Author Archives: Contributor

Can You Benefit Professionally from a Working Vacation?

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Most health and safety professionals that I’ve had the opportunity to speak with did not start their careers in Health and Safety. The profile that I see most often is a former line worker or supervisor who was personally impacted by a preventable incident and wants to make a positive change for their coworkers.

This shift in career focus can be both rewarding and intimidating. Becoming a Certified Safety Professional (CSP) may seem like a daunting task. After all, you’re done with school. Shouldn’t exams be ancient history? 

I can certainly relate to this mindset. Nine years ago, when I got my CPA at 23, I thought this would be the last exam I would ever write. Surely this designation was all I needed to succeed! 

Two years later, when I got my MBA at 25, I thought that would be the last exam I would ever write. Armed with … Read more...

The Power of a Robust Safety Culture

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If you doubt the power of a robust safety culture, you’ll want to learn more about the turnaround at the Goodyear Innovation Center Manufacturing (ICM) plant in Akron, Ohio.

Over a period of about five years, the facility, also known as Goodyear’s Racing Division, turned a litany of challenges and a long list of substandard performance metrics into a finely tuned, prosperous, and continuously improving operation.

And it all started with safety.

Describing the Racing Division business as it was in the fall of 2013 when Goodyear Corporate began an initiative to redouble its continuous improvement efforts, Dave Coleman, finance business partner and continuous improvement (CI) leader, resorted to several lists. During a presentation to a group of CI practitioners at a recent AME Cleveland Consortia event, he noted that from the outside view, ICM had:

• The worst safety record of all Goodyear manufacturing businesses.
• Run through five … Read more...

Adopting ‘Lean’ Safety Takes You Beyond Compliance

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How to embed safety into every minute of every day—and continuously improve it.

Robert Hafey, a 25-year lean practitioner and consultant with 10 years specializing in safety, is working to change how business leaders think about workplace safety. He’s trying to help them understand how much more effective “lean safety” is, compared to “compliance safety.”

Writing in a recent issue of Target magazine, the quarterly publication of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME), he explains the difference. Compliance safety, he writes, “focuses almost exclusively on following OSHA or other regulatory agency rules.” In organizations that focus on compliance safety, he explains, “practices are ‘pushed’ from regulatory agencies to safety professionals, who then take the new or changed requirements to their management team and eventually to those who perform the work.”

While this approach is right as far as it goes, Hafey asserts that this top-down directive approach often causes safety … Read more...

EHS Management Lags in Digital Transformation Involvement

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By Patricia Panchak
Here’s why you need to get on board, along with some tips for doing so.

As industrial organizations race to deploy the latest digital technology innovations, to achieve “Industrial Transformation (IX),” recent research suggests that EHS functional leaders are among the least likely to be involved. Compared with their counterparts in 18 functional areas, EHS management placed 15th, according to the LNS Research report, “Futureproof EHS Management,” which found:

“Among IX leaders (the 28% of companies that say IX is “working”), only 21% of companies have participation from the EHS business leader. Among IX followers (the other 72% of companies that have not yet achieved results), only 13% have EHS business leader participation. However, among all manufacturers (e.g., not just leaders and followers), fewer than 14% of companies report that EHS is included in the focus of Big Data analytics or IIoT initiatives. That’s shockingly low, considering … Read more...

An Insider’s Guide to Buying Safety Management Software: Part II

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Navigating the world of buying Safety Management Software (SMS) can be quite a daunting task. To help you understand the ins and outs as well as the potential benefits for your organization, we got the facts from an industry expert.

In the first part of this guide we explained how SMS can help your organization ensure employee safety, comply with regulatory and legislative standards, and finally demystified the software industry so you felt comfortable asking the necessary questions so you can make the right decision.

Now in Part II we’re going to walk you through the fee structures and benefits of using software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology, how to maximize your ROI by implementing an SMS solution, and finally how to develop an effective business proposal.

Using the information in this whitepaper, as an EHS professional you will be equipped with the tools and information you need to secure the best solution … Read more...

Knowing When to Buy EHS Software

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At what point does the cost of purchasing and implementing new software become preferable to the cost of maintaining your existing organizational software? It’s an important question, especially when you consider that as much as two-thirds of the cost of the new software is probably going to come from your EHS budget. Like just about anything else, software has an expected service life. For most well-designed systems, their useful life cycle can be as long as six to eight years; for systems that are less well designed or for applications that evolve very quickly, the useful life of business software can be as short as three years.

To maintain workplace safety you need a tool that will provide software solutions for a wide variety of services like compliance management, risk management, safety management, incident management, audits, document control, training management … the list goes on.

According to a 2017 survey … Read more...

An Insider’s Guide to Buying Safety Management Software: Part I

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With an array of competitive vendors, seemingly complicated technologies, and solutions of varying scope and quality, purchasing enterprise safety management software can seem like an overwhelming process. However, understanding the inner workings of the safety software industry is not as difficult as it may seem.

Further, learning how to maximize your organization’s return on investment (ROI) by choosing the most appropriate software solution for your business needs can be a straightforward process.

The intent of Part I is twofold:

  1. Explain why Safety Management Software can help your organization ensure employee safety and comply with regulatory and legislative standards.
  2. Demystify the software industry, particularly as it relates to safety management software, and provide the questions you need to ask potential providers.

In Part II you will learn:

  1. How to maximize ROI by implementing a safety management software solution.
  2. How to develop effective business proposals that communicate the ROI potential of safety
… Read more...

EHS Managers: Come to Our Free “Building the Business Case for EHS Software” Workshop!

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You may have heard of the powerful changes EHS Management software is bringing to all kinds of organizations. You may have heard how it’s saved lives, money and reduced insurance premiums, but some things that don’t get the attention they deserve are process automation, workforce engagement and freedom from disparate data sources, to name a few.

As an EHS professional, you already know the impact this software can have on an organization. But getting alignment and convincing executive decision-makers can be tricky. What else should you include in your business case to fast-track their approval? You’ll find out at our workshop!

Why should I attend?

Coming out to a workshop with like-minded professionals and experts in the EHS space offers you a unique advantage. We partnered with Microsoft and Arcadis to design a workshop that helps you:

  • Gain influencer consensus
  • Circumvent objections with a readiness assessment
  • Leverage compelling data to
… Read more...

How Technology is Improving Workplace Safety

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There’s a digital revolution underway in EHS, and it’s helping make workplaces the safest they’ve ever been. Safety professionals today are being asked to not only protect their employees, but also their company’s bottom line.

To improve safety capabilities in all areas, safety leaders are increasingly turning to digital technologies.

A new e-book offers suggestions on how to discover and measure the value of EHS technologies, how to manage their implementation, and how to gain buy-in both from senior management and the employees who will be using and benefiting from the technology.

DOWNLOAD NOW Button… Read more...

Tackling the Evolution of Your EHS Program

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It can be hard to step away from the day-to-day demands of managing an EHS program and take a critical look at what needs to evolve. Often, the people, business and goals of the organization evolve while safety processes remain the same.

Identifying areas for improvement can include leveraging leading and lagging metrics, getting stakeholder and employee feedback, or learning from peers.

Once opportunities for improvement are identified, a structured process to make those changes is required. This will require securing stakeholder improvement for the new ideas, initiatives and tools.

Want to learn more? Access our free webinar to listen to Billy Powell, an EHS Director for Smith & Nephew, talk about the challenges he faces today and how he evolves his EHS processes.

DOWNLOAD NOW Button… Read more...