I don’t know about you, but many of our clients are still dealing with supply chain issues.
These days, news of supply chain issues impacting consumers and businesses across the world has become commonplace. These stories aren’t just outliers.
Unfortunately, it’s an ongoing issue we all must grapple with in some fashion.
You might head to the supermarket and not be able to find the item you need for that special recipe.
Or, as happened to me recently when helping my daughter buy a car, you head to the dealerships and struggle to find anything suitable.
To make matters worse, many businesses can’t make their products because raw materials are in short supply. And if they are lucky enough to have the needed raw materials… what happens when their equipment goes down and they need spare parts? It can sometimes take weeks or months to get what they need when we used to be able to obtain what we needed overnight.
There is another facet to the supply chain issues which many have not thought about.
What we’re starting to hear from our environmental consulting clients and contacts in manufacturing is that there is a supply chain crunch when it comes to personnel, especially in the environmental, health and safety (EH&S) management role. Many companies are having a hard time finding people to work for them.
Why is this happening?
There are several factors at play. I believe the main one is an aftereffect from the pandemic that we are still dealing with today. Remember when many people were forced to work from home when very few wanted to? At first this seemed like a torturous endeavor for many; how am I going to be able to do my job from home? Soon, however, working from home became the preferable route for many in the workplace, especially when companies wanted the work force to return to the office or facility.
As a result, many professionals these days are very selective about where and how they want to work. Many desire and demand the home-based working environment over the need to commute and work at a facility or in an office.
While this desire/demand can be accommodated for some businesses, it is very difficult to do so when your main business is manufacturing. In manufacturing, you can’t really work from home. It’s a hands-on process.
Right now, we have what you might call “an employees’ market.” Kind of like a buyers’ market in real estate. Due to this we are seeing a severe lack of people in full-time onsite EH&S management roles right now.
Many companies have had to change their EH&S approach until the onsite role can be filled, mostly in the area of risk and hazard analysis of job functions at a facility.
And this can be a very serious issue. Because there continues to be a shortage of workers in some facilities.
That means, in many cases, there aren’t enough people to operate a certain machine, you have workers doing multiple job functions, or you have brand-new, inexperienced workers hired to try and fill the gaps.
In these instances, management must re-evaluate circumstances to make sure workers continue to be safe in these scenarios. And that can be tough without a full-time, experienced EH&S manager onsite.
EH&S the Way It Used to Be
Even just a few years ago, EH&S was viewed as a necessary evil; often considered as an ever-present bottleneck and headache by management and production floor personnel alike.
Responsibility for EH&S policies usually went to human resources, believe it or not.
But now, EH&S has transformed. It has become part of corporate marketing strategy in terms of promoting their green policies, sustainability, etc. to consumers and clients.
As EH&S took on this new prominence, we started to see production managers, as well as facility and plant managers take on a more central role in EH&S. Soon, it was realized that EH&S is really a full-time job.
Thus, the position of EH&S manager was born.
As I mentioned, these onsite roles are currently a struggle to fill. This is a problem that will eventually resolve itself.
But for now, the challenge is to operate facilities in a way that keeps workers and the environment safe.
The “stopgap” solutions I propose help make clear that even if you have a full-time onsite EH&S manager, a successful EH&S program is a shared responsibility. Buy-in from management and facility workers is needed. Everybody must realize they have a role to play in the program.
And it’s in that spirit that many of the solutions I propose come into play.
In fact, until a facility has a full-time onsite EH&S manager, the responsibility needs to be shared a bit more. Here’s how:
1. The Creation of an EH&S Committee
An EH&S committee will be a stand-in for the full-time onsite manager. To work, it must have representatives from management and the crew on the production floor. And every group or division at the facility must also have a representative.
Everyone should have a voice and everyone’s opinion matters. Not only does this help secure buy-in but also makes for a more effective EH&S program.
2. Tap Into Sister Facilities
If your plant is part of a company with the same or similar facilities in other locations around the country, you have “sister facilities” you can tap into for assistance. If you’re lucky, those other facilities have a full-time EH&S manager.
Perhaps that manager can be temporarily transferred to another facility to get the EH&S program up to speed. Or maybe that manager can become a “virtual” manager until the facility in need can find a full-time person.
This manager from the sister facility will probably know what’s needed, especially if the plants do the same thing. They know what specific programs and policies should be implemented. How things work. How to get buy-in. They have the experience, and they can be a big help getting through this challenging time.
3. Look Within Your Organization
You should be open to the possibility that someone within your organization already would be suited for the job of an onsite EH&S manager. They may not even currently be in an EH&S role. But they have the knowledge base to do the job.
What’s great about hiring from within is that the learning curve when it comes to what the facility does and how the corporate culture operates is greatly reduced. You don’t run the risk of a new hire “off the street” not fitting in.
4. Get Help from an Employment Agency
This is the most difficult route because it is hard to make sure a person from a temporary technical employment agency will fit into your corporate culture. And sometimes qualified candidates can be hard to find and get up to speed on the specific needs of your facility.
5. Ask Your Environmental Consultant for Help
This is something we’ve actually done for clients, especially over the last few years.
A consultant can:
· Help set up management programs to fill the void while looking for a full-time manager.
· Help organize the EH&S committee.
· Be available for “hotline” assistance calls when there are questions or a crisis.
· Be available to come onsite for emergencies or, even better, on a regularly scheduled basis, whether it’s a few days a month, one day a week, or whatever your facility needs. This would be the same person from the consulting firm each time, so they are familiar with the facility and its issues.
They could work on regulatory reporting, training, documentation, communication… whatever is needed.
In some cases, the consulting company could send an employee to stay onsite, essentially full-time, if that is what is needed.
· Help the facility find a full-time employee to fill the position.
All these approaches are simply ways to make sure EH&S policies are as robust as possible until a full-time onsite EH&S manager is found.
What’s key to remember is that, whether you have a manager or are seeking one, EH&S always has been, and always will be, a shared responsibility.
As environmental consultants, we are often asked to “bridge the gap” until companies fill the role of a full-time EH&S manager. And we’re happy to help your facility do the same in a variety of ways.
You can contact me, Mark Roman, at 609-208-1885 or get in touch via e-mail at markroman@envisionenvironmental.com.
