Engaging senior leadership in HSE

Its not a secret what it takes to be successful.

You can be the best, smartest, most experienced, personable HSE professional in the world. Your efforts will more likely than not fall short without senior leadership’s support.

Now that I say that…

I almost find this topic cringe in a sense.

The “we need senior leadership blah blah” is overused to the point it’s kind of annoying. I hear people say that and I want to stop them and say yeah yeah but that’s not helpful. A lot of people I hear from speak on this seem to end it there. There’s rarely a…okay…but now what, point in the discussion. Anyone can place blame on another for failures of the organization but that gets me no closer to where I think the organization needs to be.

Sooooooo, we’ve established our baseline, now what?

I wanted to write about this topic after another LinkedIn collaborative article I contributed to.

Let’s start with our goal: keep employees safe. Okay got it. Now what? How do we do that?

Well our profession is a great start. But knowing what we know about senior leadership, what if they' aren’t in sync with our goals? Well thats a problem. But all is not lost. We can develop ourselves to better engage them in order to catalyze change in them, influence them toward a better direction under the guise of our ultimate goal of employee advocacy.

You can stat this process by…

Defining the benefits

The first step is to clearly articulate the benefits of HSE programs for senior leadership and the organization as a whole. You need to demonstrate how HSE programs can help achieve strategic goals, improve performance, reduce costs, enhance reputation, increase customer satisfaction and comply with regulations. You can use data, case studies, benchmarks and best practices to support your arguments and show the return on investment of HSE initiatives. Illuminate the power of HSE programs: they drive strategic success, boost performance, curtail costs, fortify reputation, elevate customer satisfaction, and ensure regulatory compliance. Supported by data, case studies, and best practices, HSE initiatives showcase a tangible return on investment, aligning with the organization's overarching objectives.

Align with the vision

Work to seamlessly integrate HSE with the organization's ethos, harmonizing it with the vision, mission, values, and objectives. Demonstrate how HSE intertwines with strategic direction, contributing to competitive edge and differentiation. Use strategic tools like the balanced scorecard and SWOT analysis to link HSE initiatives to the organizational framework. As I will mention in the rest of this article is that strategy is the cornerstone of what we are talking about here. If you don't have a strategy for HSE, then you don't have a clear direction in which to operate. Without a strategy, you likely won't have a vision or a winning aspiration. Without a vision, you can't align with the overall vision, thus a continual loop.

Involve in the planning

The third step is to involve senior leadership in the planning, implementation and evaluation of your HSE program. Engage senior leadership at every stage of the HSE cycle, inviting their insights, feedback, and approvals. Maintain open communication on progress, achievements, challenges, and opportunities using SMART goals, risk assessments, audits, and reports. Collaboration with senior leadership ensures informed decision-making and active participation. Most importantly, build a strategy that aligns to your winning aspiration and to that of the overall organization. My course on, Building an EHS Strategy, teaches exactly that. But through fully analyzing, building, and then executing, our planning helps advance our groups purpose and to that of the org.

Empower with the roles

The fourth step is to empower senior leadership with the roles and responsibilities that they need to perform to support your HSE program. You need to define and assign the roles and responsibilities of senior leadership in terms of policy, leadership, commitment, accountability, oversight, sponsorship, advocacy and recognition. You can use tools such as RACI matrix, job descriptions, performance indicators, rewards and incentives to clarify and motivate senior leadership on their HSE roles and responsibilities. Clarify senior leadership's pivotal roles in HSE through defined policies, commitment, oversight, and accountability. Utilize tools like RACI matrices, performance indicators, and incentives to empower and motivate senior leaders. This clarity fosters a sense of ownership and commitment toward HSE goals. Much of this comes by way of your pre-built strategy. If you don't have a strategy for your HSE group its important this be a focus on your list of priorities.

Engage with the culture

The fifth step is to engage senior leadership with the culture and values that underpin your HSE program. You need to inspire and influence senior leadership to adopt and promote a positive HSE culture that is based on trust, respect, collaboration, learning and continuous improvement. You can use tools such as surveys, workshops, coaching, mentoring, storytelling and role modeling to shape and reinforce the HSE culture and values among senior leadership. Inspire leadership to champion a HSE culture rooted in trust, collaboration, and continual improvement. Influence their behaviors through coaching, mentoring, and storytelling. Find different ways that different groups respond or interact with you and your programs. Not all groups are alike and how you engage with one may not translate well to the other. Even within an organizational culture, subcultures exist that are sometimes more important to master than the overall culture itself. Start small, with individuals and small teams and work your way up. Don't try and engage with the entire culture at once.

Partner with the stakeholders

The sixth step is to partner with senior leadership with the internal and external stakeholders that are affected by or interested in your HSE program. You need to facilitate and foster the relationships and interactions between senior leadership and the employees, customers, suppliers, regulators, community and other stakeholders that are involved in or impacted by your HSE program. You can use tools such as stakeholder mapping, engagement plans, feedback mechanisms, forums and events to build and maintain the HSE stakeholder partnerships.

Forge partnerships between senior leadership and internal/external stakeholders impacted by HSE programs. Cultivate relationships through engagement plans, feedback mechanisms, and events. Build a collaborative ecosystem fostering shared responsibility and commitment toward HSE goals. Building relationships with stakeholders is touchy. Before you focus on them, start by focusing on you. Develop your soft skills of relationship management, build your emotional quotient and understand more about who you are. The more you understand yourself and your abilities and short comings the better you are able to serve, care for, and build strong relationships with others.

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Fostering a culture of continuous learning through knowledge-sharing platforms and success stories. Encourage cross-departmental collaboration and celebrate HSE milestones, cultivating a sense of collective achievement. Implement mentorship programs to transfer HSE knowledge and values throughout the organization.