WHITEPAPER
Tangible and Intangible
Benefits of Implementing
an EHS Management
Solution
Introduction
A March 2020 McKinsey
htps:/w w.mckinsey.com/busines -functions/organization/our-insights/covid-19-and-the- mploye -experience-how-leaders-can-seize-the-moment survey of 800 diverse US-based employees revealed
a strong link between safety practices and organizational health especially
after how employee work has shifted during the pandemic. They found that
with advances in listening techniques, behavioral science, advanced analytics,
two-way communication channels, and other technologies, leaders can now
address employee experience in a more targeted and dynamic way. While
drilling down on which employees need more and varied types of support, they
can also tailor actions that create widely shared feelings of well-being and
cohesion across the workforce.
In addition to basic needs (safety and security), three other experience themes
(trusting relationships, social cohesion, and individual purpose) are having a
disproportionate impact on employee well-being and work effectiveness.
Companies that enable improvements in those areas by prioritizing actions
that will address a broad set of needs for the majority of their workforce
experience four times higher levels of employee engagement and six times
higher sense of well-being. Additionally, those with strong safety standards
also encourage their employees to take ownership of safety problems and
https:/ www.ft.com/content/bca84ad8-5860-11ea-a528-dd0f971febbc
lead the initiative to find a solution.
https:/ www.ft.com/content/bca84ad8-5860-11ea-a528-dd0f971febbc
This heightens the significance of the findings from the OSHA (Occupational
Safety and Health Organization) Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses
(SOII) report released November 2020 that total 2019 nonfatal injuries and
illnesses within industries caused more than 2.81 million non-fatal work-
related injuries. According to their statistics, this leads to employees taking an
average of 8 days of leave from work. The good news is that the number is
declining annually by approximately one percent year over year. This
improvement is partially due to the regulatory bodies that are constantly
fine-tuning regulations and enforcing compliance to improve workplace safety
and health. However, the dynamic nature of these legislation also poses a
challenge to organizations as they fail to keep themselves abreast of the
ht ps:/ w w.compliancequest.com/webinar/protect-your-workers-and-safeguard-your-operations-with-workplace-safety-for-work/
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The environmental impact of corporate The Need to Automate
Green and Sustainability initiatives has
had a positive impact. What was once Your EHS Processes
considered a company mission to do
social good is now a business imperative. EHS management involves many aspects such as
This year, the world is dealing not only identifying, reducing and controlling risks and impacts
with the threat of climate change, but the through:
coronavirus pandemic and political unrest
Identifying potential hazards & performing risk
in many countries. Environmental and analysis
sustainability trends are being largely
Analyzing environmental aspects and impacts
influenced by these events. This is evident
in the trends of energy production and Performing stringent Incident investigations
consumption, consumer waste, and Tracking employee training in environmental,
corporate drives towards emission free health, and safety aspects
goals. Fulfilling compliance to EHS regulatory
requirements
However, incidents and accidents that Monitoring progress of the environmental &
affect the environment and the employee’s health & Safety initiatives
health and well- being continue to cause Following a robust audit program
concern and require efforts from each Establishing a continuous improvement plan on
enterprise to ensure compliance and the basis of corrective / preventive actions
continuous improvement (CI).
The business environment has become more complex
EHS Management (Environment, Health today. Sourcing, producing, and fulfillment operations
and Safety) is a crucial aspect of an are increasingly spread out across geographies and
enterprise’s operations in this direction. It outsourcing for lowering costs has become the norm.
This makes it difficult for safety managers to ensure
not only helps minimize the impact on the
uniform application and monitoring of standards in
environment and improve worker safety remote locations. While compliance needs are
and well-being but also can make the tightening, it is important to understand local
business more productive, grow employee regulations that need to be implemented. The
retention, and improve the brand image of enterprise is also responsible for EHS compliance by
its suppliers, whatever their geographic location.
the company spurring customer and
corporate growth. On the other hand, the stress today is on proactive
prevention and maintenance for employee well-being
rather than reacting to incidents. An incident impacts
the top and bottom line due to the loss of brand
reputation, customer loyalty and retention, competitive
sales, assets, people, penalties, compensations,
litigations, and rework as examples.
To be able to prevent the occurrence or recurrence of
incidents, the EHS manager needs data to identify
trends, patterns, variations and take appropriate action.
This requires enterprise-wide visibility of processes and
data.
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For environmental compliance, an enterprise is In short, the benefits of automating the EHS processes
expected to submit reports on air and water emission, include:
waste disposal, and there are multiple permits to keep
track of across their value chain. Manually collecting Employee well-being and safety as a culture
this data can be time-consuming and can consume Sustainability and brand loyalty
hundreds of hours to manually gather, enter, and
calculate data. An automated system can enable this Productivity and transparency gains
faster, more easily and with greater accuracy, thereby Revenue and market share growth
ensuring timely availability of reliable data.
An innovative mindset
Training is another important aspect of EHS
management to ensure employee and process
alignment with the changing EHS regulations and
periodic review is performed. Managing the training
status and needs of each employee can be automated
using a solution that tracks and notifies as and when
needed.
Proactive prevention and maintenance over
reacting to EHS incidents
To be able to prevent the occurrence or recurrence of incidents, the EHS
manager needs enterprise-wide visibility of processes and data.
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Effective Implementation Five Tangible Benefits of
of EHS Solution EHS Automation
For an EHS solution to enable the achievement of EHS
goals, it requires effective communication strategies
that enable the linking of all stakeholders, both internal
and external. A training strategy is required at all levels Risk
Management
to ensure employees know their roles, responsibilities
as well as the outcome of their actions. A document
control system as well as a contingency plan in case of
any disasters will help in change management and
business continuity.
Monitor Five Integrating
Progress Tangible Facilities
Businesses typically opt for automation of EHS due to Benefits of
one of the two reasons:
EHS
Client or regulators initiatives for an effective Automation
EHS program
Compliance/
Data Capture/
Internal change within the organization Regulatory
Data Analysis
Management
Since a good EHS system leads to improved
organizational performance, implementing it well can in
fact benefit the organization. It should encompass the A well-implemented, next-gen EHS system can enable
following steps to make sure it is deployed well and can the following:
help achieve goals:
1. Risk Management: Risk management becomes
a very painful task for EHS managers on the
Identifying the key stakeholders
ground. Defining the risk itself can be a
Determining the applicable impacts and risks challenge as it is often subjective. For instance,
a surface being slippery may be a high-level or
Mitigating those risks
low-level risk depending on where it is or who
Defining objectives and targets aided by a you ask. With an EHS system in place,
management program to achieve these targets identifying and defining risks, assessing their
severity, prioritizing and implementing
Allocating critical resources such as finance,
mitigative processes can become simpler. The
technology, people, etc. to meet those
risk management feature in the
objectives
ComplianceQuest EHS software provides
Implementing these mitigation strategies parameters to define the risk and assess its
effectively on-ground and backing it up with an criticality and is curated to meet the
efficient monitoring program organization’s existing risk management
protocols.
The implementation is done using the principles of 2. Integrating Facilities: For an organization that
Deming’s Wheel, a four-step process involving the is multisite, the process of identifying all the
PDCA cycle: Plan, Do, Check and Act. Evaluate the planning elements becomes easy. An
effectiveness of resources, controls, and risk mitigation automated solution can align each site with the
processes. Identify and address gaps for efficacy, be it relevant regulation for that geography. Users
addressing the health and safety hazard and risk or the can select the resources such as equipment,
environment aspect and impact. risks and so on based on the applicability of the
regulations unique to that site. This system is
easy to clone and each site can have its own
facility/office-specific EHS workflow based on
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the applicability of the regulations unique to 5. Monitor Progress: An automated EHS helps in
that site. This system is easy to clone and each incident management, root cause analysis,
site can have its own facility/office-specific assessing the impact on business, costs
EHS workflow. incurred, and prioritize corrective action based
on the impact. This also helps in identifying
3. Compliance/Regulatory Management: This is
areas for and implementing continuous
the most challenging area as it is very dynamic
improvement.
in nature and businesses need to keep track of
it. There are many regulations that enterprises
need to comply with and they need to be
aligned with any changes in the legislative
requirements. ComplianceQuest works with Do you know if your
local partners to keep abreast of the changes.
Automatic submission of reports and employees report all
documents from the ComplianceQuest EHS
system to regulatory bodies such as the OSHA the accidents and
system is also possible for select geographies.
their causes truthfully
4. Data Capture/Data Analysis: Data capture and
analysis form an important part of the EHS or are they worried
management system. They provide insights
into the nature of incidents, help in categorizing about being mistaken
for a tattler? How can
them and assess their impact. A robust system
can provide any department with an overview
of the current scenario and help them make
informed decisions for prevention and you help them report
improvement. Health and safety are not just
about reacting to an incident but today,
incidents, even near
businesses feel a need to proactively work
towards the health and well-being of their
misses,
employees to create a culture of safety and anonymously so that
health. Providing in-house fitness programs,
smart wearables to monitor vital parameters you can take steps to
and mitigating stress due to work are becoming
increasingly important for employee loyalty and prevent a recurrence
in the future?
retention as well as improving productivity. The
ComplianceQuest EHS system provides
dashboards to assess the impact of these
programs. Environmental regulatory standards Every accident and a near-miss has
such as Grenelle II (a French legislation) and a story to tell, data to share that can
GRI make reporting of the impact of the
take you one step closer to making
business on water, air, energy and so on
mandatory. The ComplianceQuest
your workplace that much safer.
Sustainability module helps capture data on Ensure that they get reported and
emission into water, air, noise, waste generated that you get the overall picture to be
as applicable and in the specified unit monthly, able to devise meaningful EHS
annually and comparatively over different strategies.
periods of time. One of the key areas where
data capture becomes important is in
convincing the management of the need for https:/ www.compliancequest.com/work-health-and-safety-management-system/?utm_source=whitepaper&utm_medium=ehs-benefits&utm_campaign=cta1
one by establishing the ROI. The
https:/ www.compliancequest.com/work-health-and-safety-management-system/?utm_source=whitepaper&utm_medium=ehs-benefits&utm_campaign=cta1
ComplianceQuest EHS software helps calculate
https:/ www.compliancequest.com/work-health-and-safety-management-system/?utm_source=whitepaper&utm_medium=ehs-benefits&utm_campaign=cta1
the total cost incurred in case of injury or
illness, thereby making a compelling case for
automation and productivity improvements.
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The Intangible Benefits Inspections and Audits: This can help identify
potential risk areas and take preventive action
and Impact for future incidents.
Corrective Actions: Tracking the corrective
actions taken can help identify patterns and
While there are some benefits that can be measured, initiate preventive actions to improve workplace
implementing an automated EHS solution also provides safety.
some intangible benefits such as:
1. Safe & Productive Workplace: Automating EHS For monitoring environmental compliance, the system
and ensuring a safe and healthy work provides data on emissions and various environmental
environment helps in improving employee incidents that can help in the improvement and
morale and productivity. prevention of future incidents.
2. Transparency: Digitizing increases the trans-
parency of risk management and reporting
incidents and accidents.
3. Time Management: Optimizes employee
performance by allowing them to focus on core
tasks by automating document management,
right from creation to revision, approvals and
even filing.
Are you keen to
4. Going Paperless: Digitizing documentation is a automate your EHS
strategy for better
sustainability initiative. Earlier, ISO 9001
involved a lot of paperwork. In fact, there was a
post called management representative whose
role was to file and store the papers for ISO. employee
engagement and
Metrics to Measure EHS reduce your carbon
Benefits footprint?
The health and safety benefits of the EHS system is
measured using
Manual tracking of EHS parameters
Lost - time injury rate: Though this is done can be a challenge due to the many
after an incident and is not a predictive complexities involved in
measure, it gives you a direction for manufacturing. The interrelated
improvement. processes, managing multiple sites
and the number of suppliers and
Total Case Incident Rate: OSHA uses the Total
consultants involved need better
Case Incident Rate (TCIR) to monitor high-risk
industries. It measures the number of work-
visibility and access to data.
related injuries per 100 full-time workers during
the year. EHS managers can also use this https:/ www.compliancequest.com/supplier-management-solutions/?utm_source=whitepaper&utm_medium=sup_perf_mngmnt_3&utm_campaign=cta2
metric to track incidents and discover patterns https:/ www.compliancequest.com/work-health-and-safety-management-system/?utm_source=whitepaper&utm_medium=ehs-benefits&utm_campaign=cta2
across the different functions of the enterprise.
https:/ www.compliancequest.com/work-health-and-safety-management-system/?utm_source=whitepaper&utm_medium=ehs-benefits&utm_campaign=cta2
Near Misses: This is an important measure that https:/ www.compliancequest.com/work-health-and-safety-management-system/?utm_source=whitepaper&utm_medium=ehs-benefits&utm_campaign=cta2
requires employee participation and tools for
reporting and tracking to prevent future events.
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Automate with
ComplianceQuest EHS
Solution
The EHS solution from ComplianceQuest is built on the
cloud-based and scalable SalesForce.com. It is flexible
and modular, enabling you to deploy the features that
you need. It integrates with existing enterprise systems
for seamless integration of EHS with operations. Some
of its key modules include:
Environmental to manage ongoing environmen-
tal events
Health and Safety – Incident Management for
incident reporting and management
Risk management for operational risk tracking,
evaluation, mitigation and monitoring
Sustainability to manage creation, collection,
and reporting of its Key Performance Indicators
Supplier to enable suppliers, contractors and
vendors to improve quality and safety
Training to ensure the employees are aligned
with the organizational goals for EHS
If you would like to automate your EHS workflows,
contact us to know more:
https:/ www.compliancequest.com/contact-us/?utm_source=whitepaper&utm_medium=ehs-benefits&utm_campaign=last-line
About ComplianceQuest
ComplianceQuest, an innovative 100% cloud-based Enterprise Quality Management System and Safety Management System
(QHSE) solution company, provides an enterprise grade solution platform that streamlines quality, compliance, content and
collaboration management initiatives and strategies across your enterprise and globally based supply chain networks.
ComplianceQuest helps accelerate manufacturers and distributors to accomplishing their most challenging quality, compliance
and supplier management goals.
For more information, or to request a demo with a ComplianceQuest expert, contact ComplianceQuest today.
www.compliancequest.com/?utm_source=whitepaper&utm_medium=ehs-benefits&utm_campaign=fo ter [email protected] • Call us at 408-458-8343
© ComplianceQuest, Inc. 2020
