External Management of OHS Projects

Due to lack of internal expertise, lack of personnel, lack of budget or lack of ability to provide a dedicated resource, health and safety projects are occasionally left behind. Doing so is negligent, as our blog on the cost of non-safety explains. Indeed, occupational accidents cost much more than investing in safety-related projects.

Because of the aforementioned reasons, some companies call on external consultants to take charge of their occupational health and safety (OHS) projects. Making use of external consultants present many benefits, as indicated by the 2007 Prosci Change Management Research, cited in Amélie Mongrain’s memoir (Mongrain, 2012), for instance the consultants’ experience in the field, their tools, their methodology and their evaluations.

Here is a table that applies to the field of health and safety consulting, which summarizes the reasons for employing to external consultants taken from Amélie Mongrain’s memoir (Mongrain, 2012):

There are several theories about the different phases and steps of effective project management, but if we look at the one identified by the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), it is possible to draw a close connection between OHS project management and what we are able to do.