Top five benefits to outsourcing EHS services
“I just wish I could concentrate on business objectives while leaving the difficult tasks of protection, enforcement, and health to someone else.”
If you’ve ever felt this way, you’re not alone. Many of the clients who outsource short-, mid-, and long-term environmental, health and safety (EHS) services to us started with this desire.
It’s not a simple task to make sure you’re following proper safety procedures and using the right safety equipment, especially in industries like construction and manufacturing. Hiring someone in-house who both knows your business and understands how to stay compliant with myriad (and often continually changing) local, state and federal regulations can be difficult.
Here are the top five benefits we hear from our clients to outsourcing EHS, which is sometimes referred to as “staff augmentation”:
1. EHS staff augmentation saves the cost and liability of in-house staff.
Outsourcing your EHS support makes the provider responsible for the recruitment and human resources management of the staff you need. That means you directly manage the augmented staff as if they are your employees, but you don’t have the costs and liabilities associated with hiring and maintenance that can be redirected to more critical positions or tasks. And you have much greater flexibility to add or cut resources based on your company’s needs.
2. No matter how complex your project becomes, EHS priorities remain front and center.
When experienced, dedicated EHS staff are in place and keeping their eyes on the ball when it comes to the difficult tasks of protection, enforcement, and health, your project managers are freed up to focus solely on their strong suits when it comes to project goals or larger business strategies.
3. Outsourced EHS staff are ready to hit the ground running.
Most outsourced EHS staff, such as EnSafe’s, have been through an extensive vetting process to ensure they match with specific client needs and meet or exceed qualification requirements. That vetting process is used, as it is at EnSafe, to create and maintain a coast-to-coast pool of talent for responding to specific needs. That pool of resources standing at the ready means your staffing needs are fulfilled faster with higher quality staffing results.
4. They have “fresh eyes” and a neutral perspective that can help improve efficiencies.
If an organization suspects that their level of compliance is not quite what it should be, sometimes it’s more palatable to hear from an outside entity “what we already think we know.” Independent EHS professionals have the ability to be more honest and objective and are typically able to dive deeper into the fine details of compliance. Their fresh set of eyes can help keep site staff “on their toes” from a technical standpoint. They can also come alongside your project managers and operations experts to help guide them through what may seem a daunting process toward full compliance.
5. They’re able to apply best practices from a vast range of industries.
Most EHS augmentation staff come to your business with a vast array of experience in many different industries. We’ve seen the benefits of lessons learned regarding machine guarding in a pulp and paper manufacturing facility, for example, applied to job safety procedures in the auto manufacturing industry.
Outsourced EHS staff can apply industry-diverse best practices to your highly specific needs, which will lead to greater efficiencies and quality for many EHS services, including:
- Implementation of your EHS Program
- OSHA 10 Hour and 30 Hour Training and Issuance of Cards
- Incident Management from Incident Date until Return to Full Duty
- Safety Program Development/Implementation
- OSHA Training and Maintaining of a Training Matrix
- OSHA Recordkeeping Support
- Monthly Safety Statistic Reporting
- Safety Hazard Surveys
- Safe Job Procedure (SJP) Development
- Daily “Tool Box” Safety Talks
- Daily PPE Observations
- Daily Safe Job Procedures Observations
- Daily/Weekly Safety Meetings
- Monthly General Safety Meetings
- Monthly Executive Safety/Job Planning Meetings
- Liaisons between Workers Compensation Third Party Administrator, Contractor, and Counsel
- Health and Safety Program Development, Implementation and Maintenance
- Written Site Safety Plans
- Onsite Consulting
- Unlimited Technical Consultation
- Liaisons Between the Contractor’s EHS Personnel and Onsite Personnel
- Audits and Inspections Including Tracking Findings to Completion