You Don’t Have To Be A Billion-Dollar Company To Run A Billion-Dollar EHS Program

— Small Company, Big EHS Program

ABC partners with Amphibious to launch the Captive Safety Program

By Christian Deater, SAVI EHS | PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE AMPHIBIOUS GROUP

The vast majority of large construction management (CM) firms and general contracting (GC) firms have a comprehensive EHS management system that is successfully implemented. The core elements of the EHS systems include executive leadership commitment and visible leadership, written policies that are consistently executed, implementation of a plan/do/check/adjust management model, a process of tracking and trending leading and lagging indicators, and employing credentialed EHS professionals to act as advisers to the organization.

Organizations that implement a comprehensive EHS system obtain numerous benefits that:

• Improves employee safety.

• Reduces risk.

• Increases productivity.

• Decreases insurance premiums.

• Creates high employee morale and retention rates.

• Drives management engagement.

• Leads continual improvement.

• Focuses on proactive, not reactive.

Ultimately, a company’s EHS program drives the culture of the organization, it defines an organization, it is the fabric of an organization.

For over 25 years I have served as an EHS professional working for some of the largest CM firms in the world. A frequent narrative I would hear from trade contractors is that it is not feasible to execute an EHS system like the large CMs/GCs.

One of the primary reasons that is cited is that the financial and human resources are not available. There is certainly merit to that argument. There is a cost to having a custom written EHS program developed, hiring a fulltime experienced/credentialed EHS director and deploying a web-based platform to manage inspections, incident reporting, and for tracking leading and lagging indicators. These are just a few of the direct related expenses that can make it prohibitive for trade contractors who do not have the revenue of the mega CM/GC firms to deploy an EHS management system.

The solution is a shared services model that is managed similar to how a captive insurance program is managed. One trade contractor may not have the ability to financially support the expenditures associated with implementing an EHS management system, but three, maybe four trade contractors who share the cost of the program can. Some of the shared services include but are not limited to:

• An experienced/credentialed EHS director and EHS managers to support the organization.

• Initial gap analysis of the current state of EHS within the organization.

• A written EHS program tailored to the organizations scope of work.

• Development of a company new hire EHS orientation.

• A web-based platform to manage inspections, incident reporting, and tracking leading and lagging indicators.

• EHS related training modules.

• Incident investigations.

• Toolbox talks

• Act as the liaison between the organization and the client/CM/GC

The one caveat to this solution is that it cannot be accomplished without the complete and unwavering commitment from the organization’s leadership team. And that commitment must be contagious from the top to the bottom of the company. Processes and procedures can be put in place, but without leadership’s dedication to a culture of care and continual improvement, the journey to an incident free workplace will always be in the rearview mirror.

For more information, contact Christian Deater, Director of SAVI EHS cdeater@saviehs.com