicators which matter?

The key question I ask managers as to if safety reporting works “Do you use the current output of the reporting process to allocate resources under your control?” Standard answer, “No”.

Sometimes this is due to managers not even reviewing the reporting but largely it is due to the questions and answers we offer in the reporting process.

For reporting to be useful we need to acknowledge that reporting is not for other Safety professionals, it is for line management. It is not a list of things done this quarter, it is to ensure that we present information which outlines if critical safety processes are in place and working as intended.

There is a fantastic post by Greg Smith (here) on the issue of reporting which should be required reading for all Safety personnel.

But for those who want to take the entire team along for the journey suggestion is hold a workshop to identify the questions that line management want answered. Ask what is critical to them, ask if we are reporting on it, even if we could even report on it, but fundamentally, ask.

Data is only useful when it answers a question, the key to good reporting that correlates to managers using the reporting to allocate resources is making sure we have picked the right questions to answer.