Lost Time Incident Rate
Definition
Lost Time Incident Rate
Lost time incident rate measures how many workplace injuries or illnesses caused staff to miss scheduled work, normalised against hours worked so sites of different sizes compare fairly. It is the standard safety scoreboard, and it is widely under-reported.
Normalisation is what makes it usable. Raw incident counts favour small sites automatically, so the figure is expressed per 200,000 hours worked.
Under-reporting is the standing risk. Where a low rate carries a bonus, minor injuries quietly stop being recorded — and the number becomes fiction.
Key takeaways
- Lost time incident rate counts injuries causing missed work, per 200,000 hours worked.
- The 200,000-hour base represents roughly 100 full-time workers over one year.
- Restricted-duty cases are tracked separately from full lost-time cases.
- Incentivising a low rate reliably produces under-reporting rather than safety.
How it works
Lost time incident rate is calculated by multiplying the number of lost-time incidents by 200,000, then dividing by the total hours worked across the site or organisation during the same reporting period.
The formula is: (lost-time incidents × 200,000) ÷ total hours worked.
The 200,000 figure is a convention, standing for 100 employees working 2,000 hours each across a year.
| Case type | Counts as lost time? | Usual treatment |
|---|---|---|
| Medical treatment only | No | Recorded, not lost time |
| Restricted or transferred duty | No | Tracked as a separate rate |
| Days away from work | Yes | Core of the measure |
| Fatality | Yes, reported separately | Immediate notification |
Restricted duty is where the honest reporting question lives. Moving an injured worker to light duties keeps the rate down — without changing what happened.
Recordkeeping rules exist precisely to stop that drift. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration sets out its recordkeeping requirements under 29 CFR 1904, noting they help employers, employees, and OSHA identify and eliminate workplace hazards.
Published national data shows the scale of the problem. The UK Health and Safety Executive’s health and safety statistics for 2024/25 record 40.1 million working days lost to work-related illness and workplace injury, and 59,219 injuries reported under RIDDOR.
Office and contact-centre work is not exempt. Musculoskeletal disorders and stress-related absence dominate there, and HSE recorded 964,000 workers with work-related stress, depression, or anxiety in the same period.
Report leading indicators beside the rate. Near-miss reports, hazard closures, and training completion move before incidents do, and they cannot be gamed downward as easily.
Absence caused by injury feeds straight into shrinkage, so the safety number and the capacity plan are describing the same hours.
Never benchmark across industries without matching the work. A warehouse and a contact centre share a formula and almost nothing else.
Examples
Incident profiles differ enormously by physical risk, and the same rate means different things in an office and on a production floor. Five cases show the range.
Warehousing and logistics carry the highest rates. Manual handling and vehicle movement dominate, so most lost-time cases are back and limb injuries.
Manufacturing tracks by line and by shift. Night-shift rates run higher, which usually reflects fatigue and supervision rather than machinery.
Healthcare providers record needlestick and lifting injuries. Both are preventable with equipment, which makes the rate genuinely responsive to investment.
Contact centres record low rates but high absence. Injuries are rare while stress and musculoskeletal complaints are not, so the measure alone understates the health picture.
Offshore delivery centres record commute-related and ergonomic cases — the site controls the desk setup but not the journey, so scope definitions have to be explicit.
Related terms
Lost time incident rate connects workplace safety to workforce availability and compliance obligations. The terms below cover the roles, the planning impact, and the governance around it.
- EHS Specialist: the role that owns incident recording and prevention programmes.
- Compliance Officer: the role accountable for meeting statutory reporting duties.
- Business Risk: the wider category workplace injury sits inside.
- Shrinkage: the planning factor injury-related absence feeds.
- Attendance Point System: the framework that must exempt injury absence correctly.
- Schedule Exception: the record created when an injured worker leaves a shift.
- Workforce Management (WFM): the discipline that absorbs the resulting capacity gap.
FAQ
How is lost time incident rate calculated?
Multiply lost-time incidents by 200,000, then divide by total hours worked in the reporting period.
Why 200,000 hours?
It represents about 100 full-time employees working 2,000 hours each over one year, giving a comparable base across site sizes.
Do restricted-duty cases count?
No. They are tracked as a separate rate, which is why both figures should be published together.
What causes under-reporting?
Linking the rate to bonuses or site rankings, which quietly discourages recording minor injuries.
Does the measure apply to office work?
Yes, though musculoskeletal and stress-related cases dominate there rather than acute injuries.
What should be reported alongside it?
Leading indicators such as near-miss reports, hazard closures, and training completion.
Source partners meeting client safety and compliance standards can compare delivery models via Outsource Accelerator hubs.
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