EHS professionals are challenged to achieve regulatory compliance and always look for beyond-compliance ways to reduce risk. As organizational models have evolved to push accountability away from corporate functions toward business units and process-specific operations, the role of EHS professionals has also morphed.
The trend has been for EHS professionals to act in the role of consultant or coach within the organization as opposed to an enforcer to be avoided. While this trend makes sense, a significant component of EHS accountability still resides in within the EHS department and its professionals.
The use of Informal Networks provides a powerful way for EHS professionals to achieve their goals and to empower others in the organization to embrace and champion EHS issues. Forward thinking EHS professions activity develop and then leverage Informal Networks in their organizations.
The current issue of the Harvard Business Review (March, 2010) has timely article, “Harnessing Your Staff’s Informal Networks,” that captures the essence of what we have observed at Redinger EHS in our engagements. In the article, McDermott and Archibald report on their quantitative analysis of 52 Informal Communities within companies in 10 industries. Examples and cases are provided where a function such as EHS used informal networks with the organization to solve complex problems.
McDermott and Archibald emphasize that while there is clearly an informal quality to these communities, some structure is required. They have identified four principles that “govern the design and integration of effective communities.” These are
- Focus on issues important to the organization
- Establish community goals and deliverables
- Provide real governance
- Set high management expectations
Redinger EHS has observed and worked with several EHS teams that have reflected these principles in providing EHS leadership within their organizations. One example is an EHS team that took a leadership role the organization’s sustainability efforts. Their results were accelerated with the use of these principles. A second example is an EHS team that used these principles to accelerate the reduction of their carbon footprint and overall waste reduction.
In the Quantum EHS approach we have developed at Redinger EHS, the activity of building EHS Communities within an organization is central. When internal functions in an organization operate from “being connected” as opposed to “being separate” or being in a silo, that they are able to powerfully impact overall organizational performance.
© Redinger EHS, Inc. (2010)