In their Best Practices article, "Aligning SH&E With Core Business Initiatives," in the November 2013 issue of Professional Safety, Kim Weiss and Bill Gonser, encourage SH&E professionals to consider how they can align their efforts with their organizations' corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. "Social media and technology have driven a steadily increasing transparency of corporate function, providing insight that consumers and investors use to make decisions," Weiss and Gonser say. "Brand perception is influenced by whether a company prioritizes safety."
To help executives understand how SH&E aligns with CSR, Weiss and Gonser recommend these four action steps:
- Research. Know your company's most important business initiatives and work to align with those specifically.
- Be at the table. SH&E leaders must be part of the CSR and productivity conversation and strategy. Having a voice on the corporate steering committee is an effective way to identify opportunities to partner on and contribute to initiatives.
- Compromise. Not all safety ideas are realistic in the face of competing requirements from other functions. Willingness to compromise is key to making incremental progress.
- Focus on numbers. In today's corporate world, numbers speak louder than words and concepts. This is true for productivity and CSR, both metric-driven efforts. Illustrate the full value of efforts, inclusive of their impact on other functions. Support any initiative with data and metrics that clearly quantify the corporate benefits of your efforts. Illustrate measurements that include, but also move beyond, regulatory compliance, improved safety performance and reduced injury costs.
Read the complete article here.