Ep 136: What is the symbolic purpose of injury rates?

David and Drew unpack six organizational uses of injury metrics — from controlling work and motivating the workforce to self-promotion and risk signaling — before distilling these into four broad symbolic meanings: management control, image management, risk management, and trust in leadership. The episode reveals that injury rates are unstable signs whose meaning shifts depending on context, observer, and organizational culture. Understanding the emotional and symbolic dimensions of these metrics is shown to be essential for any safety professional seeking to challenge, replace, or engage more honestly with the measurement systems that shape how safety is understood and acted upon in their organization. Discussion Points: (00:00) The intersection of safety measurement and social safety research (03:26) The paper — Interpreting injury metrics (06:57) Known limitations and critiques of injury rate metrics (09:03) The puzzle of why injury rates persist despite their well-documented flaws (10:46) Semiotics as an analytical lens for understanding safety indicators as symbols (14:00) Research methodology — 20 interviews with experienced OHS professionals (16:18) Six organizational uses of injury metrics (26:40) Four broad symbolic meanings of injury metrics (36:45) Safety activities as anxiety reduction and the central role of emotion (38:56) Practical takeaways for safety professionals and researchers Like and follow, send us your comments and suggestions for future show topics! Quotes: Drew Rae: "People are not dumb. These criticisms are fairly easy to understand, and there are so many of them from so many different directions that people know these criticisms and believe some of them. But injury rates still happen. That puzzle needs to be understood." Drew Rae: "Something could be a bad measure of whether you're actually safe, but a good measure of how your injuries are affecting these other types of risks that you're facing." Drew Rae: "Safety activities are driven by affect — emotion matters. We do things in safety because we are afraid, or because we are uncertain, because we are anxious. And our safety activities change those emotions." Drew Rae: "We've now got both pieces of the puzzle. We know that they don't work objectively, and we know that people keep using them because of these symbolic meanings. That's pretty much the full story about injury rates." David Provan: "Be curious about the meaning that's being ascribed to the injury rates in your own organization." Resources: Primary paper discussed: Pomeroy, J. & Pilbeam, C. (2025). Signs of safety: An investigation of how OHS professionals interpret injury metrics. Journal of Safety Research. Related papers referenced in the episode: Rae, A., Provan, D., Weber, D. & Dekker, S. (2018). Safety clutter: the accumulation and persistence of 'safety' work that does not contribute to operational safety. Policy and Practice in Health and Safety. Hayes, J., Slotsvik, T.N., Macrae, C. & Pettersen Gould, K.A. (2023). Tracking the right path: Safety performance indicators as boundary objects in air ambulance services. Safety Science. The Safety of Work Podcast The Safety of Work on LinkedIn Feedback@safetyofwork

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Ep 136: What is the symbolic purpose of injury rates? is an episode from The Safety of Work by David Provan.

This episode is 00:44:14 long.

This episode was published on Apr 29, 2026.

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