A New Year’s Resolution for Health and Safety

Why are some people successful in reaching their goals when other people fail?  Why do some organisations achieve excellence in health and safety while others still have high absence rates and high accident costs?

Decades of research on goal setting and achievement has found that successful people and organisations reach their targets because of what they do – their behaviour when they set goals.

If you have been having difficulties getting the health and safety message across to your employees or making the business case for health and safety to your senior management team, why not make 2012 the year to achieve your health and safety goals?

Be specific

When you set your goals, be as specific as possible.  Most successful organisations have key performance indicators in place and set standards.  “Reducing accidents by 20%” is a much better goal than “reduce accidents” because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like.  Knowing exactly what you want to achieve will help keep you motivated until you get there. 

Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach the goal.  Just promising “training employees” or “communicating more” is too vague — be clear and precise.  "We will train 100% of employees in safe manual handling techniques by the end of the year" leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, and will help you establish whether or not you've actually done it.

Seize the day!

We are all busy.  At work we have to juggle managing people with managing production or customer services, being innovative, competitive and still reach our financial and sales targets!  It's not really surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice them or are tempted to put them off until another day.  Achieving your health and safety goals means taking opportunities before they slip through your fingers.

The best way to seize the moment is to decide when and where you will act.  Be as specific as possible.

“I will speak to the supervisor about getting those DSE assessments done before lunchtime on Thursday”.  “I will review that procedure by 5pm on Tuesday”.  “I will talk to the contractor today about them providing their risk assessments”.

Research has shown that if you plan in this way you are three times as likely to be successful.

Know exactly how far you have left to go

Achieving any goal requires you to regularly monitor progress.  If you don't know how well you are doing, how can you adjust your behaviour to get success?  Check your progress monthly, weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal, and report on progress to both employees and managers.

Be realistic

When you are setting a goal, believe in your and your employees’ ability to succeed, but don't underestimate how difficult it will be to reach the goal.  Make sure that you have the time, resources, planning, communication, co-operation and persistence to help you get there.  

Focus on getting better, rather than being good

Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality, and our physical aptitudes are fixed and that no matter what we do, we won't improve.  As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving something for example “carry out risk assessments”, rather than developing and acquiring new skills such as changing behaviour and raising the bar on our standards.  Embracing the fact that you and your employees can change will allow you to make better choices and achieve better things.

Be committed

Commit to the long term and believe in the goals that you have set.  Plan ahead, decide what you are going to deliver, communicate it and do it.  During implementation, monitor your performance and review your goals regularly.  Good managers always lead by example and learn from experience.

Don't tempt fate

Don't try to take on too many challenging tasks at once, if you can help it.  Successful people and organisations avoid making it harder to reach a goal than it already is.  Focussing on one or two targets well is better than focussing on 10 and not achieving any of them.

Focus on what you will do, not what you won’t do 

Do you want to successfully change employee’s attitudes to health and safety or increase employee ownership?  Then plan how you and your employees can replace poor behaviour with good behaviour, rather than focusing only on the poor behaviour itself.  Research on thought suppression (e.g. "Don't think about white bears!") has shown that trying to avoid a thought makes it even more active in your mind.  The same holds true when it comes to behaviour — by concentrating on trying to avoid poor behaviour, our habits get strengthened rather than broken.

If you want to change an employee’s behaviour ask “What will you do instead?”

These are just some of the things that successful people and organisations do differently.  We hope it will have given you some insight into all the things you have been doing right as a manager all along or maybe you have found some areas where you can improve.  Remember, it’s about what you do that makes the difference.  So take action and good luck for 2012!