As you read the article on developing your goals and objectives, the importance of clearly defining the vision, mission and elements of these desired actions cannot be overstated. Developing your goals and objectives is a framework for defining the situation, your immediate mission, plan of action, support needed and how you will communicate. Your company may already have a program or process in place, if so, use it to define your objectives.

One example is the "Balanced Scorecard" by Norton and Kaplan. Whatever the format, structure your goals and objectives, to match the one selected by the organization.

In observing the efforts of safety managers and others, we have found that we tend to forget communications have multiple directions. Who needs to know what you have planned and are doing? What do they need to know. How much do they need to know?

We sometimes tend to focus on communications to employees and assume our management sees what we do Safety Professionals. As a results, a weak link may exist between you and your management, after all, they "see" what your are doing and "understand" how important it is....maybe not so! Their focus is spread between a number of other specialties and problems so how you communicate upward is critical. Do not assume your management knows what you are doing!! Seek out, the format, timing, style and content your senior and immediate management uses to get information. Even if they say they don't need a report, keep your efforts well documented. A consultant friend of mine once told me that he once mentored a safety director whose management thought he was doing nothing but smoozing with employees. In actuality, he had completed over a hundred items and was progressing on several fronts in program improvement, but hadn't communicated to anyone what he had accomplished.

How do you communicate your successes to your manager. If it is a weekly report, don't miss the due date. If they want a bulleted summary, use that format and have the details ready. How do "they" want the information? After all the work of establishing clear goals and objectives, do not assume they know what's going on with your programs and process.

How about a reporting formats with three sections, Project, Benefits of Project and Status for the most important 3 to 5 activities on going. The report could like the following:

Project- Revise the PPE Program

Benefit - Reduce hand and eye related injuries as identified in loss analysis. Bring company into compliance with current OSHA requirement. Estimated reduction in injuries - 25% with $xxxx saving in medical costs.

Status - Risk and hazard assessment has been completed. JHAs are in progress for high priority departments - A, B, C.

The manager in this case stated if she needed greater detail, she and the safety manager would meet. She was dealing with another layer of management that had its own style of communication and information needs.

The point is to establish a method to pull all the actions into a format you can use as a road map. Determine how your management wants you to communicate the status of projects and issues of each goal and objective.

You will need resources and support for your programs and process. You are competing with other internal groups for the attention of management. Clearly communicate where you are and what is going on.