This article was originally published on LinkedIn on 3 June 2026. It has been moved to the riskfacilitator Insights library so the website remains the permanent source.[1]
Primary sources used to verify and contextualise this archive: [2]
Recently I attended the Hamilton Locke webinar Safety Metrics – Green Lights, Red Flags & Reality Checks, presented by Melissa Doran (Partner, Hamilton Locke ), Kym Bancroft (Managing Director, New View Safety ), and Michael Tooma (Partner, Hamilton Locke).
The session challenged many of the traditional assumptions that underpin safety reporting and provided valuable insights into how boards, executives and safety professionals can move beyond injury statistics to better understand the true state of safety within their organisations.
How do we know if we are genuinely safe?
It is a deceptively simple question.
For decades, organisations have relied on metrics such as Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rates (TRIFR), Lost Time Injuries (LTIs), workers compensation claims and injury statistics as indicators of safety performance. These measures have become deeply embedded in board reports, executive dashboards and regulatory discussions.
As Kym observed, injury statistics and other lag indicators tell us about outcomes that have already occurred. What they often fail to reveal is whether the organisation has the capacity, resources and resilience to manage risk effectively tomorrow.
The session challenged attendees to consider whether organisations have become focused on counting what is easy to count rather than understanding what actually matters.
The Green Dashboard Problem
One of the most compelling themes from the session was the disconnect that can exist between positive safety metrics and actual operational risk.
Many organisations proudly report declining injury rates, reduced workers compensation claims and improving TRIFR results. Yet history repeatedly demonstrates that catastrophic events often occur in organisations with seemingly strong safety statistics.
The challenge is that injury metrics measure outcomes, not capability.
An organisation can have a low injury rate while critical controls are failing, maintenance is deteriorating, operational pressures are increasing, workers are reluctant to speak up, or supervisors are routinely normalising deviations from procedures.
When viewed through that lens, a green dashboard can sometimes create false confidence.
What the Courts Are Looking For
Melissa Doran provided a valuable review of recent due diligence prosecutions involving officers and senior leaders.
A consistent theme emerging from the courts is that officers cannot simply rely on assurances, injury statistics, or management reports that present an incomplete picture of operational reality.
What matters is whether leaders have access to meaningful information that helps them understand:
- The organisation's critical risks.
- Whether critical controls are functioning.
- How work is actually being performed.
- Whether workers can raise concerns.
- Whether identified issues are being addressed.
The focus is increasingly on active governance, verification and inquiry rather than passive receipt of safety statistics.
Work as Imagined Versus Work as Done
Kym Bancroft explored one of the most important concepts emerging from contemporary safety thinking: the difference between work as imagined and work as done.
- Work as imagined is how leaders, procedures and systems believe work should occur.
- Work as done is how workers actually perform the work under real-world conditions.
Every day workers adapt to changing weather, competing priorities, equipment issues, staffing challenges, customer expectations and operational pressures. Most of the time these adaptations are what allow work to succeed.
Understanding these adaptations provides a far richer picture of organisational safety than injury statistics alone.
Measuring Capacity, Not Just Failure
One of the most thought-provoking discussions centred on the Due Diligence Index for Safety (DDI-S), an initiative developed with contributions from leading thinkers including Michael Tooma, Sydney Dekker, Kelvin Glenn and others seeking to provide organisations with a more meaningful understanding of safety performance.
Rather than focusing primarily on injury outcomes, the framework seeks to understand organisational capacity.
It asks questions such as:
- Are workers speaking up?
- Are leaders visible and engaged?
- Are critical controls being verified?
- Are resources aligned with operational demand?
- Are we learning from normal work?
- Are corrective actions being completed?
These questions provide insight into the organisation's capacity to operate safely and respond effectively when conditions change.
A Reality Check for Safety Reporting
The session was not suggesting that injury statistics should disappear entirely. Incidents, injuries and regulatory notifications remain important information for leaders.
The message was that they should not be the primary measure of safety performance.
If safety reporting is to support officer due diligence, informed decision-making and resilient operations, it must help leaders understand the health of the system, not simply count the consequences when the system fails.
As organisations continue to navigate increasing complexity, changing work environments and growing due diligence expectations, perhaps the most important question is no longer:
"How many people were injured last month?"
Instead, it is:
"How confident are we that our systems are creating the conditions for people to succeed today?"
The session provided a timely reminder that safety is not simply the absence of incidents. It is the presence of the capacity, capability and resilience required for people and organisations to perform successfully under real-world conditions.
Perhaps the greatest challenge for modern organisations is not improving their injury statistics. It is improving their understanding of how work is actually performed, where risks are emerging, and whether the systems they rely upon are truly creating the conditions for success.
References
- Paul Chivers, What if the metrics you celebrate most are the ones telling you the least?, LinkedIn, originally published 3 June 2026.
- Safe Work Australia, WHS data reporting, accessed 10 August 2026.