As part of budgeting for the HSE management system, it is important to compare the economic efficiency of an initiative with the volume of investment in a particular process. At the same time, it is crucial to consider the components of the "HSE cost iceberg" and attempt to calculate indirect invisible expenses that employees and the company may incur as a result of inappropriately implemented processes.
Let's consider the pros and cons of the 4 most popular optimization systems:
1. Growth and development of the HSE team
The HSE team includes not only the specialists themselves but also individuals who bear responsibility within the framework of health, safety, and environment. When working with a team, it is important to consider the workload on employees relative to the specifics of the tasks they perform, and to carefully analyze and compare the employee's development level with the significance of the process they manage. Depending on the professional development of the HSE specialist, it is important to separate routine duties from the tasks of developing HSE management processes across the entire enterprise. It is also important to plan the specialist's development path in advance, as there is a significant difference between whether a specialist will grow "upward" as a future manager or deepen their competencies as a niche or broad-profile expert.
Efficiency focus: Orientation toward the personal goals of each employee.
It is necessary to evaluate an employee's potential development within the organization before they are hired. During every interview, one should not just assess professional skills but also find out which direction the specialist wants to move in — performing routine functions, developing professionally, or, for example, becoming a project manager. HSE specialists are also often involved in automation and process optimization for the entire team, and developing one talented specialist is often more profitable than hiring 2-3 specialists to perform routine duties.
2. Investments
As a rule, investments in HSE are included in the organization's budget and require justification from the HSE specialist: how improving working conditions will reduce the level of occupational risks and affect overall productivity. When directing investments toward innovative solutions, production needs should be considered first. Without taking into account future growth plans or changes in production processes, proposals for implementing safety innovations may not align with the solutions embedded in the company's development.
Efficiency focus: General company goals.
For example: a task is open to control incidents, prevent severe consequences of accidents, and provide timely first aid during work at remote sites where one employee works unaccompanied. The HSE specialist conducted extensive analytical work researching modern monitoring systems for work zones. A beeper system that reacts to changes in body position was selected and proposed for implementation. However, simultaneously, to increase productivity, additional employees were sent to the remote sites to work in pairs, which significantly reduced the risk of possible negative consequences during lone work. Thus, the significant investment for beepers was not justified, and with proper awareness, the specialist could have focused on other higher-priority tasks.
Another example is VR training. When implementing such a high-tech solution, in addition to all the benefits, it is worth considering that VR glasses can have negative consequences for an employee's vestibular system, and the training itself is quite long. If 2,000 employees require training, it is much more efficient to organize it in groups with a trainer. Thus, the investment in VR training may not be justified compared to the resources for training a trainer.
3. Automation
Process automation and the implementation of digital solutions often help significantly reduce costs by eliminating a large volume of manual labor. For maximum efficiency of such a solution, it is important to cultivate a project manager within the team who will oversee the development of the automation system with a focus on professional training in the field of HSE.
Efficiency focus: Compatibility of selected solutions with enterprise platforms.
In addition to competently correlating all possible costs, it is important to independently write technical specifications for digital solutions, of which there is a large number and variety on the market.
There are cases where, when purchasing a digital solution, a company does not take into account the platforms it operates on, but many solutions are incompatible with each other. Because of this, large labor and time resources are required to transfer databases between systems manually. Therefore, technical specifications should be written taking into account internal processes and resources so that the digital solution provider can adapt the product specifically to the company's needs in advance.
4. Consulting
Many companies resort to consulting solutions in HSE and fully delegate responsibility for organizing special assessments of working conditions, risk assessments, industrial accident investigations, personnel training in HSE and industrial safety, providing departments with local regulatory legal acts, etc. With a competent approach, such a measure allows for the optimization of employee workload and the more effective construction of an industrial safety system within the organization.
Efficiency focus: Internal resource responsible for data transfer and control.
When switching to HSE consulting, it is important to ensure there is an employee who will interact with the consulting company, provide it with the necessary data, and monitor the performance of the work. Although the resources expended will be significantly less, they should be determined at the very beginning of planning the transition to consulting.
It is always worth remembering that it is difficult to find a universal ideal solution for economic optimization that simultaneously meets budget, implementation speed, and quality requirements. Therefore, it is worth considering which of these conditions plays a primary role, what exceptions are permissible, and how to ensure the operability of the entire system.