I am often asked by safety professionals, “What do I do if I don’t have senior management commitment?” 

Well, you have to talk to management in terms they understand and there are four areas you can attack this common threat that health and safety people run against. 

  1. You want to talk financial. You want to give a return on investment and talk about things that will happen to the bottom line, increased profit, avoiding fines, enhancing market share by having a good health and safety program and health and safety programs do all of this. Ultimately they save money and enhance morale and with a better workplace they enhance efficiencies and enhance the bottom line. So financial is the first area to talk about. 
  2. Legislative. Legislative compliance means that you avoid fines, you avoid litigation and your company may not be shut down due to noncompliance. Remember that legislation is the minimum and you should always strive to exceed the minimum requirements. 
  3. Moral requirements. You can talk to senior management in terms of the fact that as a senior manager they have the moral obligation to protect the health and safety of their workers, their employees. It is simply good business and good life practice to do so. This will attract senior managements that have a more philanthropic feeling about their workforce. 
  4. Due diligence. You talk to senior management in terms of doing everything duly diligent so that a reasonable or practical person can ensure the health and safety of their employees and their contractors and the members of the public and visitors. Being duly diligent means you have done everything reasonable/practical to enhance efficiencies. 

Now, if this fails be prepared as a health and safety person to walk away. When I was taking training my instructor told me some senior managers will never change and if they fail to buy into health and safety you take your resume out of your back pocket, you use it, you go to another company that has better buy in because often if you do not have senior management commitment you’re the high priced fall person. 

So the Serenity Prayer says, “Let me have the ability to know what I can change and what I can’t change and the ability to know the difference.” With senior managers you have to follow the Serenity Prayer. 

I’d be remiss not to add that the biggest impact on any organization is ultimately the most important one – saving lives.