This unit emphasizes the importance of corporate philosophy and upper-management support of pollution prevention (P2), particularly if additional employees need to be hired to run a P2 program. Do your work experiences support the view that upper-management support is crucial? If you do not have experience in P2 programs, how important is upper-management support to other initiatives within companies for which you have worked? You can also discuss the question if you have military, organizational, or other types of experiences that are not necessarily corporate.
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CHRISTOPHER:
When it comes to changes in a business or corporation, upper management support is essential if you are to have long term success. Management support helps give you the financial and support resources you need to be successful. Equally important is upper management being able to influence the entire team to get everyone working together to achieve the P2 goal.
Safety management is one area that I have seen this work best. At a previous employer we had put together a management system that was solid, we had a well trained and educated safety team and still struggled to eliminate the injuries we were having across the organization because we did not have the support of upper management.
The plant manager was replaced and his priority was on safety. With his ability to refocus the rest of the team and support the safety team, we were able to drop our lost time accident rate by 92% in the first year and achieved 1000000 hours without a recordable injury within 18 months. That was a decrease of 36 recordable injuries from the previous year.
Management support is critical to the success of any program within an organization.
