Leading vs. Lagging Indicators: 10 Safety Metrics Your Board Cares About

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between leading and lagging safety indicators?

Lagging indicators measure events that already happened, such as recordable injuries, lost-time cases, and severity trends. Leading indicators measure activities, conditions, and control performance that show whether exposure is being managed before someone gets hurt.

Why can't I report only injury rates to the board?

Injury rates show where harm has already happened, but they do not show whether risk is building or critical controls are slipping. Boards want to know if high-risk tasks are under control and whether problems are being found and corrected early.

What safety metrics do boards actually care about most?

The post recommends a balanced set that includes injury trend, serious injury and fatality potential events, near-miss reporting quality and volume, high-risk corrective action closure, critical control verification, supervisor engagement, training for high-risk roles, audit and inspection finding trends, contractor safety oversight, and repeat findings. The goal is to connect the dashboard to operational risk and leadership action.

How do I make a safety dashboard board-ready?

Keep it concise and lead with the highest-risk exposures and whether critical controls are holding. Show trends over time, use consistent definitions across sites, separate low-risk volume from high-risk significance, and make sure each metric supports a decision or action.

What are the biggest mistakes to avoid when choosing board-level safety metrics?

Common mistakes include relying too much on injury rates, counting activity without checking quality, using too many metrics, ignoring serious-event potential, and treating closed actions as proof that hazards are controlled. The post also warns against treating all sites the same without considering actual operations and risk profiles.