How do I measure the success of a safety program?

The arrival of a new year offers a chance for a fresh beginning, especially when it comes to enhancing safety management on your farm. While you’ve already set up a safety program, this is the perfect time to assess how well it’s working and identify any necessary updates. A well-executed and consistently maintained safety management system is essential for ensuring the well-being of your workers and the success of your agribusiness.

Why is safety important in Agriculture?

The agricultural industry has one of the highest fatality rates in comparison to other industries, safety is always a prevalent topic for discussion. From machinery to livestock, there are dangers and risks in every commodity of agriculture daily.

What’s the difference between a Safety Management System vs a Safety Program

The terminology can be a bit tricky, making it hard to tell the difference between a system and a program. To simplify things, think of your Safety Management System as the tool that helps you put your Safety Program into action and manage it effectively on your farm.

A Safety Management System is an ever changing, continuously improving, system to learn from. A system helps you identify gaps in your program so you can target areas and make adjustments. Your Safety Program is your policies and procedures with a focus on compliance, it communicates your requirements. A Safety Program rarely changes on its own but tends to change as the result of an incident or a legislative change.

How can I make my farm safer in 2025? 

After investing in a safety management system and covering all the essential topics, you might wonder how to gauge the effectiveness of your safety program. If you don’t pause to assess your health and safety performance, how will you pinpoint opportunities for enhancement?

Like most success stories, change is not effective without a positive cultural shift. You need support from management, supervisors, workers and contractors. How do you gain that support, worker engagement and traction on your farm? You demonstrate the effectiveness of your Safety Program and continue to build upon its success for the future.

Are you tracking and sharing the positive effects of your Safety Program? An incident on the farm can lead to significant costs, both in terms of finances and worker morale. It might be helpful to assess important safety metrics to gauge the effectiveness of your Safety Program.

Have you considered looking at the frequency of injuries and near misses, worker compensation claims, and the overall safety culture among your team? Are incidents decreasing? Have most of your workers completed their training, or is there a need for additional training? What training successes can you highlight and discuss with your team?

Good housekeeping could be another element of your Safety Program to review. Are procedures regularly being completed and look at the number of procedures completed. Has there been a number of new policies introduced to make your farm safer based on the previous year’s learnings and growth?

Keep in mind that, as we mentioned earlier, the focus isn't on passing or failing; it's all about learning, growing, and enhancing your Safety Program. To begin, you should set a baseline; without it, how can you assess whether your performance is improving or declining? A great way to start spotting trends is by comparing your results to those from the previous month or year.

Did you know that even safety inspections and completed checklists should be viewed as measurements of success, not failure. If your team is regularly completing Safety Inspections and Checklists this could indicate that potential hazards and dangers are being recognised earlier and fixed quicker. Each area of your farm could be being made safer with every completed Safety Inspection. When we say this, think of it like taking a test, the first attempt you might have achieved a score of 70%. But over time and with a bit more effort you could be scoring 99%. Perhaps there was missing signage the first time around or you’ve identified damaged PPE that needs replacing.

Some other ideas to look back through in 2025:

• Survey your workers at the end of training. Are your training methods effective?

Have a friendly discussion with your workers about how they perceive the training sessions. Are the techniques or messages effective for them? Do they know what is expected of them? It’s worth considering if they are engaging with the training and understanding their Health and Safety duties. These inquiries can provide valuable insights into their level of comprehension.

• Test the knowledge of your workers before and after the safety training. 

It’s a great idea to assess your team’s safety knowledge with some questions before the training starts. After the session, you can compare their responses to see who might need further training. Who doesn’t enjoy a quiz? Engage your workers by asking if they know their health and safety obligations. Are they aware of the Emergency Assembly Point? Would they benefit from more regular training?

• Measure performance improvement through analysis of your records like near miss and incidents.

Compare the number of reports received before and after implementing your Safety Program. Are you receiving more now that the process is quicker? While the influx of hazards and near misses and incident reports may raise alarms at first, it may come as a sign that workers are more comfortable with this reporting system. Meaning more risks are acknowledged and fixed sooner rather than later.

We all have to start somewhere. So how will you measure success?

There's a lot of information and data you might be looking at, but don't let it stress you out.

You may be curious about why we're having this discussion. Well, we’re a safety management system designed specifically for the agricultural sector, created by farmers for farmers!

Our software is a cloud-based solution that provides the necessary features and tools to help enhance your workplace safety, as well as improve your record-keeping and reporting.

In addition to policies, procedures, training, and reporting capabilities, Safe Ag Systems includes Inventory Management, a Task Manager, and Safety Checklists, all aimed at streamlining your business operations.

Interested? We offer a 7-Day Free Trial so you can explore all our features, tools, templates, and resources to see if our program is the right match for your business.

Topics: Safety Management System

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