Tracking safety incidents is a non-negotiable part of maintaining a safe, compliant, and high-performing workplace. One of the most important metrics used to do that is the Total Recordable Incident Rate, or TRIR.
If you’re asking, “What is TRIR in safety?”, you’re not alone, and understanding this number is critical. TRIR helps employers, regulatory bodies, and even prospective employees evaluate a company’s safety performance over time.
Whether you’re managing a small crew or a large workforce, knowing how to calculate TRIR, interpret it, and use it to prevent future incidents can help your organization stay competitive, compliant, and, most importantly, safe.
What Is TRIR in Safety?
TRIR, or Total Recordable Incident Rate, is a standardized safety metric used by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and organizations across industries to evaluate a company’s workplace safety performance.
It represents the number of OSHA-recordable incidents that occur per 100 full-time employees over a one-year period.
TRIR is commonly used to:
- Benchmark against industry standards
- Evaluate the effectiveness of a company’s EHS programs
- Help companies prevent future incidents
- Demonstrate a commitment to occupational safety
What Counts as a Recordable Incident?
According to OSHA, a recordable incident includes any work-related injury or illness that requires medical treatment beyond first aid, or results in:
- Restricted work activity
- Lost workdays
- Loss of consciousness
- Significant injury or illness diagnosed by a licensed healthcare professional
Common examples include fractures, stitches, and occupational illnesses (e.g., hearing loss, respiratory issues). Medical treatment beyond first aid, such as prescription medication or physical therapy, is also covered.
Incidents that require first-aid measures, like using bandages or ice packs, do not count as a recordable incident.
OSHA recordable incidents also exclude injuries that occur off the job or are not work-related. To qualify, the incident must occur in the work environment or while the employee is performing job-related tasks.
Industries Where TRIR Is Commonly Tracked
While all OSHA-covered employers must track workplace injuries and illnesses, TRIR is especially important in industries where physical risk is high and safety is tightly regulated, such as:
- Construction
- Manufacturing
- Warehousing and logistics
- Oil and gas
- Utilities and energy
- Transportation
- Healthcare
- Mining
These sectors typically require robust safety performance tracking, especially for compliance with OSHA, contractual obligations, or insurance purposes.
In these high-risk environments, a company’s TRIR score often becomes a key metric for evaluating safety culture, which can influence everything from contractor hiring decisions to bidding eligibility on major projects.
How to Calculate TRIR
TRIR is calculated using a standard OSHA formula that helps compare safety performance across companies:
TRIR Formula
- TRIR = (Number of OSHA recordable incidents × 200,000) ÷ Total number of hours worked
Key Components
- Number of OSHA recordable incidents: Includes work-related injuries and illnesses that meet OSHA’s criteria (e.g., medical treatment beyond first aid, restricted work activity, loss of consciousness).
- 200,000: This value represents 100 full-time employees working 40 hours a week for 50 weeks per year.
- Total number of hours worked: Only includes actual hours worked. Do not count vacation hours, sick leave, FMLA leave, or military leave.
For example, if your company had:
- 5 recordable incidents in one year
- 250,000 total employee hours worked
Then your TRIR would be:
- TRIR = (5 × 200,000) ÷ 250,000 = 4.0
This means your company had 4 recordable incidents per 100 full-time workers over the past year.
What Is a Good TRIR?
A good TRIR is typically lower than your industry average. In general, a TRIR under 2.0 is considered acceptable across many sectors, while high-performing companies often aim for a TRIR below 1.0.
However, “good” is relative. In industries like construction or warehousing, where physical risks are higher, slightly higher TRIRs may still reflect strong safety performance when compared to industry peers.
Conversely, in sectors like professional services or tech, a TRIR above 1.0 may raise concerns.
What matters most is consistency and trend. If your company’s TRIR is decreasing year over year, it’s a strong indicator that your safety program is working and your workplace is becoming safer.
TRIR Benchmarks by Industry
TRIR varies widely depending on the type of work and exposure to risk. Below are common benchmarks (based on recent OSHA data):
- Construction: ~2.5
- Manufacturing: ~3.1
- Warehousing and Transportation: ~4.0
- Healthcare: ~5.0
- Professional/Technical Services: ~0.8
- Oil and Gas Extraction: ~0.9
Why This Matters
Use these numbers to compare your own TRIR to similar businesses. If your rate is significantly higher, it could signal unsafe practices, gaps in hazard control, or weaknesses in incident management.
A lower TRIR, on the other hand, can improve your reputation with clients, regulators, and insurance providers and strengthen bids for contracts, especially in highly regulated industries. It can also reflect a mature safety culture focused on preventing injuries and illnesses, not just a reaction.
Ultimately, a “good” TRIR isn’t just about numbers. It’s about building trust and accountability through proactive safety management.
How to Lower Your TRIR
Improving your TRIR takes a proactive and sustained effort. It’s not about reacting to incidents but creating a system that prevents them from happening in the first place.
Identify and Address Hazards Early
Companies with low TRIR scores actively seek out risks before they escalate. Use regular safety inspections, employee feedback, and incident reviews to uncover unsafe conditions, behaviors, and gaps in processes.
Direct insight into day-to-day operations also allows safety teams to intervene early and prevent occupational injuries.
Invest in Meaningful Training
To reduce recordable injuries, make sure employees receive training that goes beyond checkboxes. Focus on job-specific hazards, safe work practices, and how to respond when an incident occurs.
Ongoing education is essential, especially in high-risk roles with variable work hours.
Track and Act on the Right Metrics
Use a system that tracks injuries and illnesses, safety observations, and corrective actions in one place. Monitor trends in TRIR data, identify contributing factors, and evaluate where additional safeguards or training may be needed.
Don’t just collect data. Use it to make informed decisions.
Build Accountability Into Culture
Your company’s safety performance reflects the strength of its culture. Engage frontline workers in safety meetings, promote transparency around incident rates, and recognize teams for staying safe.
A workforce that feels ownership over safety helps prevent future incidents and maintain low TRIR scores.
Limitations of TRIR as a Standalone Metric
The Total Recordable Incident Rate is often treated as the primary benchmark of safety performance, but it only tells part of the story.
While it reflects how many OSHA-recordable incidents have occurred, it doesn’t offer insight into root causes or future risk.
Here are some of its biggest drawbacks.
It’s a Lagging Indicator
TRIR captures events that have already happened. That means it doesn’t help predict or prevent future incidents. You could go months with a low TRIR while critical safety issues go unnoticed.
It Overlooks Near-Misses and Unsafe Conditions
TRIR doesn’t include close calls, unsafe behaviors, or hazards identified before injury occurs. These are often more useful for proactive risk mitigation than tracking incidents alone.
TRIR Can Be Skewed by Company Size
Smaller companies may see big fluctuations in TRIR from just one or two incidents. Larger companies may appear safer simply due to scale, even if their risk profile is high.
It Doesn’t Reflect Safety Culture
A company might have a low TRIR but still have poor safety practices, underreporting, or minimal employee engagement. Without context, TRIR can paint an overly simplistic or misleading picture.
Used on its own, TRIR scores are incomplete.
For a true view of safety performance, it should be paired with metrics like training participation, safety observations, corrective action closure rates, and incident root cause analysis.
Prioritize Safety Excellence with EHS Momentum
If you’re serious about reducing recordable incidents and improving your company’s safety performance, EHS Momentum delivers the tools and guidance to make that happen.
MyMomentum: Designed to Support Safer Workplaces
MyMomentum is a cloud-based safety management system built to help companies maintain OSHA compliance, reduce TRIR, and manage safety programs from one platform by making it easy for you to:
Track and Investigate Incidents
Document injuries and illnesses, manage incident reviews, and capture the data needed to calculate your TRIR accurately.
Manage Inspections and Corrective Actions
Conduct job site audits, record safety observations, and assign follow-up actions to prevent repeat incidents.
Simplify Reporting and Documentation
Automatically generate OSHA logs, access historical safety data, and stay audit-ready, all without digging through spreadsheets or paper files.
Empower Your Team
Make safety everyone’s responsibility. MyMomentum enables employees to report issues, complete inspections, and engage in safety programs, even from mobile devices.
Book a demo today to see how EHS Momentum can support your goals for compliance, risk management, and long-term safety success.
FAQs About What is TRIR in Safety
How is TRIR calculated?
TRIR is calculated by multiplying the number of OSHA recordable incidents by 200,000, then dividing by the total number of hours worked by all employees during the same period.
The TRIR calculation is: (Number of Recordable Incidents × 200,000) ÷ Total Hours Worked
Why is TRIR multiplied by 200,000?
The 200,000 figure represents the hours that 100 full-time employees would work in a year (40 hours/week × 50 weeks/year × 100 workers). It standardizes the recordable incident rate TRIR across companies of different sizes.
What is a good TRIR score?
A “good” TRIR depends on your industry, but generally, the lower the number, the better.
A TRIR below the average TRIR (often around 2.0 for general industries) reflects strong safety performance and fewer work-related injuries.
What is the meaning of TRIR in HSE?
In Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE), TRIR is a key indicator of a company’s past safety performance. It shows how many employees experienced recordable injuries or illnesses per 100 workers over a one-year period.
TRIR data helps organizations track incidence rates and evaluate the effectiveness of safety programs.
