A valued member of your environmental, health and safety (EH&S) team is out for extended leave, leaves unexpectedly or their position is eliminated as part of a company-wide reorganization. You fill the position and train the new EH&S person only to have them leave after only six months and now you must start all over again.  Time wasted, money wasted, EH&S initiatives lag behind, and regulatory compliance is not maintained. Not discounting the loss of institutional knowledge, how well your company is prepared to handle personnel changes that affect EH&S compliance is critical.

Let’s suppose that as part of maintaining EH&S compliance over the years an EH&S management system has been established which includes a stellar recordkeeping system and an associated detailed calendar of compliance obligations accessible by anyone in the organization. Does someone in a management position recognize the importance of maintaining EH&S compliance and ensure that all of the tasks are performed? Are there enough hours in the day for the remaining employees to perform the tasks?  Are they trained adequately? In a perfect world, yes. However, the more typical scenario is that tasks go undone until the position is filled or until a regulatory agency inspection occurs and the records review reveals that required inspections, reports, monitoring or other compliance tasks have not been done since the position was vacated.

August Mack’s award winning Compliance Assurance Program (eCAP^®) can help you minimize the loss of key people. eCAP^® is an EH&S management service that provides its members with comprehensive, site-specific and complete compliance services for a fixed monthly fee. The eCAP^® main goals are to provide and maintain measurable compliance assurance by:

• Assigning August Mack’s regulatory program experts to your company’s identified compliance requirements;
  • Performing and documenting routine site inspections to validate adherence to compliance activities associated with regulatory requirements;
  • Communicating compliance responsibilities to the management team via the eCAP^® webpage, scheduled facility meetings, and a detailed compliance calendar;
  • Creating, organizing, and maintaining required EH&S documents (eCAP^® webpage);
  • Preparing required reports, plan updates, and permit renewals; and:
  • Conducting training.

Some of the benefits of eCAP^® are that you don’t have to worry about training, compliance reporting or missing a regulatory deadline. Some of the other ways that eCAP^® can be used to manage personnel changes include:

• Performing an initial compliance audit to identify and address compliance deficiencies to get your facility back on track;
• Providing guidance on when and how to self-disclose non-compliance to the regulatory agency to avoid fines and penalties;
• Reducing or eliminating compliance activities for plant personnel; and
• Eliminating the need for plant personnel to receive outside training on regulatory requirements as August Mack personnel maintain expertise in all areas of EH&S compliance.

Consider eCAP^® as a means to maintain EH&S compliance whether you have a vacancy in your EH&S department, your department of one has just given notice, or you just don’t have time to train another new EH&S person.

For more information on using eCAP^® to manage personnel changes, sign up to attend the webinar on May, 27 2020.