What Data Can Teach Us About Worker Safety

The workplace today is safer than it has ever been, but there’s still room for improvement. Despite considerable progress, more than 150 million workplace accidents occur each year, leading to thousands of deaths. Thankfully, big data can help employers turn their workplaces into much safer environments.

Data by itself doesn’t change anything, but it can give employers new insights that lead to changes. In today’s digital age, people can and do record almost anything, generating a vast amount of data. With modern analytics tools, businesses can use this data to learn more about worker safety.

Here’s a closer look at what data can reveal about safety in the workplace.

Highlighting Areas of Risk

Companies can’t expect to improve safety if they don’t know where their shortcomings are. Data about workplace injuries reveals where and how accidents happen, so businesses can see what areas they need to address. Organizations like OSHA already publish findings like this, but big data takes it to a new scale.

OSHA requires businesses to report severe injuries, like those that lead to hospitalization. That doesn’t account for many workplace accidents that, while less severe, could affect employees. With modern data collection tools, businesses could record smaller things that OSHA doesn’t, creating a more accurate picture of workplace safety.

Technology like smartwatches and other wearables can even track things like body temperature and heart rate. With that data, companies could address things like overexertion or heat exhaustion. Employers could learn about potentially risky factors they hadn’t considered in the past.

Measuring the Efficacy of Policy Changes

With all this data, businesses can create new policies to improve worker safety. They can then keep gathering and analyzing data to make sure these changes are beneficial. Otherwise, they run the risk of thinking they’ve fixed a problem when, in reality, they haven’t.

Not all policy changes work, and even if they do in theory, employees could break new rules. For example, fall protection is the most frequently violated OSHA standard, and consequently, falls are the leading cause of construction fatalities. Data can show if changes lower injury rates, allowing businesses to take a new approach if necessary.

Since businesses can share electronic data easily, they can help workers outside their employment, too. If data does prove a policy to be effective, companies can share it with others. That way, more businesses can prevent workplace accidents without having to learn from their mistakes.

Finding New Methods to Improve Safety

Predictive analytics is one of the most popular applications of big data in business. It can go beyond revealing how companies could become more efficient, too, suggesting new safety protocols. These systems can look at historical safety data to determine the optimal solution for addressing current issues.

With a substantial enough dataset, these predictions can be surprisingly accurate. Basing policy shifts on these recommendations is also more likely to lead to positive change, since they take a scientific, data-based approach. If companies can make significant adjustments sooner, they’ll prevent more injuries.

It’s possible predictive analytics won’t always produce the most beneficial policy change. If businesses are using data to monitor these changes’ efficacy, though, they’ll find out if that’s the case. Data provides both a possible solution and a way of measuring its validity.

Data Analytics Creates a Safer Workplace

As far as workplace safety has come, if injuries still happen, there’s room for growth. Big data analytics give businesses the tools they need for that growth, empowering them to create a safer environment. With the help of big data, we’re learning more about worker safety, leading to a considerable reduction in accidents.