DART Rate Calculator

| Added in Business Finance

What is DART and Why Should You Care?

Let's talk about something important for ensuring safety at your workplace: the DART rate. DART stands for Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred. It's a metric that helps businesses figure out how often their employees are getting injured or ill, to the point where they need time off, or they have constraints on their usual tasks.

Why should you care about this? A lower DART rate means your workplace is safer. And a safer workplace doesn't just save your company money on costly medical expenses and lost workdays; it also boosts employee morale and productivity. Plus, it looks great in front of clients and investors!

How to Calculate DART

Calculating the DART rate is simpler than it seems. Here's the formula:

[\text{DART Rate} = \frac{\text{Number of DART Cases} \times 200{,}000}{\text{Total Employee Hours Worked}}]

Where:

  • Number of DART Cases is the total number of incidents that led to days away from work, restricted duties, or job transfers
  • 200,000 is a constant used to standardize the rate across companies of different sizes. This number represents the hours 100 employees would work in a year (assuming 40 hours per week for 50 weeks)
  • Total Employee Hours Worked is the total number of hours all employees have worked during the period you're looking at

Calculation Example

Imagine you have a company where, over the course of a year, you recorded 150 DART cases. Your employees worked a combined total of 250,000 hours.

First, let's slot those numbers into our formula:

[\text{DART Rate} = \frac{150 \times 200{,}000}{250{,}000}]

Now, let's do the math:

[\text{DART Rate} = \frac{30{,}000{,}000}{250{,}000}]

[\text{DART Rate} = 120]

That's 120 injuries per 200,000 hours worked.

Keeping an eye on your DART rate isn't just a good idea; it's essential for maintaining a safe and productive workplace.

Frequently Asked Questions

DART stands for Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred. It measures workplace injuries and illnesses that are serious enough to require time off work, restricted job duties, or a transfer to a different position.

The 200,000 figure represents the hours 100 full-time employees would work in a year (40 hours per week for 50 weeks). This standardization allows companies of different sizes to compare their safety performance on an equal basis.

Companies can reduce their DART rate by implementing comprehensive safety management systems, providing regular safety training, ensuring proper use of personal protective equipment, encouraging incident reporting, and conducting regular workplace audits.

Monitoring the DART rate provides a clear indicator of workplace safety. A lower rate means fewer serious injuries, which reduces costs, improves employee morale and productivity, and enhances the company reputation with clients and investors.