Accidents are going to happen. It's a fact of life. But how often do they happen? Are you being proactive enough in keeping your workplace safe? Or do you just hope that nothing bad will ever happen again?
Well, it's time to take action! There are many ways to manage the accident frequency rate at your workplace, but first, let's look at what this means for your company.
Importance of Accident Frequency Rate
Accident frequency rate, or AFR, is a measure of the likelihood of accidents occurring. It helps you understand the cost of accidents and how safe your workplace is compared to others.
An accident frequency rate is a valuable tool for measuring the effectiveness of safety programs. It gives you an idea of how often accidents happen in your workplace and whether they decrease or increase. Knowing this information is essential because it helps you understand what actions need to be taken to improve safety, such as making changes to your work environment or implementing new procedures and training programs.
The Cost of Accidents in the Workplace
The cost of accidents in the workplace can be broken down into four categories:
- Cost of injuries. This is the direct financial loss to your company, including medical bills and lost productivity due to injury or illness.
- Cost of illnesses. These are also called indirect costs because they are not directly attributable to an accident but still affect how well you do business. For example, if a customer walks away with a bad taste in their mouth after being infected by something you sold them at work.
- Cost of fatalities/people lost through no fault on their part whatsoever.
How to Calculate the Accident Frequency Rate?
To calculate the accident frequency rate, you need to have data on how many accidents there were in a given period. You can use this information to calculate the average number of hours worked by each worker during that time frame. In order for your calculation to be accurate, you must ensure that all employees are recorded properly and accurately throughout their working careers.
To do this:
- Enter all relevant data about each employee into an Excel spreadsheet or similar program;
- Calculate the total number of accidents occurring during each year by dividing it by 1000 (or any other unit you use);
This gives you an idea as to how many times per day or week someone will have an accident while at work.
How to Manage the Accidents Frequency Rates
Once you've identified high accident frequency rates in your workplace, it's time to develop an action plan to combat this issue.
- Use the right tools. You can reduce the accident frequency rate by using more effective tools designed specifically for your job or task and easy to use. An involvement platform is a great software tool that you can use to minimise AFR in your workplace.
- Be aware of your surroundings at all times. Ensure that you assess your workplace environment for any potential hazards. Next, look for ways of eliminating those workplace hazards and implementing them to reduce AFR.
- Implement workplace safety training programs. It's important to note that your employees also play an important role in minimising the rate of accidents in the work environment. In that sense, you should ensure everyone has proper education and safety training regarding their workplace hazards.
Final thoughts
It is wise to remember that accidents can happen at any moment and that you must be prepared for the worst. Even if your company policies are in place, it still makes sense to be aware of the AFR and take appropriate measures to manage it.
By understanding how to calculate and manage this rate, companies can take measures to improve safety and reduce the cost of accidents in the workplace.
If you're looking for a platform to collect more data to monitor your accident frequency rate, we've got you covered. Falcony is easy-to-use, boosts two-way communication, has customisable workflows, automated analytics, vast integration possibilities and more. Start your 30-day trial or contact us for more information:
We are building the world's first operational involvement platform. Our mission is to make the process of finding, sharing, fixing and learning from issues and observations as easy as thinking about them and as rewarding as being remembered for them.
By doing this, we are making work more meaningful for all parties involved.
More information at falcony.io.
