In the past 20 years, the United States
has seen enormous gains in workplace
safety, particularly as regards total
recordable incident rate (TRIR). Since
1993, TRIR has dropped from about
8.5 recordable incidents per 200,000
working hours to less than 3.0 incidents
per 200,000 hours in 2016 (Bureau of
Labor Statistics, 2017).
This reduction
in workplace injuries should not be
overshadowed by another more disturbing
trend in workplace safety, namely that
the number of life-altering injuries and
fatal incidents has been on a much slower
decline (Ivensky, 2016; Martin & Black,
2015). While it is encouraging that the
nation’s overall recordable incident rate is
decreasing, the next step in the journey to
safety excellence, and one that Campbell
Institute companies are currently pursuing,
is the elimination of serious injuries and
life-altering events.