Avetta partnered with the National Safety Council (NSC) to launch the Safety Maturity Index (SMI), a systems-based approach to target health and safety weaknesses within the supply chain to help avoid serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs).
“Our partnership represents innovation in the contractor safety space. With our research and Avetta’s depth of knowledge and ability to scale this solution, this represents a significant step forward in our industry,” says Don Dama, EVP of sales and marketing of the National Safety Council. “By offering a holistic approach to monitor contractors’ safety and maturity, we empower the industry to deploy more effective systems and safeguards to reduce SIFs in the future.”
Key takeaways:
- Avetta and the NSC combined 15 years of NSC research, data from Avetta’s global contractor network, and insights from companies to design the SMI.
- The SMI goes beyond traditional metrics by identifying, assessing, and surfacing the maturity of the contractor's organizational use of their safety management systems to ensure a safer working environment. The index further focuses on risk management, enabling a comprehensive and accurate safety evaluation to verify a contractor’s safety management system (SMS).
- Grounded in industry standards such as ISO 45001 and ANSI Z-10, SMI scores are weighted based on contractor findings, evidence and verification methods, and are calculated using a 0-100 grading scale across five primary categories: safety leadership and structure; hazard identification and controls; worker training and competency; incident management and response; and improvements and communications.
“For decades, contractor prequalification has focused on historical performance and policy audits. This standard needs to evolve as it's been proven that past performance isn’t a reliable indicator of future safety,” says Taylor Allis, CPO of Avetta. “By partnering with the NSC, we’re shifting contractor safety interactions from compliance-based ones to improvement-focused discussions, charting a new course in contractor safety.”
