Abstract
CFO’s and finance officers need to play a large role in your company’s safety culture to effectively manage risk. It is important for people in these positions to not focus on just the money, but on their role in the business as a whole and ways they can impact the company’s safety culture.
1. Lead
Finance officers must realize their power as a leader and show that they genuinely care. They need to visit plants, and operators the important questions such as: Do you have everything you need to operate safely? What could go wrong? How are people trained?
2. Design
Include training, time, maintenance, and improvement in your yearly budget. Implement risk criteria as a hard criterion for CAPEX allocation and NPV computation. By creating these mandates and attaching the money to them, you show your teams that safe operations are a requirement for all operations, and you help to shift the culture towards safe thinking.
3. Guard
Ensure spending and capital is happening, and question monthly when spending delays occur. Do not let important spending become “remaining dollars at year-end” or discretionary spending – ensure it gets done.
Learn how to recognize the dilemma of your position – CFO’s are viewed as the guardian of every dollar, and will be pressured to cut corners to save cash.
4. Anticipate
Understand the risks associated with mergers, acquisitions, and divestiture. Assess the assets for culture as well as cost and asset integrity and make detailed audits required.
Changes in economics will pressure the system and the common temptation is to use the safety budget as a buffer – ensure the dollars are being spent where they are allocated.
Complete due diligence and invest in new technologies to develop safer or greener operations. Products cannot be developed without capital first being invested in them.
Creating a safe culture involves everyone, especially the top leaders to make an impact. Finance may seem separate from safety, but it is critical to ensuring your company’s actions match its intentions.
Guerau Carbo