Management Commitment and Involvement - How to obtain it and sustain it for your EHS Program. Introduction.   Review last time.   Main topic: "Management Commitment – how to obtain and sustain it.”   Upcoming events and happenings of importance to environmental, health and safety professionals in the BioPharma Industry.   Important announcement to talk about and I’m very excited about this, and I believe you will be too.   Episode 6 we discussed some of key regulatory agenda items for 2011.  Those items on OSHA’s regulatory agenda and having the most impact on the Biopharma industry are I2P2 or injury illness and prevention programs, and the pending finalization of the revisions to the hazard communication standard.     Key parts of I2P2 are likely to be management commitment, employee involvement, and hazard identification.  OSHA has indicated that this is their key regulatory agenda item for this year.  If you want more details on that discussion, I would suggest that you go back to Episode 6 and listen.  You should also stay tuned to the BioPharma EHS podcast for updates on I2P2 in future episode.     We then discussed, how OSHA was indicating that they hope to have the revised hazard communication standard that incorporates the global harmonization system elements into the standard completed by August of this year.  I did mention in that podcast, that these changes will require significant changes to material safety data sheets, and package labeling.  Which also means that you will have to update your written program, your training programs, and re-train employees.  Again, I would suggest that you go back to Episode 6 and listen in.   Well, the discussion on I2P2 and management commitment, leads us into our next topic - Management Commitment – how to obtain it and sustain it.   Often hear EHS managers state, “If I just have management commitment. If I just have management involvement.  Our progress would be so much better.”  Well, first off, any experienced environmental, health and safety professionals knows that “yes” management commitment and involvement is a critical component to a successful EHS program, but as I always tell EHS managers, be careful what you ask for and know exactly what your asking.    Because when you start asking for senior management to be deeply involved in your program, along with that involvement comes a significant increase in accountability and a lot of work on your part.  And if your strategies, your goals, your objectives, don’t deliver on their promises – then senior management may be looking carefully at your ability to make strategic decisions and execute them.   So, before you start asking for their involvement you need to know what you want and what they want.    ·      First off, gain a solid understanding of what your company does, the key strategic goals for the next several years, and gain an understanding of their current business cycle – is the business in a rapid growth mode or downsizing mode?  If often surprises me, how few environmental, health and safety professional understand the company that they work for in terms of strategic direction, product and service offerings, and the overall business. ·      You also want to understand who the key influencers in the organization are and why? – who has the ear of the CEO? Who does the CEO listen to? ·      Second, understand the language of the CEO.  It’s been my experience that you can tell a lot about the type of language that they want to hear by understanding their education and background.  Prior to becoming a CEO was their experience in finance, sales and marketing, operations, or science?  In the biotech industry, it’s very common to have CEOs with a science background.  I’ve heard that in the past several yea