(55w) Safety Performance Evaluation: A Benchmark of Practices across Various High-Risk Systems

The concept of performance has invaded all management spheres and imposed itself as a strong driver of decision making. Following the funding work of Kaplan and Norton (1996), performance appears as a multidimensional concept which evaluation and use require adapted tools and well calibrated decision processes.

Safety performance does not escape these requirements as it englobes various dimensions (workplace safety, process safety, environmental safety), can be approached through various evaluation paradigms (auto evaluation, external assessment through audits and KPIs) and may be used by several stakeholders (risk owner, regional and national authorities, public perceptions). Indeed, different combinations of these three dimensions allow for a large variety of performance governance paradigms carrying various understandings and practices with regard to the way performance should be assessed and used.

By comparing safety performance management in three different risk systems (process, railway and health) in Europe, this works aims at providing safety management actors with a description of the richness and variety of safety performance understandings and practices. Insights gained from this work should enhance safety managers’ abilities to grasp the strengths and weaknesses of their approaches and explore the possibilities of a beneficial benchmarking.