A Review of Our 2023 Safety Performance

As we reflect on last year, let’s review the opportunities for improvement identified in our KAI and celebrate the many successes experienced across the Company.

Written by: Brent Smallwood, Safety, Health & Environment Manager, Chambersburg, PA

As we reflect on our 2023 Safety performance, let’s review what we mean when we reference lagging and leading indicators. We use these terms to describe the safety activities we track to help us stay focused on achieving safety-related goals.

• Leading Indicators / Key Activity Indicators (KAI) - Leading indicators are proactive and preventive actions that help us understand the effectiveness of safety and health activities, revealing potential problems in a safety and health program. The types of leading indicators that Olympic Steel uses include completing monthly safety training, conducting weekly safety walks, holding monthly safety committee/team meetings, hazard identification, completing poka yokes, near miss reporting and delivering effective new employee safety training. All these activities, when properly planned and executed, achieve a safer workplace by identifying, controlling and eliminating hazards.
• Lagging Indicators / Key Performance Indicators (KPI) - Lagging indicators are events that occurred in the past. The lagging indicators we track include injuries, illnesses, and fatalities; these numbers are used to calculate injury rates. This type of indicator  is a look backward – AFTER an incident has occurred. It’s like looking in the rearview mirror. Reviewing lagging indicators allows us to predict where future incidents occur and develop targeted activities to reduce or eliminate risks.