When James Boretti, CSP, President/CEO of Boretti Inc., appears at SeminarFest 2015, he’ll have plenty to share, as he will be presenting two seminars, “Conducting a Due Diligence Assessment for Safety” and “Establishing Your Place in the C-Suite."
“Due diligence is really going to get into informed decision making. Between mergers and acquisitions, as well a standard of measure from which safety, health and environmental performance can be measured beyond a compliance aspect,” he says.
Boretti says a due diligence assessment can be viewed from two different aspects. “If you’re looking at it from mergers and acquisitions, you’re looking at enterprise risk management, which could be anything from any outstanding OSHA citations or cases, what it is going to take from a budgeting standpoint, or seeing some things that are better and being able to incorporate them into the organization that’s doing the purchasing,” he says. For safety practitioners, he says it's about looking at how they do their job, and also the type of support and standard of practice due diligence would bring to their organization.
He says that two things have made due diligence endeavors relevant in his experience. “I found really digging in - what policies and procedures are in place, what practices are actually done, and then getting into the physical aspects and comparing what you see, what you hear, and what is written to determine if there any gaps,” he says. “From the safety professional standpoint, I like the idea of ANSI/ASSE Z10 or OHSAS 18001 as a guide or a benchmark and really kind of doing that on an annual basis, where we're really at, and what do we need to work on from an action planning standpoint for the next year. What I like is you're going from compliance to a performance type of performance, and it comes up with a very nice tool and tying that in with an action plan.”
Boretti’s other presentation, “Establishing Your Place in the C-Suite” has been honed over the years thanks to his interactions with high-level OSH professionals. “A lot of the times it has to do with communication, understanding business fundamentals, and being able to tie safety practice within that organization within the business fundamentals and performance practices,” he says. The interactive course will present a variety of techniques, including a quick, easy way to grab attention.
He says safety professionals can get involved with both topics through a business lens. “I would say safety professionals need to get more involved from that standpoint and really understand they're part of an organization and they're not out there on their own,” he says. “Obviously, compliance is one of those big things, but so is making money.”
Boretti says that's where the two classes blend. One is about establishing a value and marketing that value and becoming part of a team. “We're also about due diligence, about holding to standards and making sure standards are upheld also within the organization within a standpoint that's helping them become productive in this age of transparency and understanding that this is global marketplace,” he says.
For participants in February’s event, Boretti says, “Understanding what we bring to the table is extremely important. But how we engage and how we communicate with people who are decision makers and the information they need (is as well)”, he says. “Until we are in those positions of decision-making, they're the ones doing it. We need to understand what we bring to the table is important to them and how we make it that way is what makes the difference.”
For participants in February’s event, Boretti says, “Understanding what we bring to the table is extremely important. But how we engage and how we communicate with people who are decision makers and the information they need (is as well)”, he says. “Until we are in those positions of decision-making, they're the ones doing it. We need to understand what we bring to the table is important to them and how we make it that way is what makes the difference.”