Is Your Safety Consultant Ethical?

It seems like there are people claiming to be "experts" everywhere- so how do you spot the true experts among all the noise?  This video helps you identify exactly that with some red flags and key questions to ask then next time you hire a third party for PSM or Safety audits or training.   
This video is intended for educational purposes.  Solutions offered are not designed to take the place of an attorney or medical professional, and should not be taken as legal advice.  It is recommended that viewers consult an occupational safety legal team as applicable to help navigate their specific circumstances.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Let's talk about consultants, specifically
consultants in manufacturing andag business.
So if this is the first timewe're meeting, my name is Jen
Allen, I'm one of the owners ofAllen Safety and I am a safety
consultant.
And as a safety consultant, Ican tell you it's something
that's really easy to kind of beshy and right, I feel like a
lot of times there's a lot ofroom for being unethical in that
field, so that's why we'rebreaking it down today.
So my first big red flag is I'mat your side as a consultant

(00:30):
and I'm spending the entire timethat you're paying me to do job
A, selling you on all the otherjobs that I can do here and why
you should bring me back nexttime and trying to get future
work or repeat work or whateverthat looks like.
How about you just do your jobtoday and let whatever you're
doing today sell me on askingfor some other services?
Let's not make it weird, right?
Another one would be you'remaking me pay for a bid that you

(00:52):
created.
As a business owner, Iunderstand it's very time
consuming, but as a client Idon't like that because you
wouldn't get the work withoutthat.
So it's kind of like why are wepaying for that.
That's weird to me.
Another one is is when you startseeing folks step outside of
their lane of expertise.
I consult for OSHA stuff.
I don't consult for EPA.
So if someone called me andsaid, hey, can you fill out my
Tier 2, my TRI, can you go anddo some wastewater sampling or

(01:15):
give me some ideas on that?
No, no, I can't.
I am not an EPA expert.
So, conversely, when I seeenvironmental groups or teams
start melding into the OSHA side, my first question is is how
are you qualified to consult andgive advice on the safety side
if you exclusively have anenvironmental background and you
don't have any experiencedealing with the safety side?

(01:36):
I don't love, as a payingclient, paying for them to get
experience doing it slower andas not an expert, and then they
can become more of an expert andtake it somewhere else.
I don't like that idea.
So if you start getting a groupthat's saying we can do that,
we can do that, oh, over there,we can do that too Start asking
questions how they're qualifiedand then also ask questions if

(01:56):
their insurance that they havefor their business covers all
this extra add-on work.
They might not even havecoverage if things don't go
right.
The last big red flag that Iwould say that I have is from
the auditing side.
So there's this thing that ifyou don't go too hard on a
company you'll get invited back,but if you do go too hard and
you have a lot of findingssometimes you don't get invited

(02:17):
back.
Right, there is that thingthat's out there.
If you're getting any audit andit's one or two pages or it's a
half day, so anything like aPSM compliance audit, that's not
a half a day for the majorityof sites, right, if I see
mechanical integrity and it'snot a few day audit, it's not a
branded facility and it's a onepage document.
I have questions, right?
So you are coming in as acorporate person and you see a

(02:39):
one page document for some ofthese different repeat audits.
So the compliance audit,mechanical integrity, the PHA
audit, a safety audit, anythinglike that, that should be a big
red flag that maybe something'sa little off with that auditor.
So if you want more like this,check out our Island Safety
YouTube channel.
Please like, share, comment,all of the things it really does
.
Help us.
And until next time, guys, staysafe and we'll see you later.

(03:25):
Thank you.
So.
So, thank you you.