Most businesses we come across don`t set health and safety goals and subsequently tend to have little direction when it comes to making improvements in their business. Those that do generally focus on areas such as reducing accidents and struggle to understand the benefits of setting more proactive and focussed goals.

So what are the benefits of setting clear proactive health and safety goals and why should you publish these goals?

From our experience setting meaningful goals provides the business with clarity to identify where the business wants to be. In this last week during a training session for a group of Directors this very point was discussed in depth; and the group committed to rethink its approach for 2012.

The key is to identify what goals are most important to the business at this time; maybe it’s to:

• Update the risk assessments in a certain work area; or
• To close actions off of the health & safety action plan; or
• Undertake regular health & safety inspections; or
• Deliver specific health & safety training;

Whatever the goals, they need to be both relevant to the business, and they need to provide a target that stretches the business and the workforce. The aim must be to deliver measurable improvements.

If you set goals for 2012; which we feel should be a priority then you will need to set out what your health and safety will look like in December 2012. Make sure you identify in clear detail what you want to improve, by how much and by when.  Then make sure you regularly measure the progress.

If you also publish these goals (nail your colours to the mast) then you are much more likely to achieve your desired objectives. So why not start now and look to where you could improve health & safety in 2012?