When is outsourcing safety services right for your business?

What does it mean to outsource safety services? Let's look at an example.

Maria is the HR Manager for a manufacturing company. The Plant Manager asked Maria to manage the company's safety programs because Maria has demonstrated an understanding of legal issues, but she has never managed safety programs before. Overwhelmed, Maria started studying some articles on safety and subscribed to a few periodicals, and is now more overwhelmed than ever! Every time she learns something new about safety, she has three new questions that come to mind.

So Maria reaches out to a safety consultant to ask for direction. The safety consultant came to the business, did a tour of the facility, read through some of the safety programs Maria had written, and reviewed the training records. The consultant sat down with Maria and came up with the following plan:

1. The consultant recognized that, while Maria is good at writing policies, the safety policies that Maria wrote did not cover many of the required elements. She was also unaware that she was in a state with a state-run program that had additional elements. The first step identified is for the consultant to write safety programs that are specifically tailored to their business. The programs will include each policy, the permits, and other documents.
2. The company had not been training employees in the required safety topics. They had used outdated videos for a few of the topics that they did train on. Once the programs are all written and in place, the consultant developed the list of required trainings, both initially and required annually, and will develop a new-hire safety orientation training presentation that Maria will be able to present herself.
3. Consultant will work with Maria to identify several subject matter experts in the company, and they will be trained as trainers for those subjects. Several trainings were recommended for key employees, such as an OSHA 30-hour class for supervisors. This means that the company does not need to hire the consultant every time training is needed.
4. The consultant will come in quarterly after steps 1-3 are completed to monitor how things are going, ensure the programs are operating effectively, and supporting Maria in her role.
5. The company recognized they were set to grow, so requested the consultant develop one of their operations supervisors to be the safety professional and step into that role within one-year.

The consultant's role was not to do everything, but to support management, identify areas of risk or non-compliance, and bring forward best-practices. Having support in the role of safety, Maria was then able to focus on HR. The safety programs were very manageable for her when the "heavy lifting" was done and she had a consultant to reach out to with questions rather than trying to research every topic or reinvent the wheel.

A good safety consultant will not try to overwhelm a company with requirements, but identify which areas they can do themselves and quickly correct the low-hanging fruit. They can often find ways to cut costs, as well. For a business that is not yet large enough to have a dedicated safety & environmental professional, outsourcing can be an economical way to ensure a business is protecting their employees and managing risk.