In order to elevate a safety, health and environmental program in an organization there must be a management plan. Success in this venture will depend on the use of a variety of programs. To develop and maintain a "World Class" program the following items are essential:
All levels of management must fully endorse the efforts of this program. The key elements that management is responsible for are:
There must be sincere and legitimate top management support and involvement in the safety and health program. Without this endorsement and support, the best safety person with the most talent and the best safety program will not be fully effective in this working environment.
Every member of management must have a safety objective that impacts their annual salary review or bonus. The objective can be a reduction in the number of injuries, the number of injuries for the man hours worked or safety audit scores. It is recommended that between 10 and 20 percent of a bonus or annual review be used to provide a focus on safety progress. Ensure that everyone has been briefed on the objectives and that they are in writing and signed off by the individual being measured and senior management.
Establish safety and health accountabilities for all levels of management. Unless direction is provided to management, the progress within the program will be limited. Who is responsible for what in the workplace and the organization? What are their safety duties during a typical day in the workplace?
There must be a system for tracking and evaluating safety progress, or the lack of it. Senior management should include safety performance in the weekly, biweekly or monthly performance reviews. If management is measuring bottom line issues such as profit and loss, scrap rates, missed shipments and the like, there must be discussions regarding safety performance. If the gaps between safety reviews exceeds a month or more, negative trends could be taking place in the program that could involve severe losses. If a particular facility or supervisor consistently shows high injury rates, senior management should react to the performance changes and meet with the supervisor.
To demonstrate the safety emphasis of the corporation, management should feature safety performance goals and objectives in the annual corporate report to stockholders. Stockholders should be aware of the care and protection of employees; these are the people that perform the work and aid in the help generate the profits.