If OSHA Sends Experts, Why Are You Sending Generalists?
In most organizations, Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) is treated like a checkbox:
- Hire "a safety person"
- Verify the résumé looks solid
- Maybe give them a quick interview
- Then send them to whatever project needs a body the most
And that's exactly how good companies end up with the wrong EHS professional on the wrong project at the worst possible time.
Meanwhile, look at OSHA.
If OSHA is tasked with an inspection involving heavy confined space work, they don't send an excavation specialist and hope for the best. They send the confined space expert. If the issue is cranes, they bring in the crane person. If it's process safety, they bring in someone who lives and breathes PSM.
OSHA aligns expertise with the problem.
Most companies don't.
That's the gap benchmarking is designed to close.
The Unregulated Reality of the EHS Occupation
Here's the uncomfortable truth: EHS as a profession is completely unregulated.
Anyone can call themselves "Safety Manager" or "EHS Director" and collect certifications, but none of that guarantees they have the depth of knowledge your project actually needs. There's no standardized, industry-wide method that tells you:
- Where a candidate's strengths truly are
- Where their knowledge gaps and blind spots lie
- Which project types they are genuinely ready to support
- Where they need training or mentoring before being put in charge of high-risk work
Right now, both companies and candidates are flying half-blind.
Most assessments (if they exist at all) are pass/fail.
You either "passed the test" or you didn't.
What you almost never see is a detailed benchmarking analysis that says:
"You're very strong in fall protection, LOTO, and incident investigation, but you're weak in excavation, rigging, and confined space – and here's exactly how that impacts which projects you should be leading."
Without that level of insight, how can any organization truly strategically arrange their team for success?
Why Pass/Fail Isn't Enough Anymore
Pass/fail might tell you if someone has a basic grasp of OSHA, but it tells you nothing about how to deploy them.
Think about it like this:
- Would you assign a brand-new, minimally tested crane operator to your most complex critical lift just because they "passed the certification"?
- Would you put a newly licensed pilot in charge of an international flight with zero time in that aircraft model because "they passed the test"?
Of course not.
Yet in EHS, we routinely do the equivalent:
- We send a generalist to a high-risk excavation project with deep utilities, because "they're our safety person."
- We send someone who's good at paperwork and training to a high-voltage substation or confined space tank cleaning project, without verifying they truly understand the hazards at that level.
Pass/fail gives you a false sense of security. Benchmarking gives you actionable intelligence.
Benchmarking: Bringing the OSHA Mindset In-House
OSHA doesn't guess. They send specific experts for specific hazards.
Your company should operate the same way with its own EHS team.
That's where an EHS knowledge benchmarking service comes in.
Instead of relying on résumés, references, and a gut feeling, you get a structured, detailed analysis of each candidate or staff member across key domains, such as:
- Excavation and trenching
- Confined space entry and rescue
- Fall protection and scaffolding
- Electrical safety and arc flash
- Cranes and rigging
- Hazard communication and chemicals
- Process safety, lockout/tagout, hot work, etc.
But the real value isn't just the score. It's what you can do with the information.
Matching the Right EHS Professional to the Right Project
Once you have benchmarked data, you're no longer just "staffing
safety."
You're strategically assigning expertise.
With detailed benchmarking, you can:
Align strengths to risk:
Put your strongest confined space expert on the project with tank entries and IDLH potential – not just whoever is "available."
Avoid dangerous misalignment:
Stop sending someone whose main experience is general building to a HDD, deep utility, substation, or industrial shutdown project they are not prepared for.
Build complementary teams:
Pair a strong field-oriented EHS lead with a counterpart who excels in documentation, training, and regulatory nuance. Now you've got a complete safety presence, not a lopsided one.
Guide development and mentoring:
Use the benchmarking results to create targeted training plans so your mid-level EHS staff can grow into the next level of responsibility with clarity, not guesswork.
Support critical staffing decisions:
Promotions, project assignments, rotations, and even performance reviews become grounded in data, not politics or personality.
In other words, you're no longer staffing EHS by job title—you're staffing by verified capability.
The Risk of Not Benchmarking
Without fundamental benchmarking and insight into individual EHS knowledge, organizations:
- Misalign EHS resources with project risk
- Overestimate what certain individuals are ready to handle
- Underutilize high-potential people who could be doing more
- Increase exposure to serious incidents, claims, and regulatory action
This isn't just a "nice to have" management tool. In today's high-risk, high-visibility environment, targeted alignment of EHS expertise is:
- Fundamental to safeguarding lives
- Critical for reducing risk and liability
- A driver of operational excellence and project predictability
You'd never tolerate that level of guesswork from your engineers, crane operators, or electricians. There's no reason to tolerate it in EHS.
Our Benchmarking Service: Clarity Before Commitment
Our EHS benchmarking service is designed to provide exactly the clarity most companies are missing.
Instead of "Pass/Fail – good luck," you get:
- A granular view of each candidate's strengths and gaps
- A meaningful comparison across your EHS team
- A practical roadmap for who should be assigned where—and why
That allows you to act like OSHA does:
Right expert. Right hazard. Right assignment.
Bottom Line
In an unregulated EHS world, you can't afford to manage safety on assumptions and résumés.
If OSHA sends specific experts, you should too.
Benchmark your EHS candidates and staff. Know their strengths. Understand their gaps. Then send the right professional to the project that matches their expertise.
That's how you protect people, protect the business, and elevate EHS from a checkbox to a true strategic advantage.
Ready to Benchmark Your Team?
Discover how our EHS benchmarking service can help you strategically align expertise with project risk.