Integrated risk management (IRM) is becoming a priority across organizations, according to a new study from Origami Risk. The reason for this is complex risks such as those arising from extreme weather and climate issues, indoor air pollution, and infectious disease.
These risks pose daunting challenges which may not be adequately addressed by traditional approaches. Therefore, EHS professionals are increasing collaboration with other organizations in their companies including risk, compliance and other departments. And mobile technology is aiding this effort.
The study compared EHS professionals to individuals in risk-related domains including insurable risk, enterprise risk and compliance, and found EHS professionals less optimistic than risk practitioners about their preparedness and overall business outlook.
The EHS professionals, who accounted for approximately 25% of the 240 participants in the survey, were 15% less likely to feel “moderately or highly prepared for the next crisis” and 5% less likely to feel above average or excellent about their six-month performance outlook.
In terms of technology, EHS respondents were 18% more likely than other risk professionals surveyed to be using mobile technology, but 78% less likely to be moving forward with AI programs. The survey traced the EHS reticence to lack of bandwidth and readiness, for both learning a new technology and processing all the data it will generate. There was also concern over AI replacing current safety jobs.
“In this environment, leading EHS professionals are pressed for new ways to expand their toolboxes,” said Sean Salvas, senior market strategy lead-EHS at Origami Risk, in a statement. “Despite their concerns about GenAI approaches, these capabilities can reduce administrative burdens and free EHS teams for more direct interaction with workers and supervisors to strengthen safety and prevent incidents and injuries.”
Another key for EHS professionals looking to “level up” their individual and departmental capabilities: breaking silos and connecting with other departments. The study found EHS making progress in this area. Indeed, 55% of EHS professionals polled had plans to integrate the EHS systems with other systems in the current year, and about 40% of EHS respondents have already connected their software systems to either risk management, compliance, or internal audit technology systems. Other systems EHS professionals have integrated with include fleet management, finance and HR/payroll.
“A critical step to unlock the potential of integrated solutions involves centralizing the data to establish a single ‘source of truth’ and actionable insights across the enterprise,” Salvas noted. “Single platform solutions bring significant advantages over multi-point solutions that typically store and process data in separate databases resulting in siloed data that is challenging to integrate and report on.”