Why a Low Injury Rate Does Not Tell the Whole Safety Story

A contractor comparison includes a recordable injury rate. It is a useful data point, but the selection team still needs to understand what it measures and what it leaves unanswered about the proposed work.

EEI’s Power to Prevent SIF initiative makes that distinction explicit. EEI reports substantial improvement in total recordable incident rates over decades while serious-injury and fatality rates have plateaued. Its approach focuses on high-energy hazards, effective controls, and shared learning. EEI also cautions that rare events in small samples do not necessarily establish meaningful trends.

For a buyer or program owner, this changes the questions worth asking. It does not supply a shortcut for declaring a contractor safe or unsafe.

Define the comparison before ranking it

Ask what period, workforce, and activities each submitted metric covers. Check that employee and contractor populations are described consistently. Record differences rather than presenting unlike measures in a single ranking.

A rate from one scope of work does not, on its own, answer whether the controls for a different task are suitable. Nor does an absence of reported events demonstrate that all important exposures have been controlled.

The procurement team’s role is to make those limitations visible to the people conducting the safety evaluation. Avoid adding an improvised score that conceals missing evidence behind a precise-looking number.

Ask about controls and how they are checked

For the proposed work, ask the responsible safety team which significant hazards need to be addressed and what evidence would show that the relevant controls are implemented and effective. Request the organization’s own review process, responsibility assignments, and method for resolving deficiencies.

This is where a document request becomes more useful than a slogan. A written commitment needs an owner, a way to verify performance, and a route for correcting a problem. The appropriate evidence depends on the work and the hiring utility’s requirements.

EEI publishes resources on high-energy control assessment and job-briefing quality. Read the original materials for their definitions and intended use; copying a few labels into a vendor scorecard does not reproduce the underlying method.

Keep observations separate from conclusions

A review record should distinguish an observed condition, the evidence available, the explanation offered, and the resulting decision. If evidence is unavailable, mark it unavailable. Do not convert a missing record into either a clean bill of health or a proven failure.

The same discipline applies to incident coverage. Use published investigation findings, preserve their scope, and avoid assigning causes that investigators have not established. A case study can identify questions for a program review without proving that another organization has the same problem.

Use metrics to direct a better review

The practical outcome is a clearer conversation between procurement, operations, and safety: which data are comparable, which exposures matter for this contract, what evidence supports the controls, and who resolves the remaining questions.

See the IOU contractor readiness guide for organizing source-linked requirements. Explore utility safety resources and subscribe to The Feeder for weekly procurement coverage.