A 2016 survey conducted by Trimvirate Environmental of rougly 200 EH&S professioals across multiple industries was recently released, offering insight on how the EH&S space will evolve this year.
“The 2016 State of EH&S report shows that organizations are hard-pressed to expand their environmental health and safety staff with possible negative outlook for many of the topics we care about,” said Warren Sukernek, Director of Marketing at Triumvirate Environmental. “Our analysis shows that a lack of staffing and resources can limit the ability to adopt programs like sustainability and affect operational efficiency.”
Four major trends were indicated for 2016.
1. Workplace Safety
An increasing number of companies are focusing their EH&S activity on workplace safety. Many survey respondents commented that for workplace safety to really take hold, managing leaders must take the initiative. Setting the right culture within a company starts with leaders setting examples for workers to follow.
2. Regulatory Compliance Prioritized to Avoid Fines
Respondents noted that changing regulations and increasing fines continuously motivated decision makers to focus on complying with regulation. OSHA had stated that an 82% increase in penalty fines is to take place this year. Stay up to date with your compliance regulation and keep your company safe while avoiding to pay for unnecessary costs.
3. Significant Understaffing
The survey revealed that over 72% of EH&S professionals feel their department is understaffed. To make matters worse, 79% of these EH&S professionals say their department will not grow in 2016.
Companies will always try to cut costs to drive profitability. However, companies should never make the mistake to cut costs in matters relating to workplace safety. One solution is to invest in safety software, to make small teams more effective and efficient. Investing in safety pays itself over many times over. Click here for more information on how to get your ROI on safety.
4. Sustainability not a priority
Research lead for State of EH&S, Sasha Lafert, stated, “When departments are understaffed, they want to do the things that cause them to not go over budget, to not be fined by regulatory agencies,” said Laferte. “In Europe, they’ve been focusing on sustainability longer than we have been in the United States. It’s more a part of the culture.”
Sustainability has taken a backseat to quick fixes so employers can avoid paying for costly fines. Unfortunately, this mentality itself is not sustainable and eventually the employer will face an incident leading to heavy penalties. Running lean is essential for a smart business, but never take your worker safety for granted. Quantum was founded on the idea of an easily sustainable safety software system. Give us a call today and see for yourself how a sustainable safety software system can add immediate value to your business.
