Occupational health and safety and the balanced scorecard

Abstract

Since its introduction in 1992, the balanced scorecard (BSC) has rapidly gained in importance throughout the world. Harvard Business Review even selected it as one of the most important management tools of the past 75 years. This paper takes the performance indicators used in an offshore health‐and‐safety benchmarking study carried out by Aberdeen University on 13 offshore installations operating on the UK Continental Shelf and relates them to the BSC framework. The results from the benchmarking study are discussed from the perspective of suggesting which indicators should populate each perspective of the BSC: financial, customer, internal business and learning and growth. In addition the paper includes the results of interviews conducted with senior managers in the UK and Norwegian oil and gas sector, about use of the BSC in general and with regard to health and safety performance indicators in particular. Reasons for including occupational health and safety in the BSC and reports/papers covering occupational health and safety indicators and the BSC are discussed.

Citation

Mearns, K. and Ivar Håvold, J. (2003), "Occupational health and safety and the balanced scorecard", The TQM Magazine, Vol. 15 No. 6, pp. 408-423. https://doi.org/10.1108/09544780310502741