Workplace Environmental Health & Safety

Environmental Health and Safety

Every facility is made up of a series of differing work environments, whether it’s office, production, laboratory, warehousing, shipping/receiving, work yard, or any combination of these diverse environments, each having their own EH&S requirements. Wisent programs are designed with the understanding of the challenges within each of these unique work environments, complementing any existing EH&S programs.  The goal is a healthier and safer day-to-day work environment and the improved long term health of your staff.

A simple way to maximize environmental health and safety is to recognize potentially harmful materials onsite, and eliminate or replace them with healthier yet equally effective alternatives.  Where potentially harmful materials are necessary to run your business, identifying these materials and ensuring their safe use and disposal minimizes environmental impact and increases health and safety, protecting your business. Wisent facilitates material handling in a manner that is efficient and seamless within your existing business workflows, supporting EH&S while enhancing productivity.

Because our programs are process driven to maximize efficiency, this structure promotes adherence to regulations and EH&S standards.  By providing supporting documentation which can include SOPs, training materials, signage and regulatory documentation where required, we enable staff to perform their work duties following best practices and within regulatory requirements.  Incorporating Environmental Health and Safety principles into our programs promotes employee engagement and well being, fostering healthy work environments and a productive workforce, while protecting your business.

Sustainability initiatives drive employee engagement and assist with recruiting and retention

Initiating a Sustainability program within an organization has been proven to drive Employee Engagement, becoming a source of employee pride, demonstrating that the company cares about its employees, and helping them connect organizational values to their own personal values.  Higher levels of employee engagement have been proven to benefit companies in the key areas of recruitment, retention and productivity.

Sustainability programs can be difficult to craft and implement, and consume internal resources requiring specialized skill sets that may not fall within any existing roles and responsibilities.  Wisent works with our clients from inception to implementation to deliver a Sustainable Facilities Management program that we then manage in partnership with you.  Our program incorporates sustainable practices into your day to day operations providing a visible, tangible and interactive way to engage your entire workforce and communicate your commitment to achieving sustainability goals.

Companies with high employee engagement levels, according to a recent Gallup study, have significantly better metrics in several key performance areas.  Employee turnover was between 25-65% lower depending on industry sector, absenteeism was 37% lower, and productivity and profitability were 20% higher compared with companies with low employee engagement scores.  Incorporating a sustainability program can be an important step toward increasing employee engagement levels and driving retention.

In an always competitive recruiting environment, corporate sustainability can act as a differentiator, attracting higher quality prospects to a company’s recruitment pool.  Candidates who identify with a company whose organizational values are consistent with their own are more likely to actively seek an opportunity with that company and be motivated to be considered for a position.

Sustainability programs have been proven to drive employee engagement and create subsequent positive impacts in the areas of productivity and employee retention, while reducing absenteeism and attracting strong candidates for recruitment.  Engaged employees are therefore directly correlated to corporate performance outcomes, and Wisent’s programs provide a platform to realize these benefits.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

CSR is defined as the way a business integrates social, environmental and financial considerations (Triple Bottom Line) into their corporate culture, values, strategy, decision making and overall operations in a transparent and accountable manner. A company’s CSR program will differ depending on a number of factors including its size, market position, geographic scope and activities, but is most effective when guided with a sensitivity to what is meaningful for that business.  A comprehensive CSR program provides opportunities to leverage enhanced brand equity and goodwill, improved recruiting and retention abilities, and companies with progressive and active CSR programs tend to be more innovative and competitive in their markets.

A successful CSR program moves beyond declared intentions to effective, observable and measurable outcomes.  Businesses with an existing CSR program can find it difficult to translate high level CSR concepts into their day to day operations, which can result in programs that appear aspirational instead of having substantive goals and results.  Businesses looking to create a new CSR program can struggle with where to begin.  Wisent’s programs provide an opportunity for our clients to add tangible results to their existing CSR program, or can provide a solid foundation for the development of one.