What Are Goals in Aviation Safety Programs?
Safety goals are the vision of what your airline SMS or airport SMS program wants to accomplish. Safety goals should outline the kind of aviation safety culture you want to have, as well as the values of safety management. The way you write your goals is extremely important for several reasons:
- Your objectives will be directly based on the goals you write;
- KPIs will directly be based on your objectives;
- Most employees will interpret your program through the language and words used in your goals; and
- Your goals language should align with the language used by oversight agencies.
Creating your safety goals involves the following steps:
- Review compliance elements of your safety risk management, safety assurance, safety policy, and safety promotion;
- Create a list of the most important compliance elements;
- Ask questions about how your organization should approach item in your list; and
- Your answers to these questions should provide goals that are measurable, meaningful, and relevant.
Once you have created your safety goals, you will need to develop multiple safety objectives to achieve each goal. Whereas objectives are usually updated every year, goals should rarely be updated. They are the banner of your organization.