Safety
or EHS Engineer
This
second category of maintenance engineer
is focused on the people safety aspects
of running an operation. The engineer
will provide the bridge between management
and the maintenance engineers to ensure
that all safety requirements are in compliant.
This engineer will also be responsible
for the training and certification of
employees who use these assets and infrastructures.
Safety
(or EHS – employee health and safety
in some cases) is an extremely regulated
discipline. Companies are exposed to
great financial and legal risk if the
key basic safety regulations are not
adhered to. It is up to the safety engineer
to ensure this level of compliance. It
is also the job of the safety engineer
to continually look for critical flaws
in a company’s safety practices
and highlight it o management for actions.
There
are in general 6 major categories of
safety engineer:
- Plant
and machinery safety
- Employee
practices and process safety including
ergonomics
- Handling
of dangerous materials
- Training
and development
- Regulatory
audits – including ISO compliance
etc.
- Environment
protection
So
far, I have only talked about external
regulatory responsibilities. For engineers
working in companies that cross national
boundaries, there is an added complication
to the process. As these companies have
operation in many countries, they will
be faced with a host of different regulations
in addition to common ones. In these
cases, companies try to integrate all
these needs and come up with a standard
policy. The net result of this is a set
of internal policies and guidelines that
will meet and in many cases exceed local
regulations. The engineer in these operational
environments will need to work with their
counterparts in other countries to ensure
that local interests are taken care of
and if possible negotiate for some level
of customization in the local environment
so that costs do not balloon out of control.
In many ways, this is probably one of
the hardest assignment of this engineer.
To bridge local requirements and management
needs to line up with the companies integrated
standards.
Finally,
a bit about career growth. Safety or
EHS is clearly a good candidate for shared
service models. This means, smaller companies
can and in general do, outsource these
functions to third party service providers.
As such, safety engineers tend to move
towards consultancy careers as they mature.
Their networks with regulatory bodies
and years of experience are well sought
after by many customers who’s safety
record can make or break their businesses.
One
important point to note is that not every
safety engineer will become a successful
consultant since consultancy require
skills that go far beyond just a strong
knowledge in EHS. The leadership, entrepreneurial
and networking skills may not be present
in an individual to make consulting a
viable option. In these cases, experienced
and competent safety engineers tend to
grow within their organizations as specialists
and internal consultants.
Here
are some key successful characteristics
for the safety or EHS engineer:
- Technical
competence in their fields. Regulatory
compliance depends on it.
- Good
networking skills with regulatory
bodies.
- Ability
to change internal culture to enhance
safety consciousness. Normally safety
is a reactive element in a typical
organization. The challenge is to
be able to make it proactive.
- Obtain
key certifications to audit processes
as well as to train
- Consulting
skills to provide value to all other
fields of engineering.
- Communications – ability
to influence change through communications.
- Good
understanding of business needs and
what drives management. Understanding
that culture change starts with an
understanding of how safety will
impact success in business.
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