With SeminarFest coming soon,
it’s time to take a look at the presenters who will be at the Rio in Las Vegas,
NV, Feb. 6-12, 2015. ASSE Fellow Joel N. Tietjens, CSP,
CSHM, president of T-JENS & T-JENS Inc. will be presenting “Driving the
Performance of Your OSH System.”
“What I wanted to do was a presentation on an
organization that has all the paperwork in place, and has programs implemented,
but their process doesn't seem to be working," he explains. “There are
other things below the surface. It's not paperwork that makes the process.”
Tietjens says the
performance of OSH systems comes up short in many organizations because of
management involvement. Often, organizations use the words commitment and
support, but they don’t seem to support it. “A lot of upper management and middle
management, as well as line management will say, ‘I'm committed to the process.
I want a safe and healthy environmental process,’ but they're not willing to
support it with the necessary resources,” he says.
He also points to some common points of failure
that organizations experience. “The most common that I find in almost every
organization I deal with is what I call ‘RAA, RAA,’ which is responsibility,
accountability and authority, followed closely by communication. I always tell
folks you have to have all three,” Tietjens says. “You never talk about any one
of the items without adding the other two. They are a trio. They must go
together.”
Of course, there are success stories. Tietjens
says those are mostly when he sees an active, involved upper management. “The
organizations I find that are very successful in managing their safety and
health and environmental process is simply those that actually drive it to the
line level, get intricately involved in day-to-day operations,” he reports. “A
good organization doesn't necessarily mean there are no losses. It means they
recognize their hazards, they understand the risk associated with those
hazards, and they take the necessary steps to mitigate and minimize them.”
While Tietjens enjoys presenting at ASSE’s
annual conference, he explains that SeminarFest offers a slightly different
element. “We have an entire day of what I like to call 'cussin' and discussin'
between the participants where we have a conversation where we can break it
down, we can say what works for one, what doesn't work for another, why do they
believe it's not working.”
