Challenges of a Safety Manager

As a Safety Manager for 29 years, working for oil and construction companies, I have had wonderful victorious experiences which resulted in strong positive safety initiatives.  I made a difference.  Unfortunately, those moments were too infrequent.  Some of the safety experiences I have had involved hours of persuasion with employees and selling safety to management.  There are several challenges the Safety Manager has to face which are known amongst safety colleagues.

From my perspective and experiences, the majority of industry personnel are unaware of various Safety Manager’s challenges.  My motivation for supplying this information is not to seek empathy or to vent dissatisfaction.  I am providing the below information solely as a communication to those that might not have been aware of what we Safety Managers face while providing educated, common sense, proactive, safety initiatives.

“I have worked with many great companies within the last 29 years and have the up-most respect for all of them.  My intent was to share some of my observations based on my experiences.  I also wanted to share some ideas in the hope that it will help others. “

Money Versus Safety

Problem

We (Safety Managers) provide no direct productivity towards the company’s financial gain.  The only way we can contribute towards company profit is to lower liability.  Some managers have a hard time visualizing the profit from decreased liability until there has been a substantial incident affecting their company financially (lawyers).  Larger companies do cover their liability as they have very deep pockets.  However, some medium sized and small companies do not have the revenue or resources to maintain a safety management system or safety management understanding in order to fully address the larger potential liabilities.  I do acknowledge because of these financial restrictions for these companies they are not able to address safety initiatives which would provide a more comprehensive risk management approach.

Solution

The solution to the above problem is to provide additional and comprehensive safety management education on risk/benefit analysis for management members.  These company owners and managers know much about their business but might not know as much in regards to properly managing their safety management associated with the proactive prevention of incidents.

Supervisor  vs  Manager

Problem

For the most part, Safety Managers do not supervise any employees in the classical sense (evaluation and raises) except for other safety personnel.  It is my opinion that this is a problem.  I have even seen job advertisements for Safety Managers that state in the job description that the job requires that the candidate has no direct reports and that he/she is to develop and maintain a safety culture having no direct management authority.  Therefore, the Safety Manager is to use charisma, commanding presence and knowledge to win over the respect of the entire company.  This is a possible endeavor.  However, using the above approach handcuffs the Safety Manager while he/she is attempting an extremely difficult task.  I  have mostly seen the phenomena of the Safety Manager lacking adequate management influence to affect change mainly in small (mom and pop) and medium sized companies.

Solution

The accepted safety management approach in all industries is that there needs to be distance between the company’s management and the Safety Department for reasons of conflict of interest.  I agree with this concept in both theory and practice.  There is no reason that Safety Managers cannot be given more Management “clout” while still maintaining autonomy.  Frankly, the solution to this problem involves a change in management’s attitude and approach toward the Safety Manager’s management freedom and responsibility.  Again, based on my working with the larger companies and federal agencies, I feel they have already figured this out and for the most part corrected this problem.

“You know, nobody likes the safety manager”

On occasion I have heard a member of a company’s staff say, “You know, nobody likes the safety manager”, in response to my approaching him/her with a field/employee safety initiative compliance issue.  In instances, if it has not been vocalized literally, the same negative message was covered up in the politically correct language of one of the company’s representatives.  Two potential reasons for the above referenced statement are; poor management understanding and commitment to building a quality safety culture, and that company’s lack of a safety culture.  However, the main reason for the above referenced statement being made is when a company has poor management system implementation on the Safety Manager’s responsibilities of enforcing policies, procedures and regulations.  I am not ignoring the Safety Manager’s responsibilities in taking the right approach in conducting enforcement and communicating with the employee in a manner which is best for the company.  As with any potential conflict or conflict, the situation is rarely 0 – 100% when looking at root cause.  No matter, the fact that I have verbally heard the phrase referenced above while working as a Safety Manager in itself implies that we all need to grow in dealing with safety culture.

Solution

In the Oil and Gas industry, this problem will right itself through time as compliance to the larger players’ policies, procedures and requirements are filtered down to contractors and subcontractors.  As all who have worked safety in the Oil and Gas industry knows, the quality of safety is no longer controlled solely by OSHA.  The improvement of safety management within a company is more and more being driven by customer requirements.  Putting it simply, if a company does not meet the safety requirements of their customer, they simply will not work.  Personally, I welcome this push from the top and cannot wait until it works its way down to include all companies that are working in the Oil and Gas Industry. On a similar note, introduction of a decent GRC software aka regulatory compliance software could offset some issues quickly.

*The author’s views and opinions are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views and opinions of 360factors.