Every medium-sized company and above needs an assigned safety person. It's usually a role fulfilled through an internal appointment. It may be a full- or part-time role. Overall responsibility is to ensure company compliance in all practices, set safety KPIs, and compile and submit regular reports on the number of incidents occurring within the organization.
It's not an easy role. Safety managers often have no support team and find themselves operating with a limited budget. They're frequently viewed as a nuisance by other members of staff. At worst, some people consider them an obstruction, slowing down the real business of generating revenue.
Why is it that safety managers can even be viewed in such a way given the growing global awareness of the importance of robust EHS strategies? You can read more about how companies are reassessing their approach to occupational safety in our recent blog, 'why occupational safety is worth every penny'.
The awareness of how businesses respond to their safety responsibilities ripples through customers, media, supply chain partners and, increasingly, among the workforce itself. It's not just awareness of corporate behaviors either; it is now an expectation that companies will do the right thing, in the right way.
In today's world the concept of a company culture and a safety culture merge. You can't have one without the other. An under-resourced occupational safety focus is no focus at all. The days of safety managers being lone representatives are over. Safety can no longer sit outside the core company culture.
creating a safety culture
Cultural change comes from the top, so your senior team has the opportunity to lead from the front when it comes to improving workplace safety. Leaving the safety manager to carry out and process inspections on their own creates a reactive business, rather than a proactive one. Even when a safety manager points out mistakes, the required changes to avoid them happening again are not always implemented.
A far more productive solution is to be cross-departmental and cross-functional inclusive. The signals, direction, and resources to make this possible must come from the top. It involves encouraging project and production managers, as well as their teams, to start observing and reporting safety matters as part of their jobs.
Such an approach removes the burden on your safety manager to continually carry out solo inspections and draft reports. In an ideal world, everyone from the shop-floor to senior management should become a safety manager within their role.
helping your safety manager to work more effectively
When safety reporting becomes a team effort, and a shared responsibility, your safety manager will be in a position to focus on other tasks. To improve safety management further, the safety manager should be equipped with modern safety solutions, not least in the area of data analytics, enabling them make effective recommendations.
Rather than relying on generic checklists and manual spreadsheets, safety managers need the technology to collate information and generate trend reports on how your business protocol affects safety.
By creating a safety culture, in which everyone plays their part, your business will generate a much larger volume of useful data. Multiple safety walk reports, job safety analyses and observations can be flowing in at the same time, and the safety manager can process these findings to isolate and mitigate risks to your organization.
More importantly, they can spot these risks and make safety improvements much quicker than if they were tasked with carrying out all inspections and reporting on their own.
creating a company of safety managers
To ensure that safety really does come first within your business, I would recommend that you engage employees at all levels; demonstrating and clarifying that safety management and compliance are neither a nuisance nor an obstruction. They are increasingly critical to how your company is perceived by the many audiences its actions touch upon; the respect it gives to, and the focus it places on, one of the most important aspects of running a responsible business.
Within an energized safety culture, your safety manager will be viewed as an expert in the field, helping team leaders and senior management to lead workplace safety improvements. In addition to analyzing data and making recommendations, they will also play an ongoing role in educating and training the wider workforce.
With greater commitment to, and support of, a safety culture across the business, your safety manager will have time to investigate new technologies and techniques that can assist with enhancing business safety protocol. Your entire business, with regard to the essential focus on occupational safety, will become proactive, rather than reactive. And the benefits will resound through your dealings with customers, the workforce, and the wider business and societal ecosystem of which you're a part.
Take a look at AMCS advanced solutions for EHS management to find out how our solution helps you strengthen employee safety, reduce liability risk, and save valuable time and costs.