Author: Christina Boland

As employers work to fill EHS positions with candidates who have the skills and attitude necessary to do the job, they seek “informed” candidates the most, according to a 2018 survey conducted by Glassdoor. These are the job applicants who have researched your company and know they want to work for you. They are the people who will be most engaged and productive.

However, if the informed candidate doesn’t like what he hears about your organization, he may steer clear of working for you.

The Top Hiring Challenge for Employers 

Employers report that their biggest hiring challenge is attracting quality EHS job applicants who are knowledgeable about the industry, job role and your company.

If you’re trying to fill an EHS position, you might want to make some changes to your recruiting strategy because informed candidates research potential employers before they accept a new job.

“Recruiting strategies of the past are no longer enough to attract today’s candidates who are more informed than ever before thanks to transparency and more company information available online,” said Carmel Galvin, CHRO at Glassdoor.

Informed Job Candidates Make a Positive Impact on Your Workplace

Informed candidates save you time throughout the hiring process, improving the interview experience and decreasing costs. Hiring decision makers say the largest benefits of hiring informed candidates is an improved experience for potential employees (38 percent of those surveyed), reduced time to hire (34 percent) and improved satisfaction of hiring managers (34 percent), according to the Glassdoor survey.

Once informed candidates are hired, they positively influence employee engagement and retention. The top benefits of hiring an informed applicant are improved employee retention (42 percent of those surveyed), and a more productive (42 percent) and engaged (41 percent) employee.

How to Attract Informed Job Candidates

Hiring decision makers say the biggest influences on whether a job applicant joins their company is salary and compensation (48 percent of those surveyed), workplace culture (37 percent), and company reputation/employer brand (36 percent).

Here are some important things you can do increase your company’s chances of attracting quality job applicants:

1. Provide your candidates with the right information they need to make the decision to work for you. When you’re hiring an EHS professional, make sure to explain the importance of occupational safety, health and environment to your organization and its leaders. Talk with the applicant about the safety and health investments your company makes, your strategy for improvement, and how the role they’re interviewing for will contribute to improved safety performance. Additionally, highlight your company’s values, such as staff engagement, environmental management and community leadership, because candidates look for organizations with values similar to their own.

2. Invest in better employer branding. Hiring decision makers are investing more in employer branding to make sure applicants have the information they need about their organization and workplace culture. When potential employees recognize a company’s brand, it’s easier for that company to recruit them and to attract informed applicants. According to another Glassdoor study, 65 percent of users surveyed were more likely to respond to a recruiter from an organization they know than from one they don’t recognize.

3. Look to current employees to spread the word about job openings. Hiring decision makers are also asking current employees to share with their network details about open positions and their work experiences.

Job seekers are no longer simply looking for a job, according to Galvin. They’re looking for work that is meaningful and a company that shares their values. Hiring managers need to invest in creating a positive workplace culture and making their brand recognizable to attract quality job candidates for their organization.

Adapted from: Attracting Top Quality Candidates Is a Challenge (Even for Safety Leaders), EHS Today.

Does your safety leader need to be the top safety expert in your organization?

EHS Daily Advisor took a look at what the leaders of the world’s safest companies had in common. They learned that organizations in the top quartile of safety participation have an incident rate of 3.5 times lower than the bottom quartile.

After conducting interviews to learn how the safety leaders from the safest companies developed their cultures, EHS Daily Advisor found they took five important steps:

1. The CEO commits to maintaining a safe workplace and does so publicly.
2. The CEO appoints a safety leader and provides him or her with the tools to drive change.
3. The safety leader is supported by frontline employees.
4. Managers respond quickly to new safety initiatives.
5. The organization expands the safety program to other departments or sites.

Your first thought may be to hire someone with a strong safety background. However, that might not be the best move.

What Skills Should Your Safety Leader Possess?

• The ability to drive change: This is the most essential skill that your safety leader can have. You may already have a leader like this in your company. It could be an A-player who you hired to turn around a department that was struggling. It’s easy to hire someone who is skilled in change management and train him or her in safety. It’s much more difficult to go the other way around. Your safety leader doesn’t serve the role of “safety cop” who tells employees to wear their protective equipment. This person is a change agent who develops a culture of safety where all workers put on their protective equipment without even thinking about it.

• Experience leading large projects: Cultivating a safety culture will require new tools, so your safety leader should be experienced in taking the lead for a large procurement operation where he or she has to select the right vendor or solution, present the business case to upper management and stakeholders, and secure the necessary funding.

• The capability to work well with your frontline staff: Your frontline employees are the people who carry out the daily work, so the safety leader must earn their support. Your safety leader must convey to employees that a safe workplace ensures everyone goes home safely every day, and that a better safety record allows the company to gain more contracts, increasing job security for employees.

• The aptitude to connect well with managers: Safety leaders must make sure that managers have the resources and systems they need to respond to new safety initiatives. If managers’ workloads prevent them from responding to safety activities in a timely manner, frontline employees will become frustrated and the safety leader will likely lose their support.

A strong safety culture isn’t achieved. Instead, it’s maintained. The safety leader you promote or hire must be able to lead the changes that push your organization in the right direction, ensure that these changes are maintained, and sustain a culture of safety for the long term.

Adapted from: Finding the Right Leader to Drive Safety Participation, EHS Daily Advisor, Josh LeBrun.

There is an increasing demand for environmental engineers in organizations. Environmental engineers serve a critical role by planning and performing engineering responsibilities in order to prevent, control and manage environmental health hazards.

Their work functions include conducting research on hazardous waste management, designing and implementing systems for water supplies, and assessing the potential impact of proposed construction projects on the environment.

Here are some important projections and trends for this essential environmental job role from EHS Daily Advisor:

• The median salary for environmental engineers is changing across states. Nationwide, the median salary for environmental engineers increased just 0.49% from 2016 to 2017. This job role is paid the highest in Alaska, but South Dakota saw the largest percentage increase in median income, rising from $71,845 in 2016 to $91,535. The lowest median income is in Georgia, while New Mexico had the biggest drop in salary, decreasing from $107,272 in 2016 to $89,426 in 2017.

• Employment of environmental engineers is rising. Employment of this critical job role is projected to increase by 8 percent from 2016 to 2026, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This is about average across all occupations.

• Water issues are increasing the demand for environmental engineers. The growing concerns of state and local government regarding water availability and quality boost the need for environmental professionals. Environmental engineers are required to provide professional, scientific and technical services to increase the efficiency of water use.

Additionally, wastewater treatment is becoming a bigger issue in areas of the United States where drilling for shale gas requires massive volumes of water. The EPA’s focus on cleaning up contaminated sites should continue to sustain the need for environmental engineers. 

The BLS projects that environmental engineers will continue to be needed to help water treatment plants and utility companies stay in compliance with federal and state laws. As state environmental rules and their enforcement become increasingly important, environmental engineers who are well-versed in state-specific laws for multiple states will have an advantage when it comes to employment opportunities.

Adapted from: Is the Need for Environmental Engineers Growing?, EHS Daily Advisor, Clare Condon.