By: Langdon Dement, Global EHS Advisor, Evotix
In today’s workplace, where health and safety are paramount, understanding key metrics like the days away, restricted or transferred (DART) rate is crucial for businesses. This rate, often viewed as a compliance necessity, offers far more than just adherence to regulations; it provides invaluable insights into a company’s safety performance and operational efficiency.
Understanding DART Rate
What is the DART Rate?
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) developed the DART rate to measure the total impact of work-related injuries and illnesses on a company’s operations. It accounts for:
- Days employees are absent due to work-related illness or injury.
- Days employees face work restrictions due to occupational injuries, diseases or illnesses.
- Days employees are reassigned due to inability to perform regular duties.
By quantifying these factors, the DART rate indicates a company’s safety record and operational disruptions causedworkplace incidents.
The Importance of DART Rate in Business Context
The DART rate offers a more nuanced understanding of workplace safety than traditional incident rates. While incident rates quantify the frequency of workplace accidents, the DART rate delves deeper, assessing the severity and broader business implications of each incident.
This detailed analysis is essential for identifying trends, implementing preventive measures and fostering a healthy and safe workplace environment.
Calculation Methodology: Ensuring Precision and Accuracy
Calculating the DART Rate in Three Steps:
First, aggregate the number of injuries leading to absences, work restrictions or job transfers. Second, divide this totalthe cumulative number of hours all employees work over the year. Third, multiply the quotient200,000, a standard figure representing 100 full-time employees working for a year.
It’s necessary to ensure accuracy in this calculation. Exclude non-work-related absences and classify injuries requiring medical treatment instead of only first aid. Also, include a diverse range of employees in the calculation, such as administrative staff, maintenance personnel and temporary workers, to ensure a thorough understanding of the company’s safety performance.
The Impact of DART Rate on Business
Consequences of a High DART Rate
A high DART rate can have significant negative repercussions for a business, including:
- Business Opportunities: Companies with high DART rates may be disadvantaged in competitive bids or negotiations as clients and partners often seek collaborators with proven safety records.
- Regulatory Scrutiny: Elevated rates can attract unwanted attention from OSHA, leading to inspections that can uncover other operational issues, resulting in fines or mandatory process changes.
- Financial Implications: High DART rates often correlate with increased insurance premiums since insurers view these companies as high risk. This can lead to financial burdens, especially in industries with high operational costs.
Advantages of a Low DART Rate
On the other hand, maintaining a low DART rate can bring numerous benefits:
- Operational Efficiency: A low rate often indicates streamlined operations with minimal disruptions, leading to higher productivity and better use of resources.
- Risk Mitigation: Understanding and minimizing workplace incidents through DART rate analysis helps identify potential hazards and implement effective safety measures.
- Financial Health: Lower DART rates can result in reduced insurance premiums and fewer costs associated with workplace incidents, such as compensation claims and lost production time.
- Reputation and Morale: A strong safety record and low DART rate enhance a company’s reputation, making it more attractive to potential employees and partners. It also boosts employee morale because workers feel safer and more valued.
Industry-Specific Considerations for DART Rate
While the DART rate is a universal metric, its implications vary across industries. High-risk industries, such as construction, manufacturing and mining, naturally have different benchmarks than those in less hazardous fields like accounting, marketing and human resources.
Companies should evaluate their DART rate against industry-specific benchmarks, available through the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, to gain a true sense of their health and safety performance relative to peers.
Strategies for Achieving and Maintaining a Low DART Rate
Comprehensive Approach to Safety
Reducing the DART rate requires a holistic approach to workplace health and safety, including:
- Accurate Data Collection: Rigorous data collection and analysis are the foundation for understanding the causes of incidents and identifying areas for improvement.
- Health and Safety Culture: Cultivating a culture of health and safety, starting from top management and permeating all levels of the organization, is critical. This culture’s key elements are regular training, open communication about health and safety concerns and encouraging hazard reporting.
- Leveraging Technology: Modern EHS&S (environment, health, safety and sustainability) software helps collect and analyze safety data, providing real-time insights and facilitating proactive measures to prevent workplace incidents.
DART Rate as a Catalyst for Improvement
The DART rate is a pivotal metric for businesses. Companies gain insights into how workplace incidents affect their performanceaccurately calculating and analyzing the DART rate. This, in turn, enables them to implement targeted strategies to reduce these health and safety incidents, thereby improving their safety standards, operational efficiency and financial health.
To learn more about mitigating risk and implementing a risk assessment, read Evotix’s blog post: What is a Risk Assessment?