An efficient environment, health, and safety (EHS) manager can tremendously benefit an organization. A dedicated safety manager ensures EHS compliance, worker safety, meets regulatory requirements, minimizes operational risks, and meets customer demands. 

In simple words, safety managers create, execute, and oversee the 360 degrees of the organization’s safety program. 

Who is a Safety Manager?

The Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) Manager ensures that all safety laws and regulations are followed. In addition, the manager ensures that the workplace runs in conformity with the OSHA and other safety regulations. 

Therefore, this manager has the potential to be a valuable asset to your firm as they can assist your company in reaching its most significant potential.

What are the Key Roles and Responsibilities of a Safety Manager?

The key focus areas for EHS compliance managers are: 

• Organizing and directing safety and health programs.
• Conducting industrial hygiene tasks. 
• Performing workplace hazard analysis. 
• Conducting investigations into incidents. 
• Assisting safety committees. 
• Ensuring EHS compliance with all requirements by providing environmental, health, and safety training. 
• Making safety assessments and conducting walkthroughs. 
• Detecting dangers. 
• Carrying out risk management. 
• EHS indicators are gathered and analyzed.
• Increasing personnel and operational productivity.

How do Safety Managers Ensure 100% EHS Compliance?

Safety managers ensure EHS compliance by:

1. Regulatory compliance

Each workplace has its own set of risks, potential hazards, and innate issues. OSHA has established guidelines addressing all occupational hazards in varying industries. 

Therefore, the safety managers study and identify the OSHA standards that the organization needs to comply with before commencing operations.

Furthermore, the safety managers keep an eye on the new regulations. Every two years, the Department of Labor publishes a list of all proposed standards and regulations in the Federal Register. Safety managers examine these agendas to prepare for upcoming changes and new rulemaking.

2. Managing risks

A safety manager is responsible for assessing all sorts of business risks, including financial, operational, and environmental hazards. They identify, analyse, evaluate, and eliminate risks and further manage them by communicating them with the workers. 

A safety manager ensures effective EHS Compliance by adopting a holistic approach to ​​EHS Risk Management. 

3. Conducting safety meetings

The role of safety managers does not stop at risk management. Risk management is effective only when it is communicated. EHS Managers, therefore, conduct safety meetings to educate workers regarding workplace safety protocols and EHS policies.

Safety meetings are essential for workplace safety. Safety meetings ensure the following:

• Work is conducted with safety considerations. 
• Safety measures are well communicated and understood. 
• Company-specific processes are in place to protect the health and safety of all workers. 

4. Conducting regular safety training sessions 

OSHA standards require explicit training for the workers to develop skills to keep themselves and others safe. EHS managers are responsible for ensuring that workers receive the required training courses.

The managers are responsible for putting in the time, effort, and energy to schedule and deliver training sessions. In addition, once the training is complete, the safety professional is also responsible for keeping track of employee training records and measuring the outcomes.

5. Incident management 

Losing workers due to illness or injury can cause substantial operational disruptions in an organization. Incident management, in such a case, helps organizations identify and track workplace safety and health issues. 

Each incident is investigated by safety managers, who then devise corrective procedures to avoid a recurrence.  

This is useful for both employers and employees when assessing workplace safety, analyzing industrial hazards, and putting in place worker protection to limit and eliminate hazards.
When accidents occur, EHS managers look for patterns in injuries and illnesses and develop strategies to reduce risk.

How can EHS Managers Make their Jobs Easier?

The safety manager’s role is never fixed and calls for wearing varying hats. Furthermore, there is an ever-increasing pressure to cater to organizational safety by adopting strategic operational means continuously.

The best option is to invest in safety management software to improve safety and operational performance in such a scenario. It can be the best way to save a substantial amount of time as well as resources. 

If you’re searching for a tool to help you streamline and automate your safety processes, sign up for a free demo of Pulse today, or contact us to learn more.