Businesses across the globe are fundamentally changing the ways they approach OHS. While past workplace wellness initiatives tended to focus on the physical health and safety of employees, new strategies also consider the importance of social, mental and financial well-being. By taking a more holistic approach, companies hope to improve and more effectively measure critical performance indicators affecting sustainability, including productivity and healthcare costs.       

Speaking to this goal, a new report from the International SOS Foundation and Sancroft (“Maximizing the Value of Occupational Health & Safety and Workplace Wellness Reporting for a Global Workforce: A Practical Guide for Internationally Operating Employers”) provides OHS professionals with updated guidelines on how to provide better information through their corporate sustainability reporting. Recognizing the Center for Safety and Health Sustainability’s position at the forefront of this industry-wide shift, the guidelines prominently feature a few key CSHS metrics.

These metrics are divided into two groups: those deemed “essential,” and those considered “optional.” The five essential metrics include measurements such as a company’s lost-time injury and illness frequency rate and the percentage of direct/first-tier supplier facilities that have been audited for compliance with OHS standards. The three optional metrics include safety culture indicators/behavioral safety observations and third-party manufacturing metrics for lost-time injury, severity and fatality rates. To optimize the way these statistics are reported to stakeholders, CSHS recommends tracking them over a period of no fewer than five years. The center also encourages OHS professionals to report their findings both numerically and graphically.

While sustainability reporting standards have not kept pace with OHS industry trends, according to the report, CSHS recommendations could help companies measure progress in actionable ways that take overall employee safety, health and wellness into account. Download it here.