Safety metrics and injury rates
Last updated: Written by Blake Cowan, NCSO
One formula, three rates, and a vocabulary problem that causes more wrong submissions than the arithmetic ever does.
The short answer
Every rate on this page is the same calculation: count times 200,000, divided by hours worked. What changes is which injuries you count. TRIF counts everything recordable, DART counts the ones that stopped somebody doing their job, and the lost time rate counts the ones where they missed time. Canada says TRIF and the United States says TRIR, and both use the same basis.
Almost every Canadian contractor gets asked for a number before they get asked for anything else. This is where that number comes from, what it means, and what to do when it is not the number you wanted.
Start here
Work out your rate
The calculator does TRIF, DART and lost time together, and shows the arithmetic. Open the calculator.
Check what you are counting
Most wrong rates are classification errors, not bad years. What counts as a recordable injury.
See what clients want
The thresholds are set by the client, not the platform. What TRIF clients actually require.
Compare against something real
The published provincial figures, and why they are not a league table. Canadian injury rate benchmarks.
The three rates, and how they relate
They descend, always, because each one counts a subset of the one above it.
| Rate | Counts | Also called |
|---|---|---|
| TRIF | Every recordable injury | TRIR, TRIFR, TCR, total recordable case rate |
| DART | Days away, restricted duty or job transfer | DART rate |
| Lost time | Days away only | LTIF, LTIFR, lost time injury frequency |
Scroll the table sideways to see every column. The first column stays in place.
Your DART can never be higher than your TRIF, and your lost time rate can never be higher than your DART. If they are, something has been counted in the wrong place, and finding it is more urgent than improving anything.
DART rate and lost time rate covers the two narrower measures and what the gap between them says about your program.
The vocabulary problem, which runs through all of this
The single most common cause of confusion here is that the same measure has several names and similar names mean different measures.
TRIF and TRIR are the same thing. DART and the lost time rate are not. The provincial rates on the benchmarks page share names with your own rates while counting an entirely different population. And Canada has no recordkeeping rule of its own, so Canadian contractors end up working to an American definition because the platforms asking are American.
This is the same pattern as JSAs and JHAs and as safe work practices. The vocabulary follows whoever trained the person asking. Ask what definition they want, not which acronym they used, because the definition is the part that changes the answer.
When the number is not what you hoped
How to actually lower your injury rate is the practitioner answer. In short: make sure the number is accurate first, because a large share of bad rates are arithmetic. Then find the tasks that keep producing claims, because that is the only change that reduces real harm. Expect it to take about three years to move a rolling average, and be suspicious of anything faster.
Free templates
The two forms these numbers actually come from.
Incident and near miss report
An investigation form that pushes past worker error to the causes an auditor will ask about.
Direct download. No email, no signup, no form.
Corrective action tracker
One register for every action from an inspection, incident, audit or worker concern, tracked to verified closure.
Direct download. No email, no signup, no form.
Print ready PDF and editable DOCX, no email required, and the full library has the rest. If you would rather have the whole program written and mapped to your certifying partner's audit, that is the paid work, and the software that holds it is free either way.
Related
- Contractor prequalification is where these numbers get submitted, on ISN, Avetta, ComplyWorks and Veriforce.
- Incident and near miss reporting is the system that produces the count.
- COR certification is the Canadian program most of these contractors are certified under.
- Hazard assessments is where the fix for a recurring injury gets written down.
Questions people actually ask
Which safety metric do clients actually ask for?
What is the formula for an injury frequency rate?
Are Canadian and American injury rates calculated the same way?
Do I need these numbers if I am not doing prequalification?
Is a low injury rate proof of a safe company?
Next step
Take the templates and use them, whether or not you ever talk to us. If you would rather not build the program yourself, we will build it inside the app and keep it current.