Successful Safety Programs Make Successful Organizations
Organizations seeking a return on investment from their safety and loss prevention programs are more likely to succeed if they understand and support the fundamental roles and responsibilities of safety professionals — empowering safety professionals to drive initiatives that produce results, rather than focus primarily on compliance duties.
Learn about the ROI of safety
Roles That Make a Difference
Compliance-focused approaches to safety and loss prevention are not effective at managing workplace risks. Therefore, checking boxes or solely reacting to emergencies is not high-value work for safety professionals.
Instead, in-house safety professionals or external safety consultants should help:
- Design and implement frameworks for risk management and monitoring
- Manage change regarding organization-wide initiatives
- Research and strategize emerging and complex risks
- Collaborate across the business on varying initiatives, even those seemingly unrelated to safety
Qualifications That Matter
While safety professional roles are not one-size-fits-all and depend on organization size, department size and whether a safety professional is in-house or a consultant, there are some common qualifications — like a safety professional’s critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills, as well as formal education and industry certifications.
ASSP is a signatory of the Singapore Accord. The accord encourages organizations to adopt The OHS Professional Capability Framework, which answers several key questions: Which skills should each type of OSH employee bring to the table? What are those different types? How should hiring managers and supervisors evaluate OSH qualifications to ensure the right person is in the right position?