Professionals discussing notes and drawings on a table with computers

Strategic Safety Planning

When there are many safety initiatives but no common direction, leaders need to decide what to address first. Planning brings senior leadership, technical functions, and operations together to define priorities and how to monitor them.

Discuss the planning

For progress against the plan to be monitored, decisions must indicate who is responsible for each action, which indicators will be tracked, and when reviews will take place. This discussion involves governance and business strategy, as well as the responsibilities of the technical function.

Decisions that call for planning

  • When there are many initiatives but no common direction.
  • When the assessment has already identified priorities and the organization needs to decide how to move forward.
  • When roles and responsibilities are unclear across leadership, technical functions, and operations.
  • When the safety strategy needs to be more closely connected to business planning.
  • When different sites need to share principles and monitoring criteria.

How planning is conducted

The process is defined around the organization’s priorities and governance structure and may combine:

  • Alignment with senior leadership on purpose, context, and the choices to be made;
  • A review of existing information, programs, and priorities;
  • Discussion of the challenges that need to be part of the strategic agenda;
  • Definition of principles, responsibilities, and governance arrangements;
  • Organization of indicators and monitoring criteria;
  • Consolidation of a roadmap with priorities, responsible parties, and a review schedule.

A direction whose progress can be monitored

We work with the organization to define the stages, participants, and documents needed. The plan records choices and responsibilities, with a review frequency that allows implementation to be monitored and necessary adjustments to be discussed.

Planning and Cultural Transformation

Planning organizes direction, responsibilities, and monitoring criteria. Cultural transformation addresses how that direction is put into practice through actions, decisions, and routines. Depending on the context, planning may be a specific scope of work or part of a broader transformation effort.

Published experience

The Projects page documents strategic safety planning work with Raízen, Coca-Cola FEMSA, Citrosuco, InterCement, CESP, and BrasilAgro. The published scopes include different combinations of planning, indicator analysis, golden rules, team development, and implementation support.

Explore the published projects

Planning across different operations

All projects

2023–2026 · Highway concessions

EcoRodovias

Strategic planning for 2024–2026 based on the 2023 assessment, with leadership participation in implementation.

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2017 · Beverages

Coca-Cola FEMSA

Development of a strategic plan for safety culture transformation, with support for implementing golden rules.

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Further reading

In this article, I discuss preparedness and the decisions that come before an accident.

Let’s discuss safety priorities.

Share the decisions under consideration and who needs to participate in planning.

Discuss the planning