ESTABLISHING SAFETY GOALS FOR SUPERVISORS AND MANAGERS

Supervisors provide the first line of defense in managing safety issues, communicating organizational priorities and values, and building relationships with individual team members. They act as messengers from management to the employee—and back up. Not surprisingly, being a supervisor is challenging under the best of circumstances. You have multiple priorities but limited time in which to manage them. Engaging supervisors and their managers effectively in safety requires more than a general charge to “support safety.” Organizations need to define specific activities that can be integrated with the supervisor’s or manager’s other tasks and demands, and also that support safety performance effectively. These activities then need to be reflected in individuals’ goals rather than simply basing safety goals on injury rates.

Strong, meaningful safety goals and objectives for individual managers and supervisors can be set if a few principles are followed:

BEGIN WITH A VISION.

What activities and initiatives will be used in the coming year to identify and control safety exposures? These may or may not differ for different parts of the organization, but for each manager/supervisor’s area of responsibility they should be something that is relevant to the activities of the area.

IDENTIFY THE ACTIONS INVOLVED.

Understand what the individual manager/supervisor should do to make the target exposure control initiatives effective and successful. This means not only that there is activity, but that the activity is effective. For example, it is not sufficient to say that a manager should perform weekly walk-around safety inspections. Rather, we should think about the desired outcome from those walk-around inspections.

BE SURE THE GOAL IS LEVEL APPROPRIATE.

First-level supervisors’ goals are likely to involve interaction with front-line workers and the use of safety systems. Senior executives’ goals are more likely to involve monitoring the performance of other managers and communicating priorities. In every case, the goal needs to reflect where the individual can have greatest impact on making exposure-reduction efforts effective.

EXPRESS THE GOAL IN SPECIFIC, CONCRETE, MEASURABLE TERMS.

In our walk-around inspection example, we might decide the right goal is for the manager to conduct weekly safety walk-around inspections during each of which the manager engages with at least two hourly employees, provides feedback on some observed safety practice, and asks the employees about whether they are aware of any safety issues needing attention.

CONSIDER THE DESIRED CULTURE.

It is important to express goals in terms that consider the desired culture—not only what is to be done, but also how it is to be done. In the example immediately above, including in the goal the expectation that workers will be engaged and feedback will be given in the right way reinforces the culture. If the goal were simply expressed as “do a weekly inspection,” that cultural reinforcement might or might not occur.

ESTABLISH THE TRACKING MECHANISM.

How will you track and measure performance against the goal? You may elect to use a formal record keeping mechanism, periodic check-ins by the individual’s manager, or even self-reporting. Regardless what method you choose, it is critical to determine the method at the outset, when the goal is established.

CHECK IN AT REGULAR INTERVALS.

Each manager/supervisor’s manager needs to check in regularly on progress being made against the goal. If a goal is established and then not ever discussed, it is easy for the person with the goal to conclude that the goal is there simply for “cosmetic” reasons. However if one’s boss periodically asks for an update on progress being made, it becomes clear that the goal is important to the organization.

ESTABLISH THE GOAL COLLABORATIVELY.

Good goals reflect the mutual objectives of an individual and his/her boss. This means avoiding the extremes of a goal dictated by one’s boss in a vacuum on one end and leaving it up to the individual without other input on the other. An effective safety goal is established based on a discussion between the individual and his/her boss, both of whom are aware of, and follow, the principles described above.

This post is an excerpt taken from BST’s newest book, The Manager’s Guide to Workplace Safety. This book is designed for everyone who manages people, from the senior executive to the first-line supervisor. Understanding and using the guidance in this book can help every manager to be more effective in driving safety excellence. For more information and to order the book, please visit www.managersguidetoworkplacesafety.com.