From Metrics to Meaning: Why Measuring Capability Is the Future of Health and Safety Performance
We’ve all seen the reports. Injury rates, lost time days, audit scores neatly lined up like KPIs on a scoreboard. The data is clean. Quantifiable. Reassuring, even. But let’s be real, it’s not telling us what we actually need to know.
Ticking boxes doesn’t make work safer. It just means we’re good at counting things after they’ve happened. And in high-pressure, high-risk environments, fewer incidents might not mean better safety. It could just mean you’ve been lucky or it’s not safe to report it.
At fr&nk, we think it’s time to stop obsessing over lagging indicators and start paying attention to something more powerful: Capability.
So, what is capability?
Capability is about whether your organisation can truly manage health and safety risk, in real life, not just on paper. It’s about how things work when things change. When pressure builds. When what we imagined doesn’t match what’s actually happening on the ground.
We look at capability across three pillars:
• Systems - the formal bits: procedures, resources, accountabilities and structures.
• Customs - the informal reality: habits, workarounds, and what people actually do.
• People - the skills, judgment and confidence of individuals navigating the job in all its messy, unpredictable complexity.
fr&nk Capability Leaders® Health and Safety Capability Spectrum
These three pillars help us see not just whether something exists, but whether it holds up under strain. Whether it adapts or collapses. Whether it’s helping people, or quietly being ignored.
How we measure capability
We combine quantitative data, qualitative insights and observations to map out what’s really going on. That means:
• Listening to frontline workers.
• Digging into how decisions are made.
• Stress-testing procedures in context.
We seek to understand the tension between how work is meant to happen and how it really happens. To show whether systems are being followed because they’re helpful or being sidestepped because they’re not. We look at how technically resilient and culturally supported safety practices are, giving you a clear view of where capability is thriving… and where it’s wearing thin.
From counting to capability
Where traditional metrics reflect what’s already gone wrong, capability indicators show whether you’re ready for could go wrong next. They help you see if your systems are scalable, your culture is supportive, and your people are equipped to do the right thing under real-world conditions.
This isn’t about ditching injury stats altogether. It’s about broadening the conversation. Balancing hindsight with foresight. Adding context, depth and direction.
When you measure capability, you’re not just reporting the past you’re building confidence in the future. You’re not just asking, “What went wrong?” You’re asking, “Are we ready?”
The organisations who can answer that with a clear and confident yes?
They’re the ones who’ll lead the way.