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Safety cross calendar
A safety cross is a calendar in the shape of a cross, with one square for each day of the month. Each day the team colours its square by the most serious safety event of that day, using a colour key the site sets, and talks about every square that is not green at the daily huddle, so the month's safety record and any pattern show at a glance. Page 1 of this template is the cross for days 1 to 31 with an example colour key (green for a worked day with no safety event, blue for a near miss reported, yellow for a first aid case, red for an injury beyond first aid as your site defines it, white for a day not worked), a box for days since the last injury, who fills it in and when, the month's totals and a log of every day that is not green. Page 2 has how to run it, a worked example month and a table for the year. The Excel version keeps a year log of events and draws the chosen month's cross by itself, with the month totals, days since the last injury and a summary of days and events per month with a chart.
Free to use: print it, copy it and edit it for your team. Enter your name and work email once to download.
When to use it
When to use a safety cross calendar
- On a team or area board, as the safety item of the daily huddle.
- When starting tiered meetings or a visual board, to give safety a place that is updated every day.
- When near misses and first aid cases are logged but nobody sees them together over a month.
- At month end, to compare months and areas with the same colour key.
How to fill it in
- 1
Agree the colour key
With your safety lead, write what each colour means at your site: what counts as a first aid case, what counts as an injury beyond first aid. The key on the sheet is an example.
- 2
Post it at the huddle board
Write the month and year on the sheet and put it where the team stands for the daily huddle, with a pen of each colour or coloured magnets.
- 3
Colour yesterday's square every day
Before the huddle, colour the square from the near miss and incident reports. A day takes the colour of its most serious event. Days off stay white.
- 4
Talk about every square that is not green
What happened, where, and what is being done. Write each one in the log on page 1 with its report number and action.
- 5
Count the month
Days of each colour, the events behind them and the days worked. Update days since the last injury every day and copy the totals into the year table.
- 6
Read it with the reports
A month of green with no near misses reported can mean people stopped reporting. Use the Excel summary to compare months.
A filled-in example
Illustrative, not a benchmarkAn example: September 2026 on an assembly line that works Monday to Friday and closed on Labor Day, Sep 7, with the status on Sep 30 (illustrative; the colour key is an example).
- Near misses were reported on Sep 3, 15, 16 and 24, so those four days are blue. Sep 15 had two (a wet floor and a door struck by a cart), so 5 near misses sit behind 4 blue days.
- First aid cases on Sep 9 (a cut finger) and Sep 29 (a splinter) make 2 yellow days. On Sep 22 a strained back sent someone for treatment: 1 red day.
- The 8 weekend days and Labor Day stay white: 9 days not worked. The other 14 worked days are green.
- 14 green + 4 blue + 2 yellow + 1 red = 21 days worked; with the 9 white days that makes the 30 days of September.
Green on 14 of 21 days worked (67%). The last red day was Sep 22, so on Sep 30 the board reads 8 days since the last injury. The red day's investigation and the lift assist go on the team's action list.
Common mistakes
Reading green as safe
A green day means nothing was reported. Watch the near miss count next to it: a fall in reports can be a fall in reporting.
Colouring it in arrears
A cross filled in at the end of the week, or still showing last month, tells people safety is not looked at daily. Colour it before every huddle.
Changing what the colours mean
If first aid is yellow one month and red the next, the months cannot be compared. Write the key down and keep it for the year.
Making it a target to hit
Pressure for an all-green month can stop people reporting. Thank people for blue days: a near miss reported is a chance to fix a hazard.
Download the template
Free to use: print it, copy it and edit it for your team. Enter your name and work email once to download.
Run this template in LeanSuite
In LeanSuite near misses, unsafe acts and unsafe conditions are routed to an owner with a due date, every corrective action is tracked to completion, and safety metrics such as near misses show on an SQDC tier board with a safety heat map.
In the lean glossary
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FAQ
Safety cross calendar: common questions
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