How to Calculate OSHA Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR)

This post is one in a 3-part series:

Is OSHA data a burden or an asset? Hello, my name is Michael Stacking, the CEO of Amaxx, and today I want to talk about OSHA data and, primarily, the TRIR, the total recordable incident rate. The question, is OSHA data a burden or is it an asset? It depends on how you’re using it. If you’re not using it to your benefit like we’re talking about today, then it’s a total burden. It’s a total pain in the old rear end To collect this data, submit it to osha, and if you don’t do anything with it definitely falls on the burden side. If you take this information, submit it to osha, leverage it as an asset, then it can be hugely valuable. And it starts with this first primary OSHA calculation, which is the TRIR total recordable incident rate, total recordable incident rate, TRIR. How many of your cases your incidents are recordable as compared to the national average as compared to the national average?

Calculating TRIR

So let’s just talk about fundamentally how we calculate this. This is a number of recordable cases, number of recordables, so number of recordables, and you’re going to times that by 200,000, times that by 200,000, and you’re going to take that over your total hours worked, total hours worked. Alright, so let’s talk about and break down this formula so you can understand it. Total number of recordable incidents. This is strictly the number. How many recordables if an incident, we’ll cover that in a different section, but what is recordable? What is not? How many actually were recordable times 200,000. So why 200,000? This is a number of 100 full-time equivalent employees, number of 100 employees, which is basically 2000 hours times 100. That’s number of hours worked by 100. Full-time equip employees. Why 2000? This is 50 hours a week, times 40, I’m sorry, 50 weeks a year times 40 hours a week. So 50 times 40 is 2000, 2000 times 100 is 200,000. So if 200,000 is the equivalent of 100 employees working full time, this is how OSHA and how we and many people in the industry smooth this out. So how do you compare apples to apples? How do you compare a company that has 50 employees to a company that has 50,000 employees? How do you make an apples to apples comparison? And this is how you do it. It’s the rate per 100 employees. That’s what we’re doing. So when you’re looking at this,

How to Get an Apples-Apples Comparison

You’re all right, what is the rate per 100 employees? That’s how I can get an apple-to-apple comparison. And then this is the total number of hours worked in your organization. So this includes number of hours worked, this includes overtime. It does not include sick pay, it does not include leave. This is actual hours worked. If they worked part-time. If they only work 10 hours that week, count that 10 hours. And if another person worked 30 hours, then that’s one full-time of an employee works four that working that 40 hours a week. So this is total number of hours worked. This is you’re going to get from your payroll system number of recordables times 200,000 over your number of hours works, and you are going to get your TR IR R. Then the question is, what do you do with it? What do you do with it?

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Baseline Against Bureau of Labor Statistics Data

I’m going to direct you to table number one. Table number one at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So table number one at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you’re going to go to bls.gov/iif injuries, illnesses and fatalities, bbls.gov/iif, then you’re going to look for nonfatal injuries and illnesses, table nonfatal injuries and illnesses, injuries and illnesses. You’re going to look up that table. So that is nonfatal dash injuries, and I think it’s this URL might change where you get the idea bbls.gov IIF, and then you’re looking for non-fatal injuries and illnesses. That’s what you’re going to look and you’re going to look up and you’re going to find this table number one, and you could look at all the industries in the us, all the different industries by N-A-I-C-S code by your next code N-A-I-C-S. They’re organized by that. So then you can compare, well, where are we?

Drill Down to Individual Locations

Alright, well, our rate is, let’s say 10.0, and the industry rate is, let’s say, on average, maybe it’s 13, so you’re doing better than the industry. Or let’s say the industry rate was 7.5, so you’re doing worse than industry. That’s how you can tell from a benchmarking standpoint how you’re doing in terms of your recordable rates. When you look at the difference between if OSHA data is a burden or if it’s an asset, this is how it starts to become an asset. Being able to understand how you compare, break this down by your individual establishment locations. You could say location A versus location B versus location C. Well, location A, we’re doing pretty good. Location B, not doing so hot there. Location C kind of. Okay, let’s focus a little bit more safety efforts and location B. What is going on there where our TRIR is so much higher on average than our own company, and then on average we’re doing better or worse than the industry.

How OSHA Data Becomes an Asset

That’s how it becomes an asset. That’s how it becomes where your focused effort, that’s how it becomes where you can now prioritize what you’re doing in your organization to start to drive down your number of incidents, which oh, by the way, will significantly drive down your workers’ comp costs. Again, my name is Michael Stack, the CEO of Amex. Remember, your work today and workers’ compensation make a dramatic impact on your company’s bottom line, but it will make a dramatic impact on someone’s life. This would be great.

Michael Stack, CEO of Amaxx LLC, is an expert in workers’ compensation cost containment systems and provides education, training, and consulting to help employers reduce their workers’ compensation costs by 20% to 50%. He is co-author of the #1 selling comprehensive training guide “Your Ultimate Guide to Mastering Workers’ Comp Costs: Reduce Costs 20% to 50%.” Stack is the creator of Injury Management Results (IMR) software and founder of Amaxx Workers’ Comp Training Center. WC Mastery Training teaching injury management best practices such as return to work, communication, claims best practices, medical management, and working with vendors. IMR software simplifies the implementation of these best practices for employers and ties results to a Critical Metrics Dashboard.

Contact: mstack@reduceyourworkerscomp.com.

Workers’ Comp Roundup Blog: http://blog.reduceyourworkerscomp.com/

Injury Management Results (IMR) Software: https://imrsoftware.com/

Do not use this information without independent verification. All state laws vary. You should consult with your insurance broker, attorney, or qualified professional.