Edition No. 8

Planning Your EHS Strategy

Plan, Act, Check, and Modify are key components of a comprehensive EHS management system. This is the first article in a 4-part series that defines and discusses these elements.

Strategic planning is the cornerstone of a successful Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) program. But why are some strategic plans more successful than others? Why do some fail? And how can the EHS team in an organization put together their own strategic plan that is both attainable and aligned with corporate business objectives?

Many strategic plans are dictated from the top down--few start from the ground up. An organization’s executive management team may determine what will be accomplished during the next fiscal year, but it’s up to the working groups within the company to put those plans into action. These mandated initiatives are sometimes not in accordance with what is currently in place or needed, based on industry requirements. Some EHS strategic planning teams fail when they try to align themselves with large, broadly-defined corporate directives and lose track of their initial EHS goals. They also need to have an understanding of the time and cost ramifications their plans have on other business units within the company. Rather than waiting for policy and initiatives to be decided upon, a proactive EHS team should lead EHS awareness and work to guide or influence long- and short-term business planning. This proactive stance positions the team to be successful and builds its reputation within the company.

Take a look at the following two examples and then at our recommended strategy.

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Example #1

After a planning session, the EHS team comes up with the goal of reducing workers’ compensation cases in regard to repetitive stress syndrome claims by educating all employees on proper ergonomics. In theory, that sounds like a great plan. But education, especially in ergonomics, often exacerbates the problem initially. Employees realize they don’t use correct ergo practices and that awareness can raise facility costs due to new equipment being needed and possibly spike workers’ compensation claims. (Usually a long-term view of ergonomics, coupled with training, must be taken before benefits are realized.)

Perhaps a more attainable goal would be something like this. “We will educate all employees on basic ergonomic principles and perform a proactive ergonomic assessment on each workstation.” It’s rather simplistic, but the milestones that support the plan can fill in the needed details.

Example #2

After another planning session, the EHS group states a goal of implementing a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) within 12 months. Again, that’s certainly a commendable objective. But as the year progresses, it may become clear that the EHS group didn’t sell the value of the plan or include other business groups across the company in setting this objective. Because it’s a hot topic, it sounds good initially, but since it impacts so many other areas of the company, implementation becomes overly problematic.

A more attainable goal would be to begin with an Emergency Response Program and, as buy-in from other business groups is achieved, the value of Business Continuity Planning is discussed and it’s phased in during the second year of the plan.

Implementation Skills

Topics in today’s EHS world like BCP, ISO 14001 or OHSAS 18001 sound good on paper but take a very specific skill set to implement. EHS professionals want to acquire the training or train themselves to handle these topics, but that can be difficult to do in the allotted time of a strategic plan. Also, these large goals often involve an entire organization and require corporate buy-in. As discussed earlier, it may be difficult initially to gain that buy-in. If you don’t do your research and understand who will be affected and how much it will cost, proving the value of the goal and attaining buy-in is not easy to achieve.

One way to look at research is to break it down into three sections: EHS data gathering, company data gathering, and customer data gathering. EHS data gathering looks at where you are in your compliance audits, for instance, and what it will take to improve compliance. As the corporate plan and the business unit goals are revealed in the company data gathering phase, an EHS plan can be developed to reduce incident rates. This could be an incremental reduction or a dramatic one depending on the direction of the company or business unit and the budgeting process. Once the budgeting process begins (because costs to improve compliance must be discussed), strategic milestones can be determined. By obtaining information from customers, suppliers, and shareholders, the EHS team can also align their planning to the goals and initiatives these groups may be spearheading.

Successful EHS Strategic Planning

At EORM, we’ve successfully combined EHS strategic planning with team building and an understanding of business operations. As the EHS team learns to work together, we emphasize the development of a plan that also includes building the team’s brand within the organization and showing how EHS adds value to the business. We help you build a department that is both successful and one in which its members can take pride. We build consensus and commitment, emphasizing the strengths of each individual on the team. By targeting objectives that the group can accomplish, we help stay focused on business initiatives and available budget and maximize the group’s technical abilities.

We encourage thinking about long-range, company-wide objectives, rather than just following a more narrow EHS direction like compliance. We aim to have all employees within an organization see the value of EHS strategic plans. And we concentrate on a group’s strengths with challenging, yet attainable goals. We take a proactive approach to planning to alleviate the stress of managing difficult, pie-in-the-sky plans based on good intentions rather than clear and appropriate vision.

Be sure to read about integrating EHS into your management system (Act) in the April issue of Priority Press.