Research pick: Wherever I lay my hard-hat - "A framework for safety performance indicators: the case of the Swedish mining industry"

The Swedish mining industry, previously associated with a relative high accident rate, has seen a notable shift in its approach to safety in recent years. The lessons it has learned may help other high-risk sectors around the world improve their safety record. Research in the International Journal of Mining and Mineral Engineering has used internal records from six Swedish mining companies to help develop a new framework for evaluating safety performance. The new approach prioritizes everyday safety practices over retrospective accident statistics.

Traditionally, safety performance in mining has been assessed reactively, by counting incidents and injuries. While such metrics are clear and easy to track, they provide a limited view. They tell us what went wrong, but not necessarily what was done to prevent it. The study argues that this reactive model overlooks crucial indicators of risk and resilience, particularly in complex environments where threats may be hidden until a failure occurs. A proactive model is needed.

The proposed framework focuses on the organisational and human systems that shape safety on a daily basis. These include how companies structure safety responsibilities, how they educate their workers and managers, and how they engage employees in identifying and addressing risks. By examining all of these elements, the study suggests, organisations might gain a much clearer picture of their safety readiness, before accidents happen.

Safety management structures and leadership roles are not just bureaucratic arrangements, the researchers assert, they are active mechanisms that influence how risks are perceived and managed on the ground. Effective safety leadership requires clear communication channels, defined responsibilities, and a culture of trust, where employees feel empowered to speak up about unsafe conditions or procedural flaws.

One of the study’s central insights is that safety is not purely a technical problem. Rather, it is deeply social. The ability of a company to adapt to new risks, whether posed by emerging technologies or changing work patterns, depends heavily on its internal culture. Do employees feel they have a voice? Is safety treated as a shared responsibility? Are there mechanisms in place to learn from near-misses or unexpected disruptions?

This emphasis on the “social fabric” of safety represents a significant departure from older models that treat safety management as little more than a checklist or compliance exercise. The researchers point out that while social factors are harder to quantify than, whether everyone is wearing their hard-hat and safety boots, they are no less critical. In fact, they are often what determine whether technical measures are followed, or whether they can be adapted quickly under changing conditions.

The study also highlights a broader challenge facing industries that rely on complex technical systems: the detection of latent risks—problems that may not surface until multiple small failures interact in unexpected ways. As mining operations become more automated and digitised, traditional safety metrics struggle to capture these hidden vulnerabilities. In this context, the researchers suggest that companies need more adaptive tools that can account for the dynamic nature of modern work environments.

Nygren, M. and Sundström, E. (2025) ‘A framework for safety performance indicators: the case of the Swedish mining industry’, Int. J. Mining and Mineral Engineering, Vol. 16, No. 5, pp.1–17.