WHAT DOES AN ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGER DO?
Published: Feb 17, 2025 - The Environmental Health and Safety Manager develops, manages, and leads comprehensive safety programs to elevate safety awareness, ensuring adherence to the company’s top priority of employee safety. This position oversees compliance with environmental, health, and safety regulations through meticulous audits, inspections, and management of industrial hygiene and site environmental activities. This role coordinates site insurance and supports corporate-level EH&S initiatives, actively maintaining cost-effectiveness across all operations.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Environmental Health and Safety Manager
1. Environmental Health and Safety Manager Duties
- Environmental Guidance: Provide environmental and safety technical guidance on new and existing processes, including chemical hazards, equipment safety, and process changes.
- Regulatory Compliance: Lead and conduct inspections to ensure regulatory compliance, perform and review risk assessments, and lead incident investigations.
- Emergency Response Coordination: Serve as emergency response coordinator for incidents, including spill response at large quantity generator facilities.
- EHS Supervision: Supervise all EHS activities across multiple sites, including leading a team of contract workers.
- Record Management: Prepare and maintain records for waste management, emergency right-to-know requirements, spill response, and other applicable fire and environmental reporting.
- Standards Compliance: Ensure compliance with all applicable local, state, federal, and company standards on all EHS matters.
- Inventory Oversight: Oversee and maintain equipment and chemical inventories, and develop applicable environmental reports and submissions.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with various departments, including facilities, project management, researchers, hardware engineers, security, and corporate EHS initiatives, maintaining positive relationships with cross-functional partners.
2. Environmental Health and Safety Manager Details
- EH&S Training Management: Manage all aspects of EH&S training, including reporting, tracking, maintaining, developing, and providing training to the account.
- Safety Training: Provide safety training (train-the-trainer) to ensure facility teams receive required training, including Confined Space, Power Truck, and Ergonomics.
- Behavioral Safety Program: Support the behavioral-based safety training program (SafeStart).
- Performance Monitoring: Oversee tracking and monitoring of EH&S performance metrics and manage all EH&S reporting.
- Compliance Tracking: Ensure timely AIMS entries, maintain account KPIs, ensure accurate OSHA logs, and escalate all incidents and injuries on time.
- Audit Analysis: Analyze and track audits, and prepare regular reports.
- Policy Development: Create, develop, and implement EH&S policies, practices, and programs at the site level.
- EH&S Advisory: Provide guidance and advice on EH&S management at all levels within the account.
- Technical Guidance: Provide technical advice on relevant EH&S issues, including legislative changes impacting service delivery.
- Incident Prevention: Lead EH&S standards to prevent accidents, incidents, and events that could harm employees or client property.
- Incident Investigation: Conduct EH&S-related investigations and root cause analyses (RCAs).
- Employee Support: Provide direct support to employees on industry EH&S compliance and site-specific operating requirements.
- Safety Culture Promotion: Promote and develop a positive health and safety culture across all account levels.
3. Environmental Health and Safety Manager Responsibilities
- Safety Program Management: Develop, manage and lead safety programs to keep safety awareness high, and ensure that all employees are aware that safety is the company’s number one priority.
- Safety Auditing: Audit safety procedures and processes to maintain compliance.
- Inspection Compliance: Ensure all required inspections are current and all documentation is accurate.
- Industrial Hygiene: Manage industrial hygiene programs.
- Environmental Activities Management: Develop, manage and lead site environmental activities to ensure compliance with all local, state and federal rules and regulations.
- Team Leadership: Develop, manage and lead site safety committee, emergency response team and industrial fire brigade.
- Insurance Management: Manage and coordinate site insurance activities with hazard and workers’ compensation insurance brokers.
- Corporate EH&S Support: Support environmental, health and safety activities at the corporate level, including field sales and purchasing representatives.
- Budget Preparation: Prepare the annual site budget for the operation based upon forecasted sales, cost of raw materials and production requirements.
- Cost-Savings Management: Maintain an active and effective cost-savings program for all aspects of the business.
- Audit Support: Support sites during audits from client, corporate, EH&S staff, as well as outside agencies such as OSHA, fire/building departments, health inspectors, air quality inspectors, and insurance representatives.
4. Environmental Health and Safety Manager Job Summary
- Safety Program Development: Provides safety programs and policies.
- Procedure Implementation: Develop and assist in the implementation of site-specific procedures; collaborate with Area Safety Teams and Committees.
- Program Improvement: Conduct program and policy reviews and provide recommendations for improvements.
- Policy Updates: Develop new programs or update existing programs and policies as required.
- Leadership in Safety: Provide plant-wide leadership and influence to improve organizational safety performance.
- Regulatory Compliance Management: Serve as the primary contact for governmental reporting agencies and ensure EHS, RCMS, and PSM requirements are defined and adhered to by departmental managers.
- VPP Star Status Maintenance: Maintain/achieve site VPP star status by ensuring EHS&S compliance with PSM regulations.
- Procedure Review: Participate in safety procedure and program reviews and updates.
- Incident Trend Analysis: Identify trends in incidents and near-miss reports and ensure root causes are addressed effectively and cost-efficiently.
- Regulation Expertise: Provide subject matter expertise on state and federal regulations and best practices.
- Employee Safety Training: Provide plant employee safety training.
- Training Project Implementation: Develop, prioritize, and implement training projects or programs to protect people, processes, products, and the environment from injury, risk, or economic loss.
5. Environmental Health and Safety Manager Accountabilities
- Safety Meeting Facilitation: Assist in conducting plant-wide safety meetings on various safety topics to ensure regulatory compliance.
- New Hire Safety Orientation: Conduct safety orientation sessions for new hires to ensure regulatory compliance.
- Targeted Safety Training Development: Develop targeted safety training projects as requested.
- Safety Leadership: Lead, direct, and coordinate safety, environmental health, Responsible Care, training, and loss control activities for continuous improvement.
- Proactive Safety Support: Provide and support safety leadership across plant functions to develop proactive safety approaches and achieve company goals.
- Project Assistance: Provide assistance during plant turnarounds and other construction or repair projects.
- Security Compliance: Serve as the site's Security Officer, ensuring compliance with MTSA standards.
- Safety Program Development: Develop and lead a company safety program to raise safety awareness, encourage employee engagement, reduce risks, and prevent accidents or injuries.
- Data Analysis for Improvement: Analyze inspection and incident data to develop metrics for continuous safety improvement.
- Risk Identification and Compliance: Lead facility and process inspections to identify safety, health, and environmental risks and ensure compliance with safety regulations.
- Incident Reporting: Record, maintain, and report inspection and injury incidents, and submit reports