O
ver the past 30 years I have been privileged to observe and be part of a number of
companies’ journey to becoming world-class environmental, health and safety organizations. I have seen that for most of these organizations the path has been similar and the transformation has occurred in three steps. These three steps can be classified as Awareness, Process and Culture. Let’s take a look at what each of these entails.
Step 1: Awareness
Awareness is the first step that most
companies go through. It occurs when the
senior leadership team takes a genuine
interest in improving the EHS performance
of the company.
This may be prompted by a change in
leadership or a catastrophic event such as
a fatality, regulatory agency action or environmental incident. It is now very often
prompted by a push from the Board of Directors or an acquiring company who has
been enlightened to the importance of EHS
as an important element of any strategic
plan. In any case the members of senior
management make the employees aware
of the importance of EHS to the companies
long-term success.
Although they are important, the declaration of
commitment must be more
than a policy or memo; it
needs to be a visible manifestation of support that is
ongoing. Managers must
have goals on EHS performance tied to compensation, EHS should be on the
agenda of every business update meeting
and leaders should inquire about EHS performance as part of their site visits. Beyond
the top management team middle management must embrace the same sense of
value for EHS.
Historically this is the group that is faced
with many competing priorities and requires
the greatest effort to engage it and maintain
support. This is the stage at which companies collect EHS performance data, set
goals and report outcomes. The old adage
of what gets measured improves is a key to
improving performance in this step. During
this step, by sheer force of will, EHS performance improves but will quickly plateau. In
order to continue on the journey to worldclass EHS performance the company
moves to step two.
period of continuous improvement focused
on risk elimination. Procedures are written,
checklists created, training provided, risk
assessments
performed
and
nonconformances are identified, tracked, corrected and prevented.
It is critical that all stakeholders - managers, employees, suppliers, contractors,
communities and customers, are part of this
process. This is prime opportunity for all
members of the team to begin to take ownership for EHS outcomes that are a critical
part of step three.
Step 3: Culture
Step three is the hardest to achieve and
takes the longest because it involves a
change in the DNA of the organization. It is
EHS should be on the agenda of
every business update meeting
and leaders should inquire
about EHS performance...
Step 2: Process
In the next step the company recognizes
the importance of process to improve EHS
performance and much like the efforts in
Operational Excellence, management systems are implemented to reduce risks and
create standard work. At this point many
companies turn to national or international
management system standards such as
ANSI Z-10, OSHA VPP, ISO 14001 or
OHSAS 18001 to support their development of process for EHS. Using Plan, Do
Check, Act (PDCA) EHS processes enter a
not about establishing an EHS Culture but
a culture of risk elimination for functions.
Eliminating EHS risks but not quality or
manufacturing risks does not create a culture that leads to world-class performance.
We often draw analogy of top performing
companies to a stool with EHS, Quality and
Manufacturing as the legs. If any one of
these elements is not strong the stool will
topple. In order to create a culture of risk
elimination everyone in the organization
must assume ownership for not only their
EHS performance but also for the people
they work with. From a biblical perspective
they do need to be “their brother’s keeper”.
At this point in the journey EHS is integrated into the way business is done. EHS
performance is not stand alone but reported
as part of business metrics, Rapid Improvement Events (RIEs) and Kaizen Events
always included requirements to eliminate
risks and lean efforts include EHS topics
such as energy, water consumption, waste
and ergonomics. When this culture of risk
elimination is embraced by the entire company and becomes part of its values worldclass operating performance will be
achieved and sustained and EHS will be
part of it.
If you have any questions or thoughts
about the journey to a risk elimination
culture, contact Joe Wolfsberger at
[email protected].
Enhesa Flash September 2013 |
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