For over 20 years, Sean Baldry has made a career advocating for environmental, health, and safety (EHS) matters within the workplace and has strived to empower individuals across all organizational levels create better companies where people want to work, while helping them make it back home to their loved ones at the end of each day.
Currently, Sean serves as Cority’s Director of Product Marketing where he leads product marketing initiatives supporting Cority’s suite of EHS solutions, and helps customers realize the value available through a digital transformation of their EHS programs.
Cority is a market leading supplier of enterprise-grade, cloud-based (SaaS) EHS and sustainability software servicing more than 20 industries across six continents globally. Located in Toronto, Canada, with multiple offices globally, Cority develops people-first solutions that empower better business, enabling every individual at any level of the organization make better decisions that lead to a safer, healthier, and more sustainable future.
Sean started his career in the automotive sector in North America, working in environmental, health & safety roles for several Tier I part suppliers, including Magna International. Later, he entered into the construction materials industry, working for over 10 years in EHS with Holcim (formerly Lafarge) in Eastern Canada, ultimately reaching the role of Country Head of Health & Safety, where he led a diverse team of EHS professionals supporting operations across manufacturing, mining and construction sectors. During his tenure with Holcim, Sean was exposed to multiple software implementation projects, and upon realizing the value that software could offer to improve EHS decision-making and risk management, he joined Cority within their Product organization to help other business realize the same.
Sean is a graduate of the University of Guelph and Toronto Metropolitan University, and currently holds a Canadian Registered Safety Professional (CRSP) designation.
Q: How did you get your start in the field?
After graduating university, I started my career as an Environmental, Health & Safety Analyst at an automotive company that manufactured vehicle powertrain components. Over the next few years, I worked throughout the sector for several Tier I automotive parts suppliers that produced everything from vehicle seats to engine components and closure systems via plastic injection molding and metal stamping operations. Some years later, I had the opportunity to jump industries, and began working in occupational health and safety in the construction materials sector. That was a unique opportunity, since as a vertically integrated company, we had operations in manufacturing, mining, and construction sectors, which afforded the chance to work in three different industries at once.
Over that tenure, I was given the opportunity to manage several different software implementation projects and became increasingly interested in the value that software could offer for injury prevention and EHS performance improvement. In 2019, I joined Cority within their Product organization, and have loved every moment since.
Q: Who has been your biggest influence in the industry?
I’d have to say that over my career, I’ve had the pleasure of working with a number of excellent EHS professionals and organizational leaders, truly passionate advocates for workplace safety who have each imparted guidance that I continue to draw on to this day. But, in all honesty, the individuals that have had the biggest influence on my career have come from within my family.
I think I’ve always been drawn to the field of EHS, even from a very early age. My grandfather spent 30+ years working as a construction supervisor for a public electrical utility. My grandparents’ house was filled with awards and recognition letters that my grandfather had received for his leadership in health & safety back in the 1950s and 1960s. I later learned that his dedication to safety started after his best friend was tragically killed in a construction accident when he was in his early 20s.
My father was also severely impacted by workplace accidents, suffering multiple injuries while employed in the steel industry. Growing up, I recall visiting my father in the hospital after many of these events and watching him later struggle through physical recovery and navigating the challenges of worker’s compensation systems.
All in all, these experiences really shaped my passion and approach to health and safety. No one should ever lose their lives supporting their family. That thought grounds me and motivates me to help organizations improve EHS performance, even if it’s a little bit each day.
Q: What’s your best mistake and what did you learn from it?
I think what I learned very early in my career is that the people that best understand the things that can create harm in the workplace—and most importantly how to address them—are the people doing the work, not the individuals in the back office. These frontline workers are an invaluable resource that many organizations, unfortunately, fail to leverage effectively. There were many occasions where, as a young and eager EHS professional, I thought I knew more than I did, and failed to take advantage of the wealth of untapped expertise that exists within the workplace to advance EHS initiatives and ensure improved were sustained over time.
There’s often a belief amongst EHS professionals, especially those new to the profession, that they must have all the answers. I learned quite quickly that the people who interface with risk on a daily basis understand it better than anyone, and many have already discovered ways to effectively mitigate those risks. However, their voices are often not considered in problem solving and decision making. Yet, by leveraging their knowledge, organizations can implement better solutions to resolve identified risk faster, while using these frontline EHS leaders to advocate for and sustain these improvements over time. This approach is far more effective than pushing an edict from above and expecting people to follow it.
Q: What’s your favorite and least favorite part about working in the industry? Would you change anything?
The best part of working in the EHS industry is the ability to act as a conduit of ideas. Over the span of your career, you’re exposed to a number of different issues and challenges, along with a lot of great ideas and solutions developed to address those problems. I especially enjoy the ability to work with other individuals to investigate problems, diagnose issues, and share best practices that others have created and see how they can improve outcomes in a new setting. Acting as a coach, advocate and evangelist of EHS knowledge that will ultimately allow someone to get home to their loved ones is what I find most rewarding.
The frustrating part about working as an EHS professional is dealing with individuals or organizations who see the interaction between safety and production as a binary, zero-sum game. That one cannot exist with the other. Overall, I think we need to shift organizational perspectives and cultures to recognize that safety and production are not antagonistic forces, but instead two sides of the same coin that can co-exist. Once we’ve addressed that issue, it opens people’s minds to what’s possible. Even when resources are limited, there are still innovative ways to address risk and advance EHS performance. But it starts with having the right mindset, and seeing everyone in the organization, from the C-suite to the front line, as equal contributors in the process to reaching EHS excellence.
Q: What are your thoughts on safety culture? How can company leaders make safety a value within their organization?
Unfortunately, I feel that safety culture is somewhat of a buzzword these days, viewed by many as some kind of panacea. There’s an assumption amongst organizational leaders that “if only we could get the culture right, then we’d have exceptional EHS performance.” This implies that if EHS performance is trending negatively, there’s something wrong with the culture—or in other words, the people within the business. What these leaders fail to realize is that they are the ones who set the culture. So, whenever a leader questions their safety culture, they need to first be looking at themselves. What am I doing? What am I saying? What message am I projecting with my words and actions that convey the value of EHS across the organization?
About 20 years ago, Dominic Cooper introduced the concept that safety culture represents the interaction between three interconnected elements: a psychological element (what we think about safety), a behavioral element (what we do about safety), and an organizational element (what we have for safety). What this model described was that for a strong safety culture, we need the organization to have a strong foundation to enable safety success, including resources, structures, defined responsibilities, policies, etc. Once we have that organizational element, we can get people doing things in support of the EHS program, including hazard observations, inspections, corrective actions, etc. And once people within the business are actively and regularly engaging in the EHS program, and contributing to tangible improvements, we can change their mindsets, attitudes and perspectives on EHS (psychological element), whereafter they will acknowledge that “this is a good place to work,” and most importantly that “I have a responsibility and am willing to commit to helping keep the workplace a good (and safe) place to work.”
To that end, I’d recommend to any organizational leader thinking about how they can influence a more progressive, positive and effective safety culture, first ensure that the business has the necessary resources to enable EHS excellence, then focus on engaging and empowering the people within the business to support and eventually ‘own’ the EHS program. That’s how the program becomes sustainable. As people recognize the impact that their actions have on EHS performance, they will solidify the culture around the idea that “Safety is what we do around here.”
Q: What safety concerns or issues do you think need more prioritization in EHS programs?
It’s widely recognized that the rates of serious injuries and fatalities (SIF) have not dropped across industry sectors by nearly the same degree as lower-severity occupational incidents over the past two decades. And while organizations frequently promote their total recordable incident rate (TRIR) reductions as a badge of honor, having a low incident rate is somewhat meaningless if individuals are still dying on the job.
Fortunately, we’re seeing a lot of growing interest across industries, particularly within high-risk sectors, with respect to SIF prevention programs. Organizations are increasingly looking for new models, systems and tools to help them better detect where SIF potential is greatest within their operations, and what steps they can take to proactively detect SIF precursors and ensure that critical controls are in place to mitigate SIF exposure.
That focus on SIF prevention is particularly relevant considering the increasing attention given to corporate sustainability and ESG disclosures. As organizations share their ESG metrics more prominently in the public domain, they will likely come under greater scrutiny for their performance, specifically their injury rates and fatality counts, especially from investors evaluating organizations for business risk, not to mention young professionals determining who they want to work for. I think organizations are beginning to recognize that if they do not demonstrate massive improvements in fatality prevention, they will lose out on potential investment opportunities along with access to the best talent to remain competitive.
If your business isn’t talking about SIF prevention, now is the time to start.
Q: What will be the impact of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles on the EHS industry?
I think the growth in ESG principles creates enormous opportunity for the EHS industry and EHS professionals. For many sectors, the COVID-19 pandemic really helped reinforce the impact that poor EHS performance can have on business longevity and profitability, and helped solidify the value that EHS professionals deliver to their organizations. Now, the growth of ESG and sustainability is offering another opportunity for EHS professionals to re-position themselves as critical contributors to business performance, and to market the value of EHS in a different way.
Whereas EHS has been long considered a cost center within the business, EHS professionals can now use ESG and sustainability levers to demonstrate how EHS can act as a revenue-generating center. If better EHS performance strengthens the company’s brand equity, making the firm more attractive to investors and top talent, the company benefits from access to new funding streams to grow, and the best talent available to win in a competitive market. What ESG offers is the ability for the EHS professional to reframe the value of EHS from “something I have to do to manage costs” to “something we want (or need) to do to create future value for all stakeholders.”
Beyond that, as organizations begin to integrate ESG and sustainability principles into their EHS frameworks and program, EHS professionals are beginning to see their scopes of responsibility change. For some, they might find themselves with responsibilities to oversee and direct sustainability initiatives, while others may be required to collaborate more intimately with sustainability leaders across the business. In any case, this tighter link between EHS and sustainability will require EHS professionals to develop new skills, competencies, and perspectives to navigate this space effectively.
Q: How will new safety technologies influence the work being done by EHS professionals?
At Cority, we’re definitely seeing massive interest from organizations as to how they can leverage artificial intelligence to support EHS use cases—everything from simplifying the collection of EHS data, to curating and aggregating data for faster analyses, to providing point-in-time insights and recommendations to guide decision making. Obviously, the growing popularity of Generative AI tools like ChatGPT is getting EHS professionals thinking about how these tools can be configured to help solve real EHS problems in real-time.
So I’d expect to see more organizations pushing to trial these solutions, which will continue to put pressure on technology and software applications to deliver AI-powered products. What we want to be conscious of is that we’re solving real problems, and delivering real value from our technology investments, and not merely exploring AI for its own sake. Organizations should be putting careful thought into the use cases that AI could support, and also considering the data sources that will be used to create the insights that will drive their decisions. We’ve seen instances of ChatGPT creating insights based on false data, so we need to be careful on that front. Remember: garbage in, garbage out.
Beyond AI, as organizations strengthen their commitments to workforce mental health and wellbeing, many are looking to understand how technology can support these initiatives, whether that’s through providing self-service diagnostic tools and mental wellbeing content via a mobile app, enabling virtual appointments through telehealth services, or integrating existing EHS software with downstream Employee Assistance Programs (EAP), helping to remove barriers to care for those in need. EHS professionals will be involved in not only using these systems but designing them to ensure they deliver maximum value to the business. If designed and deployed correctly, these tools should help EHS professionals identify where psychosocial risks exist, accelerate interventions to minimize exposure to these risks, and help get people to the care they need, when and where they need it.
Q: What are you most proud of?
Looking back over my career to this point, I’m most proud of the opportunities I’ve had to influence individuals across organizational levels and advocate for greater attention, commitment to, and investment for EHS programs. I’m also particularly proud of the many opportunities I’ve had to support new EHS professionals starting off on their career journey, imparting some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way, and promoting them whenever I can. Building a stronger and more vibrant network of dedicated EHS professionals will benefit everyone, inside and outside our workplaces.
Q: Do you have any advice for people entering the profession?
While it’s important to build a strong understanding of the technical aspects of EHS, don’t forgot the softer skills: communication, relationship building and interpersonal skills, collaboration, negotiation, problem solving, and business acumen. Remember, you might know everything there is to know about EHS, but I believe that EHS professionals are, first and foremost, salespeople. Selling anything, whether that’s a tangible product or idea like EHS, requires that you can engage your audience, understand and empathize with them, appreciate their challenges and pain points, help them visualize a better future by coming along with you, and speaking their language. The last point is particularly relevant for senior leaders. Be able to translate your arguments for EHS investment in terms they understand (dollars and sense). Those soft skills are equally, if not more important, than being a technical expert.
Are you or a colleague an EHS professional interested in being profiled for the Faces of EHS series? Please contact Joe Bebon at JBebon@BLR.com.