Safety by the numbers
Every industry has its own abbreviations. The safety industry is no different. Even if you know what an abbreviation stands for, you could still be confused about how it’s relevant to your safety program. Read on for a cheat sheet that explains some common abbreviations related to safety performance.
Three common metrics that safety professionals, OSHA, and insurance carriers use to measure safety performance are TRIR, DART rate, and EMR.
TRIR is the abbreviation for Total Recordable Incident Rate. This number is a measure of how many recordable incidents your company had (typically last year) adjusted for the number of hours worked by your employees. To figure out the TRIR, you use this formula:
TTIR = (Number of Recordable Incidents) x 200,000
(Total Hours Worked by all Employees)
DART stands for Days Away from work, Restricted work, or Transfer to another job. If you look at the definition of a recordable incident, you’ll see that DART incidents are one category or one subset of all recordable incidents. The DART rate is calculated very similarly to the TRIR. Here is the formula:
DART rate = (Number of DART Incidents) x 200,000
(Total Hours Worked by all Employees)
To connect TRIR and DART to your work, you need OSHA’s definition of Recordable Incident. It’s any injury or illness that results in: death, days away from work, restricted work or transfer to another job, medical treatment beyond first aid, or loss of consciousness. Also, significant injuries or illnesses that have been diagnosed by a doctor or other medical professional are recordable.
EMR is the abbreviation for Experience Modification Rate. This is a complicated number calculated by your insurance carrier. Generally, a company’s EMR is based on:
- the number of work comp claims,
- the cost of those claims,
- the expected claims for people doing similar jobs, and
- time.
An EMR of 1.0 is average. If your EMR is below 1.0, your safety program is doing better than average, and your workers’ comp premium should be lower. If it’s above 1.0, your people are having more accidents than the average, and you’ll pay higher premiums.
Understanding these measurements helps you understand paperwork, not people. If one of your people gets hurt, they’ll measure safety in terms of pain, lost wages, and missed opportunities. Controlling the hazards on the jobsite will help keep your people safe and healthy, and keep your safety measurements looking good, too.