Lagging indicators, such as number of incidents, injuries and days away from work, are widely used in occupational health and safety — but they bring with them a host of problems, delegates heard at the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering conference in September.

The first issue is that lagging indicators are negative and are premised upon the understanding that safety is the absence of bad, explained Tanya Hewitt, human and organizational performance specialist with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in Ottawa, speaking at the conference in Niagara Falls, Ont.