Health & Safety Goals:

As per the Wikipedia the meaning of Goal is an idea of the future or

desired result that a person or a group of people envisions, plans and
commits to achieve.
Almost in all companies, Board displayed of “Our Goal Zero Injury”,
“Our Goal Zero Harm”. But it’s practically possible without identifying
and reducing all risk to zero??????
SETTING AN INJURY / EXPOSURE-RATE GOAL OF ZERO for a workforce
has a noble, altruistic appeal. However, well-known authors in
occupational safety have come to recognize that the inevitable long-
term failure to achieve a zero goal is demoralizing and encourages
both underreporting of injuries and falsified recordkeeping. Thus,
there is need for a means to establish a realistic injury-rate target—
one that is both demonstrably achievable and demanding of ongoing
improvement. A performance-driven, rule- based formula can be used
to set such an achievable target rate. This rate is self-adjusting,
allowing it to become increasingly challenging once achieved.
During setting Goals we should atleast consider the following things:
Set Goals that are specific: A goal has a much greater chance of being
accomplished if it deals with specific facts and events. If your
directions are vague, they can be misconstrued and easily skipped
over. Specific goals provide regimen and precision to your training
program. If we talk about Safety Goals than we should have back up
data of actual injury record with category wise and then we have to
work on specific direction where required.
Set Goals that are measurable: If your goals are able to adhere to
concrete criteria, you are able to measure progress towards their
achievement. If you identify what you will see, hear and feel when you
reach your goal, you can feel as if you have accomplished something
tangible. In order to achieve effective goal setting, you should break
your goal down into measurable elements. Do not set goals that are
qualitatively, set goals that are quantitatively.
Set goals that are attainable: While there is nothing wrong with
shooting for the stars, it is important to investigate whether the goal
is really applicable to your present culture. If you don’t have the real
data or experience to achieve something, you will be setting yourself
and others up to fail and most certainly be miserable. For the most
effective goal setting, ensure you are planning your steps wisely and
establishing a realistic time frame that will allow you to carry out those
steps. For example, suppose the postulated events are injuries
resulting from work hazards. It then becomes apparent that a zero
injury rate is achievable only if the probability component of risk for
each individual hazard can truly be reduced to zero—which is
unachievable in a practical work setting. If workplaces with
dramatically low injury rates are examined for sufficiently brief
intervals, it can appear that a zero rate has been reached when, in fact,
it has not.
Health Goals:
As earlier I have said that Most of the companies discussing about Zero
Harm/ Injuries but finger countable companies talking and discussing
about “Zero Exposure”.
One of my Mentor and Respected SHE professional have really good
written about health goals that "Zero Exposure" a well-accepted
strategy and requirement to protect workers’ health at their
workplace. How close we can reach to "Zero Exposure" and achieve
ultimate requirement for unsafe work environment.
For the health goals, we have to first identify different health hazards
present in our companies and quantify it to set goals. We have legal
requirement in The Factory act’1948 (Section 7A) for the workplace
Monitoring but is it true data? Many Consulting firm without certified
Industrial Hygienist are doing the workplace monitoring and provide
us meaningless data.
As a SHE professional, we must have to accept that we are in safety at
some level but in Health category, we are behind 60 years than USA.
There are 29 Notifiable occupational disease in The Factory act’1948
but very less companies have identified occupational disease and
work on it. Health area is untouched area in India. Now a days many
company recruit industrial hygienist to work on untouched area of
Health.
Safety Goal:
Now a days, every company keep Safety Goal in KPI for the annual
performance. But many times, it has been observed that
underreporting of injuries and falsified recordkeeping. That’s why
safety goal must be attainable and measurable.
Many companies are taking Safety Target “Zero Injury” in their HSE
policy but in real case it’s not practically possible. For Zero
Harm/Injury, you should have zero Unsafe Condition or Unsafe acts as
per the theory of Heinrich Pyramid. Safety Goal must be identified at
micro level to achieve Our Zero Harm/ Injury goal. For that we must
have to target on reduction in Unsafe Behaviour with the help of BBS
tool then we have to target first aid than we can go for our dream
target “Zero Injury”…..