EHS Professionals Challenged to Create Strong Safety-First Culture

J. Keller & Associates, Inc. released an inaugural State of Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) benchmarking study. The study is aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of how safety professionals perceive safety within their organizations and the overall state of safety in today’s workplaces.

“Despite crucial challenges and concerns about regulatory complexities, attitudes, and management situations, the focus wasn’t solely on compliance and discipline,” said Joe Proulx, EHS editor with J. J. Keller & Associates Inc. and co-author of the study report. “Instead, it was on addressing the important roles all employees play in building a sustainable safety culture, not just the responsibility of safety professionals alone.”

The top EHS challenges the benchmarking study found include:

• Difficulty getting employees to understand and follow safety procedures.
• Balancing EHS needs with other business demands.
• Overcoming resistance to change and establishing a safety-first culture.

Critical factors for compliance include:

• Effective training and education (though 77% find it challenging to ensure that employees apply training on the job).
• Strong management commitment and accountability.
• Sufficient employee engagement and ownership of safety.

EHS initiatives and risk planning include:

• Impacts of a strong safety culture: reduced environmental incidents, violations, and fines.
• Top three impacts considered when planning for EHS risks: regulatory risk/noncompliance costs, physical damage, and business continuity.
• Top tools to help mitigate EHS risk: environmental audits and compliance calendars.

Moving forward, EHS professionals have mixed expectations for the future, but they would like to see increased regulations. They also see an increased need for employee engagement in EHS practices, but face challenges in hiring experienced safety professionals. New technologies, such as AI, also are growing in importance for their capacity to aid in EHS efforts.

To further examine the findings, J. J. Keller offered a free webcast available for viewing through June 30 by clicking here.