Safety Objectives

Legal Requirements for Safety Objectives

Managing health and safety requires deliberate actions and planning activities. Whereas some activities, such as accident reporting are, by nature reactive, it is advisable to maintain a vision and plan for improvement and progress, particularly as standards and expectations in society also change

Setting clear Safety Objectives is a means to demonstrate you have an active and responsive system and gives you the opportunity to focus on issues that are of most gain or concern

Procedure for creating Safety Objectives

Health and Safety plans and objectives should be set at least annually. The plans and objectives must be clearly defined, able to be measured, be achievable, allocated to accountable person(s) and aimed for completion within an agreed time frame. There must be a process for regularly reviewing progress on the plans and objectives, with employee consultation. The most suitable means to achieve this is through the Safety Committee or any similar forum that utilises employee consultation

The plans and objectives must be relevant to the risks and issues present at each level within the organisation and take account of legal obligations

It is important that objectives are improvement objectives. By definition, rolling over the same objectives year after year implies they are either not being achieved, or the objectives are routine activities that do not move the standard of health and safety forward

How to create Safety Objectives

SafetyBase is structured to encourage the Self Audit and Safety Review to contribute to the process of setting plans and objectives, by asking you to consider relevant factors. We suggest you complete those activities prior to determining your plans and objectives each year

Completing the above reviews and also considering opportunities in the Safety Suggestions (under Safety Ideas) and Critical Event Review (under Safety Plans) should provide sufficient opportunities to create a number of plans and objectives

To create objectives, open a Safety Objectives file under the Safety Plans heading. SafetyBase creates a separate file for each objective, so that it can be tracked more accurately. A little effort will be paid off later. If you want to view all Safety Objectives, create a Custom Report in the Reports section

If you have advanced versions of SafetyBase, they prompt you to consider wider consultation and subject areas for you objectives

Using Tasks to assist with Safety Objectives

Tasks can be notifications, instructions, alerts or corrective actions associated with a particular file. You can add Tasks as you go during data entry, using the inline New Task button in your screen. You can also use the Toolbar at the bottom of your screen during data input, or the Tasks tab after you submit the file

As you create a file, SafetyBase may automatically set suggested Tasks, depending on some of your droplist selections. Watch for inline informational messages, which are there to alert you if a droplist might create an automatic Task

Please note that although these automatic Tasks may be created as helpful prompts, they do have generic wording, so you have the choice of creating Tasks yourself. This is advisable if you prefer the wording to be specific or personal. If appropriate, you can select the "Recurring" button, which lets you create a repeating schedule, (say, an inspection, review or check-up interval)

When any Task is set in the system, it will display in the form you created, a summary tab in the file and in the Task List of the person it is allocated to (Recurring Tasks don't show until they are due). Tasks are also e-mailed to the allocated person on the required number of days prior to the Due Date

A small number of tasks have been set as mandatory (example, reporting serious injuries to the statutory authority). These cannot be deleted

SafetyBase Tips and Tricks for creating Safety Objectives

• If the Objective's status is left as "Under Action", it will show on the Dashboard Open Files list. This is important, as a means of ensuring visibility to all affected parties

• Make your plans and objectives simple. The end result should be safer workplaces, not prettier systems

• Make your plans and objectives relevant. Corporate visions are good, but what do they actually mean at a site level?

• Consider associating an electronic document (example, an existing image, pdf, spreadsheet, document, video etc), using the "Attach Documents" tab, or inline toolbar at the bottom of your screen while entering data. Record the document's details by completing the appropriate data fields, then click Attach Document. The document will upload and be available for viewing. Many file types will display as a thumbnail

• You can associate a SafetyBase file using the "Link Files" inline button on the toolbar at the bottom of the screen while entering data, or afterwards, using the Tasks tab (example, Hazard, Fault Report, Accident Investigation or similar file that has direct relevance): Record the file's details by completing the appropriate data fields, then click ADD. Use the progressive filtering of the drop lists and ADD the file you want. The file will be linked. If you follow the link, the linked file will automatically have a link back to the file you came from

• Remember to link People with this file type, using the "Associate People" inline button on the toolbar at the bottom of the screen while entering data, or afterwards, using the Associate People tab. Doing this will build an automatic safety history for each person, which you can view by clicking on the person's name anywhere in the account

• Check file history in the "Status Log" tab. This automatically records status changes to the file. If you would like to monitor the file, click the "Watch" button at the top of the file summary. This will place the file on your Watchlist and e-mail you whenever the file status changes