As a safety professional, you know that goal-setting is critical to progress in your safety program. And these days, with so many businesses re-evaluating their safety approaches in response to the coronavirus, now is the perfect time to hit refresh on your health and safety targets for the year.
The key, of course, is knowing what targets to track and how to set your targets properly. Here’s a closer look at the kinds of health and safety targets you should be watching and how to set your targets up for success.
Why You Need Health and Safety Targets
In business, what you measure is what you improve. That’s especially true of health and safety.
Think of it this way.
When you set a target, you identify hard limits to your goal. You set a scope for what you wish to accomplish and set the terms of success. And in the meantime, specifying your targets helps clarify your focus.
Otherwise, your goals remain loose and ill-defined. Any progress toward success may be considered success, even if it’s nowhere near what you actually needed to achieve.
EHS Targets to Watch
Health and safety targets come in many forms. Your targets could be broad goals, such as doing a comprehensive check of your existing safety hazards or creating a new branch of your safety program. Your targets could also be highly specific safety metrics, such as setting a monthly schedule for safety audits and cutting your reported safety incidents by 25%.
You could set health-specific goals, such as doubling the number of employees who undergo routine hearing checks or decreasing the number of employee workers’ compensation claims. You could also set health and safety targets related to your safety culture, such as employee participation in safety training or feedback on safety talks.
How to Set Successful EHS Goals
Regardless of the type of goal, you can only set yourself up for success if you set the right goal. The best approach is SMART goal setting:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
For example, saying you want to decrease the number of accidents is a noble goal, but it’s not a SMART goal. Saying that you want to decrease the number of accidents resulting from employees not using PPE correctly by 10% each month over the next four months is a SMART goal. It has a clear scope with clear boundaries of success.
The Tools to Meet Your Targets
We know that meeting your health and safety targets is often a question of having the right tools to measure your progress. And that’s where we can help, with safety software that makes it easier than ever to transform all of your disparate data sources into practical insights about your safety targets.
Instead of feeling your way in the dark or fighting with your data, you can take a look at the available information and act on it. And that makes all the difference in making progress toward your goals.
Want to see our software in action? Get in touch today to learn more.
