How to Create Win/Win Client and Safety Consultant Relationships – What a Client Should Know Part 4: An Efficient Safety Consultant
How to Create Win/Win Client and Safety Consultant Relationships – What a Client Should Know Part 3: How to Enable A Successful Safety Consultant
October 13, 2022
Critical Safety Management System Components Part 1: Mental Health Program
August 19, 2024
Introduction
NOTE: This is part four of a four-part series discussing how clients can maximize relationships with their health and safety consultants. This blog will discuss the importance of an efficient safety consultant and how clients can enable their consultants to work even more efficiently.
If you hire health and safety consultants, you need to think about whether you (or your organization) make consultants jump through hoops. If so, then you may be forcing your consultants to do unnecessary work which leads to inefficiencies and higher invoices. Do not let this happen to you!
Background of an Efficient Safety Consultant
Like many of you, I have worked in consulting and industry (clients) holding various health, safety, and environment (HSE) roles. I started my HSE career working for a small environmental consulting firm. For the past 9 + years, I have been operating my consulting firm, Risk Defense Inc. I have worked with clients from education, logistics, IT, transportation, staffing, environmental engineering, occupational health, construction, and oil and gas. While working in industry, before starting up Risk Defense Inc., I also got an opportunity to do some consulting for a power generation and distribution company in the Caribbean.
I have also worked as an employee/client in the oil and gas (service and producer companies), agriculture, outdoor adventure, and construction industries. I share this because I have had some valuable insights that I can share from both sides of the coin when working with clients and consultants. One insight is ensuring your hire an efficient safety consultant and to prevent hoop jumping so they can be efficient.
An Efficient Safety Consultant Does Not Enjoy Hoop Jumping
Hoop jumping is when you make someone "jump through a hoop," which means forcing them to do complicated, vexing, or unnecessary work before they can achieve their goal. The online Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "jump a hoop" as "to do a complicated or annoying series of things in order to get or achieve something." One example they provide is "We had to jump through a lot of hoops to get a loan from the bank". So yes it makes sense to prevent hoop jumping as unnecessary work is both frustrating and expensive.
We are not talking about standard business practices here i.e., business development, writing proposals, etc. We are pointing more to unnecessary requirements, such as asking a health and safety consultant to do some free work before granting them future work or making things more difficult for the consultant than they need to be.
NOTE: This blog topic could also be applied to new employee hiring practices. Updating your resume and writing a cover letter is no longer enough. For many companies, the applicant must undergo multiple rounds of interviews (any more than three is probably too many). Some organizations require their employees to complete an unpaid company orientation before the employee has started (I am not sure if this is legal, but it certainly is not ethical). I guess everyone wants to get something extra for free (but this is not a McDonald's Happy Meal people!).
Click here for my blog on enabling your consultant to read about how you can set them up for success. While these two topics are similar, this blog is more about the importance of preventing hoop jumping.
Enabling An Efficient Safety Consultant
Consultants, contractors, and employees have one thing in common: we all provide a service to your organization, just in different ways. As a client employee, you represent your organization and you are responsible for maximizing the use of its resources. Consultants and contractors also want to maximize their, and your, resources (i.e., time, money, etc.) and avoid doing things that do not add value.
Clients will pay for the inefficiencies that result from hoop jumping one way or the other (i.e., consultant rate increases, falling off the consultant priority list, consultants no longer wanting to work for the company, etc.). Keeping this in mind, consider if you do any of the following four things.
Hurry Up and Wait
Ah yes, the classic game of hurry up and wait. If you need something, it is best practice to give your consultant the proper time to complete a proposal, project, etc. Also, consider they are likely juggling more than one ball. Expectations must be consistent between both parties. So if you require something in short order then you must be able to reciprocate.
There are, of course, cases when it is totally out of your control. But if hurrying up and waiting is the norm then it is likely other clients will become your consultants' priority. How would you act or feel if you were in the consultant's shoes?
And just because you used to be a consultant does not make the hurry-up-and-wait game okay because you had to go through it. Just because people used to smoke on airplanes does not mean it is acceptable today.
Reputation
Every action you make influences your reputation. While it is easy to point the finger at others, the real value from this statement comes from looking at what you are doing to create your reputation. If your consultants are forced to work in an inefficient manner, your company's consultant requirements will travel through industry.
Health and safety consultants talk, so you do not want to develop a reputation as a high-need client. Just like a client wants to pick the "best" health and safety consultant to support their business needs, a consultant wants to select the "best" client to support their business needs.
Mutual Respect
Building off the hurry up and wait game and reputation points above. Do you treat consultants the way that you want to be treated? If so, you get a Borat "high fiiiiiive!". If not, definitely something to look at there. To quote Wolverine from the Marvel comics and movies, "Nuff said, bub!".
Minimize Administration for an Efficient Safety Consultant
Are you aware of the administration required for a consultant to work for your company? The bigger the consultancy firm, the more likely they have the resources to accommodate your administrative requirements, but you are also paying a premium for this one way or another. But what about a small business? For example, if you work with a one person health and safety consultant firm, you might want to consider if it is necessary and if there is value for them to join a contractor registry.
Even if you are willing to pay for the annual cost (which most clients are not), the amount of work involved in filling out these systems can be overwhelming for a small company. Now, if there is value in them doing it fine but understand this will show up on an invoice one way or another. In regards to contracts, make sure you send the consultant the correct version, and if you require the consultant to read, sign off and follow the agreement, you should also.
Basically, one should evaluate if your company process enables an efficient safety consultant. If not, then update the process or make an exception. It is not just about efficiency for the consultant but also fewer things for the client to manage.
Conclusion
During an economic slowdown, you might be able to get your health and safety consultants to jump through hoops. But next year could be another boom, and then there is a shift in supply and demand, which leans more toward the consultants' favour. And remember, one day, you may want to become a health and safety consultant, so make sure you treat others how you would like to be treated or that karma boomerang might sting more than you think! Everyone's time is valuable so it is important to empower an efficient safety consultant.
This is the last blog, in a series of eight blogs (four for consultants and four for clients), exploring how health and safety consultants and clients each have responsibilities to ensure this win/win relationship is realized and actualized. I trust you have enjoyed reading the series, and I look forward to connecting with you to discuss these and other matters.
For more information on how to maximize client/health and safety consultant relationships and how this can benefit your company (or to discuss other ideas on how to take HSE at your company to the next level), please contact Risk Defense Inc. by filling out the contact form below.
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