CoreInsights has been designed to provide helpful tips and advice to VPPPA members, Safety and Health professonals, their managment and colleagues in order to assist in creating continuous safety and health improvement.

Volume 4 Number 2

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• Got a sticky question?  Bring it on.
• Would you like some free consulting?  Now's your chance.  

Continue sending me your "head scratchers" that you just can't seem to resolve.  You'll read my advice in upcoming CoreInsights newsletters.   

Email me your Hot Issue or Quesitons by clicking here.

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"HOT ISSUE" QUESTIONS & ADVICE

Question: “Historically our primary safety goals have been centered on injury rates. We were recently certified as a Merit site. One of our Merit goals is to expand our safety and health goals beyond just the rates. … Any suggestions?”

Answer: First, I am going to assume that you have already performed your safety and health planning for 2006 and have completed your 2005 annual VPP program review and annual OSHA report. If you have not you should back up and do so.

The reason for the above recommendation is that your annual planning, VPP program review and, annual OSHA Report should have identified specific opportunities for improvement and or things that need to be accomplished and or fixed. These are issues that you potentially need to develop goals around.

Here are a few specific recommendations:

1. Site safety and health goals typically fall into two categories, those that involve bottom line performance and those that involve upstream activities. Upstream activities involve both things that normally occur, i.e., audits, safety meetings, training sessions, etc., and specific new initiatives, i.e., training all first line supervisors in root cause analysis in 2006. You should always create a balanced mix of goals that involve both bottom line performance and upstream activities.

2. If you have not done so brainstorm the activities that must occur in order for you to be successful. For instance, audits, hazard reporting, incident investigations, safety meetings, etc. You will find that you have created a list of the VPP sub-elements in addition to some other items. Next look at each item and determine whether you have the desired quantity and quality occurring. These topics will be ripe for setting goals around.

3. When looking at quantity and quality look at measurable activities, i.e., number of meetings, percent attendance, lag time to correct identified hazards, etc.

4. Lastly always involve the parties that must be held accountable for the achievement of the goals.

5. A topic closely associated with goal setting is key performance indicators. Creating the right suite of key performance indicators provides you and line management the data needed to manage safety and health in the same manner as they manage the core business process. I will discuss key performance indicators and the use of dashboards in the next issue.

For additional help, a tool that you may find helpful is our SafePath VPP Foundation product. VPP Foundation breaks the VPP criteria down into 36 auditable elements. Each element is coupled with expert guidance. This allows for a systematic review. VPP Foundation was designed to facilitate your internal review whether initially applying for VPP certification or for conducting on-going annual program reviews.

To see a demonstration click here: VPP Foundation

KEEP YOUR QUESTIONS COMING AND I WILL DO MY BEST TO PROVIDE OR GET YOU ANSWERS Email me by clicking here.

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