Reinforcing the old adage "if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it" this guidance helps you identify suitable safety objectives that can be measured using key performance indicators to focus your organisation on delivering an improved safety culture

There is no obligation under the Health & Safety at work etc Act 1974 to set yourself Safety Objectives & Targets. However, it is good management practice and helps to focus improvement action on meeting the specified objectives. If you are considering seeking independent certification for example to OHSAS 18001 you will need to identify some Objectives and measurable Targets in order to demonstrate continuous improvement.

How do I identify suitable Objectives?

An objective is a desired outcome that may be realised by a series of actions or tasks. So the key is to identify what you are trying to achieve, rather than a series of actions or tasks – they come later!

"Improve safety" would be an objective, but it is so generic that it doesn’t really help. So we may drill down to say "Improve Safety in Manufacturing Department".

We then need to think about how we are going to measure it – it needs to be quantifiable, and you may wish to include a denominator so that the measure is not skewed by other changes in the organisation, such as an increase in the number of employees. So we need to find suitable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

You should have statistics from your Accident Book which will provide you with some useful quantifiable data. You could use "number of entries to Accident Book" as a KPI. This would not be particularly useful since one major injury, such as a loss of eye, is clearly far more detrimental than say 5 cut fingers. So the KPIs could be categorised by accident severity e.g. "Number of Fatalities", "Number of RIDDOR incidents" and "Number of non RIDDOR incidents".

It may be beneficial to express the KPI per employee, or possibly by unit of production to account for any non safety changes in the organisation.

Having identified the Objective, and the corresponding KPI(s) you can now easily set your targets.

These can be expressed as absolute numbers or as a % of a reference figure, and needs to be related to a time period. It is normal practice to base the time period over 12 months, running in tandem against either the calendar year or the organisation’s financial year. The latter is generally preferable for reporting and data comparison purposes.

Once you’ve set your Objectives and Targets you should monitor them to ensure you are on target. This is usually done on a monthly or quarterly basis. Please see Proven Methods for checking Safety Performance. (LINK) If you are not on target it may well identify the need for improvement action.

Objectives and Targets should be reviewed annually to establish whether the target was met and to determine suitable targets for the following year.