7 minutes14/10/2025

Do you have the right safety KPIs connected to your corporate safety culture? Can you measure and manage these key performance indicators effectively? Most companies track incidents but miss the bigger picture. 

Scattered data keeps you in the dark

Tracking safety goals requires meaningful KPIs, but relying only on lagging indicators limits progress. Many companies still use siloed systems that hide critical insights and obscure links between audits, incidents, near-misses, and compliance gaps. 

Without a centralized view of safety performance metrics, stakeholders can’t identify patterns or prioritize actions to improve safety culture. 

Centralized systems enable safety data visualization

Digital EHS platforms with integrated reporting and analytics turn field data into clear, visual dashboards. These tools help leaders monitor KPIs, spot trends, and make informed decisions that drive proactive safety improvements. 

Data-driven insights from EHS software foster improvements in safety behavior

When companies use analytics to visualize safety data, they boost accountability, engagement, and decision-making. Real-time insights make safety performance tangible, motivating teams to act, report, and improve behavior across the organization. 

How analytics improves safety accountability and engagement

When dashboards show EHS metrics in real time, safety-related trends, risks, problems, and successes are no longer abstract concepts. Instead, they become a tangible, dynamic presence across the organization, making it easier for everyone to understand and participate in safety.  

The charts and graphs depicted by the dashboards show how safety is directly impacted by behaviors such as: 

• Acting safely on the frontline
• Reporting incidents, near misses, and hazards
• Following up on reports and taking preventive action
• Implementing training and tracking qualifications
• Conducting audits, inspections, and equipment checks

Seeing the real-time impact of their actions will motivate staff at all levels to behave safely and take accountability for keeping themselves and their team safe.  

What’s more, when management invests in a tool that can provide data-driven insights, it sends a message that safety is a top priority. When staff feel valued, they will prioritize efforts to create and maintain a positive, proactive safety culture.   

How analytics improves decision-making

Legacy systems silo data, forcing decisions based on incomplete information and intuition. Analytics tools provide clear, data-driven insights that improve safety behavior and outcomes.

Real-time outputs highlight high-risk areas so teams can focus resources where they’ll have the greatest impact. Data-backed decisions are easier to communicate, motivating leaders and increasing employee buy-in when the rationale is clear.

Four pillars of an effective data-driven safety culture

1) A digital safety management system

A cloud-based EHS platform gives everyone access to a single source of truth. It simplifies reporting, making it easy to log incidents, near misses, and observations, and supports frameworks like behavior-based safety by enabling consistent data collection. 

Replacing legacy systems is the first step toward unlocking the full value of your safety data. In France, for example, companies must maintain a DUERP: a legally required risk assessment document that identifies workplace hazards and outlines preventive measures. Managing it digitally helps companies use this data more effectively to protect employees and stay compliant. 

Deciding to go digital raises the question of how to choose EHS software to harness analytics. Our whitepaper can guide you through the process, and our business case template will help you bring management on board.

2) A mobile safety reporting app for 360° engagement

Most people today use smartphones or tablets in their personal and professional lives. What’s more, Gen Z will become the largest share of the workforce in the next decade. This is a generation of digital natives who have never known a world without mobile devices. 

Digital systems that include mobile apps allow users to engage with safety in ways that align with their existing mobile habits. On-the-go reporting is convenient for employees and supports leaders by making it easier to follow up and act. An app can also send out notifications to users. This bidirectional flow of information creates a motivating, shared sense of ownership and accountability around safety. 

3) Automation and AI in safety management

Going digital allows you to reap the benefits of AI and automation. EHS software provides automated safety workflows for EHS teams. These simplify many routine aspects of safety management, such as audit rules, examination schedules, notifications, risk assessment documentation, and signatures. 

Meanwhile, EHS software is increasingly incorporating AI tools. Right now, Quentic offers a powerful AI data extraction and processing tool that can reduce the time needed to ingest and record safety data sheets by 90%. Our AI translation tool allows staff to log or review near misses, incidents, and positive behaviors in their preferred language. And there’s more coming! The field of AI is evolving rapidly, with new tools regularly appearing on the horizon.  

AI and automation lighten safety workloads by reducing administrative tasks and removing barriers to reporting. Safety professionals can devote more time to the strategic, people-centric aspects of the safety culture. Employees will find it easier to engage in safety by logging reports and embracing safe behaviors. 

4) Analytics 

Real-time dashboards bring transparency to safety performance, giving managers instant access to key indicators and trends. With clear insights, organizations can track progress, identify risks, and take proactive action. 

Quentic Analytics module puts these capabilities at your fingertips: 

• View current trends and KPIs in interactive dashboards 
• Access insights from mobile devices: ideal for safety walks 
• Monitor standard metrics like actions, audits, compliance, and training 
• Customize dashboards to fit your unique safety goals 
• Integrate with BI tools like Tableau, Qlik, or Power BI for broader reporting 

These features help embed safety into everyday decision-making and align EHS with overall business strategy.

Choosing the right safety KPIs

Data collected in the field feeds into KPIs, which are then turned into insights through analytics. These insights form the basis of safety-related decisions. It is therefore important that you track the best safety KPIs for making continuous improvements in your company. This way, analytics insights will be meaningful to your safety culture, enabling a data-driven safety transformation. 

As well as tracking lagging indicators, you should also monitor leading indicators. These reflect proactive behaviors that can prevent accidents. They include near-miss reporting, PPE compliance, and safety training completion rates. 

You can also use KPIs to analyze and steer behavior-based safety programs. Relevant metrics here include total safety observations relative to all possible observations, and the number of defined safety-related behaviors. For more details on KPIs that matter, read this article. 

What’s next?

You can’t improve what you can’t see. And you can’t visualize a safety culture with scattered data. Digitalizing your safety management processes opens the door to integrated reporting and analytics. Matched with the right KPIs, analytics dashboards paint a clear, dynamic picture of safety across your organization. Real-time insights bring transparency to safety, motivating everyone to engage in targeted improvements and preventive and proactive approaches.

See how Quentic can turn your data into actionable safety insights 

Quentic solutions promote safe behavior, manage incidents, identify legal duties, enhance compliance, and assess your company’s performance seamlessly in real time   

Want to learn more? Schedule a 10-minute consultation with one of our EHS experts.