143: Safety Budgeting 101

Jill James:

This is the Accidental Safety Pro brought to you by HSI. This episode is recorded August 21st, 2026. My name is Jill James, HSI's chief safety officer. And today, we're talking about something that isn't always covered in formal EHS education, yet it can have a tremendous impact on our ability to protect workers and improve workplace safety. And that is safety budgets. Whether you've been handed responsibility for a multimillion dollar budget or you're trying to secure funding for your very first safety initiative, you've likely experienced the challenge of translating safety needs into budget priorities. We know the value of preventing injuries, reducing risk and investing in people. The challenge is helping others see and understand that value too. Recently, my guest and I presented a webinar called the EHS Budget Playbook: Turn Safety Needs into Budget Wins. During that conversation, attendees asked thoughtful questions about funding challenges, executive buy-in, grants, employee engagement, and what to do when the answer to your safety request is simply no. Those questions inspired today's conversation. My guest today is John Liesmaki. John is senior director of environmental health and safety at Apogee Enterprises. John has extensive experience helping organizations connect safety initiatives with budget objectives and making the case for investments that improve worker wellbeing while supporting business success. He's also someone who understands that great safety ideas don't automatically receive funding and that the ability to communicate business value is increasingly important for safety professionals. And here's a fun fact. John and I went to the same college to earn our master of industrial safety degrees, though not at the same time. We're both from Minnesota and have the accents to prove it. John, thanks for being here.

Jon Liesmaki:

Thanks, Jill. Happy to be here. Excited to continue this conversation that we had during the webinar. One of the things that I though I kind of took through, I've had some people reach out through LinkedIn and talk about how much they enjoyed the podcast. And one of the things that I ... a theme that kind of runs through that is why do you think so many safety professionals feel unprepared when they suddenly expected to create and defend a budget?

Jill James:

Yeah. I mean, it's a lot about what I said in the opening, right? You and I went to the same university and we didn't talk about this stuff. There wasn't a specific course that was giving us the tools we needed to even have a basic business acumen toolkit, even the budgeting language or accounting language. That just was non-existent in our education. I don't know if that's true for all EHS degrees, but it certainly wasn't true in our program. And I think we are so focused on regulations that maybe our training just left out some of those things that someone with maybe a business degree just comes with. What do you think?

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah, I agree. I thought one of the greatest things, and there might have been a difference between when I went through the program and when you went through the program, I thought one of the greatest things we did is we had a whole semester course on soft skills. And you and I have talked and as you look across those ones, the most successful EHS professionals are the ones that can take those soft skills. But as we sit now and look, and after doing the webinar, I was like, man, we should have had a class on economics or finance of business as well to be able to add to that toolkit that we could use to be even further successful in the profession.

Jill James:

Yeah, for sure. And John, I have pitched this particular topic to our grad program and we're welcome to present it as guest speakers. And so, we can hopefully help the next generation a little bit.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah. I mean, that'd be great to be able to push and say, "Hey, this is a big deal more than just John and Jill coming in and talking, future programs should consider adding this in as part of the curriculum."

Jill James:

Right, right. Yeah. So John, when you got into the real world, in air quotes, what was your first experience building a budget?

Jon Liesmaki:

So from a budget standpoint, I had a little bit in consulting. So I started my career and moved from the Duluth program down to Southern California, which in itself, was a culture shock. But with some first clients, as I started a, "Hey, you're going to work on projects. Here, go and do this, and you're a pump jockey, more or less." The more I got into it, the more it's like, "Okay, well put ..." they want to do this, put a budget together for this new sampling or this. And so I got to do a little bit of, "Okay, here's my run rate. Here's what I'm going to need for my manager to review my report and get it out. And then here's our standard upcharts and stuff like that. But that was for somebody else to ... I put a quote together and handed it to them. It wasn't me actually budgeting anything. I would say the first experience I had at that is when I moved to Honeywell and actually was kind of in charge of my own site. I referenced it a little bit in the webinar of putting together for the guardrail system. It was one of the first ones that I did and said, "Hey, it was a finding that we had from not only an internal corporate audit, but we were also working on going to OSHA VPP." And so, as part of that, it was recommended, "Hey, you have work here. It's easier than tie off points." And so, going and asking leadership and saying, "Hey, we need tens of thousands of dollars to put this in." And we looked at, is that a capital expense? Is that an operating expense? How can we transition and get this cost in? And we kind of joked a little bit that we piecemealed it early on and we bought sections and chunks until there was a chance where we were like, "All right, we're getting close to the end. Let's put a CapEx project in, put a capital request in for that last chunk and just get it done."

Jill James:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking about my first request as well. And my first request, ironically, was also about a guardrail system. And I got a hard no from the ... I was working at a medical clinic system at the time, and the roof needed a guardrail system for some of the maintenance activities that happened on the roof. And I put together what I thought was a really great request. And when I say what I thought was a great request, I did it based on having been an investigator with OSHA. So I built a case like I would that the attorneys general would've liked, not an administrator. And I got a flat out, no. I don't see any other guardrails on any other roofs around this area. So no, go away, safety lady. And so, the next time, I needed to ask for money for something, I learned really quickly that collaborating with people who had budgets was my fastest way to a win. And so, the next thing in that same place of employment was a major hazardous waste initiative and doing a lot of evaluations on who is going to be our hauler. And gosh, we can't put everything into a red sharps container. We actually have met other types of hazardous waste here and doing this whole project. And I found out that the purchasing manager could be an ally of mine because she was actually in charge of ordering things like waste containers. And so, she and I took the project on together and we got that funded and really transformed the way that they were disposing of all types of waste in this massive clinic system. And so collaborators were my help aid at that time.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah. And I think if we look at what are the early mistakes we made starting with budgets, it's not collaborating right away. It's being naive and going up there and like, "Well, it's a compliance request. We have to do this."

Jill James:

Right.

Jon Liesmaki:

And walking up and just thinking that just leaning on a regulation is going to give you the yes you need right away. I'd say that's probably the biggest mistake young professionals probably make when it comes to asking for money for the first time.

Jill James:

100%. 100%. Because it's our hearts for justice for people and that why wouldn't anybody, it's the right thing. It's the compliance thing.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah, and the other one is just coming with one solution. And I'm sure you did the same thing. When I came with the guardrail system, it was like, "Well, we can rent ..." there are temporary or those ... the different-

Jill James:

Yeah. The stanchions.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah. Yeah. The stanchions you can do or the fall protection speeds. We can tie off and put them in a harness. And yeah, that's more difficult and it's more time-consuming. And now we have to rely on humans and workers to do the right thing every single time instead of cutting the corner and thinking, "Hey, I'm just going out to replace the filters in that HVAC system. I can walk out there without guardrails or tying off." And so, not coming and understanding those second, third options before you get out there, definitely some of those early mistakes.

Jill James:

Yeah, exactly. In the webinar, we talked a lot about speaking the language of finance, learning that language. Why do you think that's so important? I mean, I know that's a rhetorical question, but for our listening audience. Yeah.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah. To be able to go in and to be able to speak what they're speaking and understand where they're coming from and how stuff fits in the budget gives you that kind of reputable spot at the table to start having the discussion. As an analogy, it's moving from the kids' table up to the adult table and not talking about kid things once you get there.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Jon Liesmaki:

And so, understanding their language, their vernacular, the jargon that they use, goes a long way into then getting a serious look at the table when it comes to saying, "All right, now I need to ask for money. I need to be able to discuss this and be able to discuss it professionally in a way that they're going to understand."

Jill James:

Yeah. One of the things that we put together for the webinar that I'm sure Emily, our producer will be putting in the show notes for this podcast are some of the resources that we created. And one of them is Accounting Terms 101. Literally the terms that we've heard most often from finance teams and leadership teams to help build that vernacular for you. So we created just literally a definition sheet so you can teach yourself and learn that.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah. And I would ... to second that as you're starting to get in and know that maybe, "Hey, as I'm starting to grow in my EHS career, I'm going to need to do this." Asking for mentorships, asking your finance people, "Hey, can I spend time? Do you mind if I ... I have an opening? Can I sit in that budget meeting and listen and take notes?" And then when you get out, ask the questions. "Well, hey, you guys mentioned that word. What does that mean? What is depreciation? What is EBITDA?" Earnings before income taxes, right? And understanding what those words are and what they come from just better helps build that back into your career to be able to slide between those different professions and talk the language.

Jill James:

Yeah. And I think some of the things that are at the very basics that our profession needs to understand is that there are budget cycles. There are the annual budget that's put together, the quarterly, the monthly, the ways in which finance committee or finance teams are looking at budgets might not be something we've ever considered. So being able to ask, what's the cadence here? So you know where you can plug yourself in.

Jon Liesmaki:

And then understanding ... if you do get to that section where you do get a budget, understanding how to use it effectively and that what you might think in your personal budget is a good idea, sometimes isn't always the best idea when it comes to your business budget. And so I mean, you never want to completely overblow and spend your budget. I mean, you have a set amount of money, but I was taught from one of my mentors early on, is understand where the business is, in that, your budget is probably a lot less than the operations budget and those various things. And it's okay to spend 103% of your budget or 105% or depending on the size of your company, 110% of your budget. Because if you're like, "Well, I'm going to save money and I'll skimp on this," and you only spend 90% of the budget, what do you think is going to happen next year, Jill?

Jill James:

Yeah, right. You're only going to get that much.

Jon Liesmaki:

You're only going to get 90% and that's ... now your 100%.

Jill James:

Uh-huh.

Jon Liesmaki:

Okay, you didn't need all your budget, you didn't need all that money. Well, we're just going to recycle it back into somewhere else.

Jill James:

That's right. If you're lucky enough to get money, use it.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yes.

Jill James:

Yeah. John, in your experience, what do you think makes finance leaders trust an EHS professional?

Jon Liesmaki:

Asking questions, understanding, following up, using the forms that they have. Getting that buy-in and maybe back to that, the soft skills that we talked about a little earlier is asking questions, having options, doing the research, being willing to step into their world and do it the way they want, and not being that safety cop that pounds their hand on the desk and says, "Well, we have to buy this because this regulation says so." And not being willing to have those conversations and be on a true collaborative basis, right? You never want to be able to make decisions in a vacuum, but you also don't want to force down finance's throat like, "Well, you have to do because I said so." That immediately will turn off the group and kind of end that collaboration that's there.

Jill James:

Yeah. Yeah. You had pointed out before about can I sit in a budget meeting and just take notes? And if someone is like, "Whoa, I don't know about sums, like I'm going to get a no on that," or maybe you ask and you do get a no. Another way to find out how do they set these things up? What are other leaders asking for? That's another opportunity for a collaborator. So maybe you go to an operations person or a purchasing person or someone within your organization, maybe it's your HR department. And say, "Hey, I don't have any insight into how budgeting is done here and the sort of key elements and areas that you present from your seat. Can you teach me how you do yours so that I don't walk in cold and am not playing by the same rules?"

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's definitely a great ... if you don't get invited or you get that stiff arm from the finance, going to the other people that have budgets and collaborating and operations is typically the one that we most likely fall into. And asking that group like, "Hey, help me understand how you get your budget and how that's aligned." I think that's a fantastic idea to just keep looking for opportunities to get your foot in the door and get that understanding started.

Jill James:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Liesmaki:

So as we look at that and in your experience, when we frame those requests as activities instead of business outcomes, and we've kind of talked about that, I kind of alluded to that. "Hey, we have to do this because it's a requirement, it's a regulation." How in your experience is ... framing it as an activity and not just an outcome?

Jill James:

Yeah. I mean, I'm thinking about the first time that I asked for ... the first time that I successfully on my own, asked for budget. It was for software to be able to get training done and to be able to record injuries and illnesses on something that wasn't a three ring binder because that's literally how it had been done when I walked in the door. I mean, I couldn't believe it. And so, I made the case for like, here's the current state. This where we are right now. We're out of compliance. So I did start with that compliance piece. And then I walked through how that out of compliance was equating to dollars spent in terms of workers' compensation expenses. And I did a really granular breakdown. In this facility, it's costing us this. Our highest number ... we're spending the most money on this type of injury. We have the highest frequency of this. And I connected that all back to training. And I really said, "I think I can reduce these workers' compensation expenses if we can put these sort of things in play." And miraculously, though my manager at the time said, "Jill, you're going to get a no. Expect a no, you're going to get a no." They said yes. And he couldn't believe it. He's like, "I've never...." I mean, this is a room of ... I don't know, I think there were 15 leaders in a room. It was really nerve-wracking. And I made the pitch and they said yes. And then a couple of months ... they said, "We're going to say yes, but you've got to come back and show us the return on this investment."

Jon Liesmaki:

Yep.

Jill James:

And so I'm like, "Okay." So I did. And when I came back, I was able to say, "Okay, on average, we'd been spending about a million and a half on workers' compensation, and now we've spent 725,000." And they said, "Keep going. And how much more of a return can you get us in a couple more months?"

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah, that's fantastic. And that's one of the harder ones to do. For that to be your first big win is amazing. Because a lot of times, it's that, "Hey, it's going to save us on injuries in work comp." It's really hard to take a guess and say, "Even if I get one, even if we eliminate one, it's going to save us this much money." It's a little easier. In my first big example, when I was on my own, so at Honeywell, I was in part of the group that goes at ... I was a senior EHS engineer, but I wasn't the manager and asking for some of the big stuff. The first time on my own, I had a little bit easier of a route where it was a waste operation. And so, we were sending these drums off that were essentially soapy water at 150 gallon, $50 a drum or something like that. And I said, "Well, we can spend 200 bucks, apply for a discharge, industrial discharge license, we can then ... we'll need just simple pH neutralization on this." "And we should be able to dump it down our industrial waste strain." And that had an immediate payback. I think we spent $75,000 on just a small elementary neutralization system. We figured out a way, some electronic pumps to move it from what it was going into, neutralize it, and then down our industrial waste stream. And so, that had an easy return on investment. Because I could say, "All right, we're going to spend this on the pumps, we're going to spend this on the neutralization unit, and we're going to spend this on our initial application in our permit. And then, we can just dump it." And then we're immediately eliminating any of the costs of spending on the waste. And then, that was quick and easy for an ROI to show, but yours is far more impressive on the ... the injury side is always the hardest one, is to say, "Well, we're going to reduce injuries and that's going to relate back to these work comps," because it's more of cost avoidance than it is a true ROI, right?

Jill James:

Yeah. It was many years into my career that I had that win, and it was a lot of work. I hand managed every single incident that came in. And there wasn't ... my phone was on 24/7 and anything, any dust that came into somebody's eye, I was getting a phone call about it. And I was hand managing things so they didn't turn into catastrophes, and it really paid off. I mean, I know not everybody can do that, and that was a laborious job. Also, I love that job. But yeah, that's part of it. I made the commitment and I'm like down, I'm going to make sure that happens."

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. In talking about and understanding those ROIs and cost avoidance versus injury prevention and regulatory exposure and understanding all of those pieces, you can bring all of those in just understanding that with some people they'll hit and others they won't.

Jill James:

That's right.

Jon Liesmaki:

And the more you can put into that and have, it sounds like you talked about getting super granular, the more detail you can put into that, the more likely you are going to have success in that meeting.

Jill James:

Yeah. And sometimes the regulatory piece is going to come back around. So you might get a no initially, but you might get a yes later. I'm thinking about ... I had a situation in the clinic system, medical clinic system that I was working in where we had a mercury spill. And this is when, for anyone who's maybe a little bit older and has ever had their blood pressure taken with one of those blood pressure cuffs that hung on the wall that had the mercury sphygmomanometer, that's not how you pronounce it, but it's a fun way to say it, that it was a mercury filled one. That's how blood pressures were taken a long time ago. And so the clinic system I was in had those in every single facility, everywhere. And we had a patient in an exam room that pumped, pumped, pumped up until that device, until the mercury spilled out the top. And mercury can neither be created nor destroyed, and it never goes away. And I found out about the spill a couple of days after it had happened, and I found out that the contracted housekeeping company used their simple vacuum to vacuum it up, which spread mercury everywhere. And also now the vacuum cleaner was hazardous waste and exposed all kinds of people. And I'm like, "Holy cats, this is terrible. We have to do an actual formal cleanup here." And we did, I got budget for that because I was able to prove that this is a neurotoxin, this is really dangerous. We have to clean several rooms on all sides of this particular room, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, do all that stuff. And at that time I was getting that budget to be able to pay for that cleanup. I said, "Let's work on a project to eliminate all mercury in the system. Let's never do this again. This is dangerous. There's safer ways to be able to measure people's blood pressures in the modern era." And I was told, "No, that's never going to happen again. What are the chances?" What are the chances? What are the chances? A couple of months later, it happened again at a different site. And so by that time, the cost of two massive cleanups started to get the attention of the finance team who went, "Eh, maybe it's time to talk about her idea about getting rid of all the mercury site-wide." And so, I went back to my purchasing manager. She and I started initiative. We got rid of all the mercury in the place. So again, the ROI wasn't apparent at the time until the second cleanup tipped the financial scales, and then we were able to do an actual engineering control method to eliminate the hazard.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great example. It's funny, on the radio the other day, they were talking about Victorian terms and what they meant and Matt as a Hatter came up or Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. And they talked about mercury exposure for-

Jill James:

Yeah.

Jon Liesmaki:

They used to use mercury to turn the animal fur in the felt to make hats back in the day. So your story just kind of reminded me of what was brought up on the radio the other day.

Jill James:

Yeah. When I presented to the physicians, because I needed to present to the physicians as well, I used that Matt as a Hatter story. And then also mercury pills were used, like people actually ingested them and they called them blue mass pills. And it was to help people with indigestion problems. So Abraham Lincoln took blue mass pills. Lewis and Clark took blue mass pills. And the way that we were able to track Lewis and Clark's journey is through the latrines, let's use that word.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah.

Jill James:

Because they were taking mercury and we were able to track where they had been because mercury can't be destroyed.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah. Interesting.

Jill James:

Anyway, we just did a little history lesson here. All right, back to budget and money.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah. So we've talked about some great examples of where it's easy to show those return on investments. What about the ones where it has to be more ... where you have to put a value on retention or morale or safety culture? Like, "Hey, this is just good money to spend. Happy employees are typically safer, turn in less injuries, are more conscious." Any approaches that you've seen across your profession or the number of people you've talked to through this podcast of how do you put a number on that and how do you sell safety when it's based merely on culture?

Jill James:

I think that's the hardest nut to crack.

Jon Liesmaki:

It is. We're going through one a little bit right now. We've done ... in my current role, we're rolling out some signs and I stole the idea through previous roles where we're doing a safety commitment sign. And the sign says, "Hey, we believe our employees are the core of our business and safety is number one and all accidents are preventable." And so we're doing some kickoffs and we put our signature into that sign. And I got some pushback of like, "Hey, this is a little fluff. And is this the right money to spend?" But we have a great group of leaders at the top that I work with that are fantastic and are pulling and truly believe in that sometimes the culture stuff will pay dividends down the road. And so, we're going through a big deal where we're purchasing these signs and we get some gray Sharpies and we're going to do events and some giveaways and be able to talk about safety and show our commitment and put your name to it and actually sign the pledges that get hung up in the entryways. And for customers and visitors and everybody to see. But it's not always easy if you are spending that kind of money or getting good leadership approval on those types of activities.

Jill James:

Yeah. As you're talking, I'm thinking about a conversation I had at the ASSP conference this year with a fellow safety professional in California who works for a major utility company and that utility company was experiencing a really alarming level of employees dying by suicide. And he pitched to his leadership team some, I'm going to use a loose term here, mindfulness practices and conversations, vulnerable conversations with employees on a regular basis about their lives, about their challenges. And he's been successfully meeting with employees talking about what are their stresses in life and how can we be helpful and what can you do to help yourself and teaching some real practical tools on calming the central nervous system, offering tools to people, offering community to people, and they're seeing a great impact and a downturn in self-harm and death by suicide. And I've talked to another leader who was also a guest on the podcast a few years ago. Who was doing the same sort of thing and making investments with employees to eliminate some of their just life ... not just, their life stresses, like how to do a personal budget, things like that. Investing in employees so that they can show up for work whole and do the job without A, getting hurt, keeping their mind on the task that needs to be done and being happier in it. So I have seen that and have heard those things.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah, and I think we're on the precipice of some of those changes and newer thinking leaders investing in those types of activities.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Jon Liesmaki:

I know the new president at Harmon, Matt Christian, during our last leaders meeting, it was a big topic of ours, of getting out and improving your mental state, your physical health state. And so, he's implemented at certain times where they block out the HQ calendar, if you will, for all the employees that sit at HQ, and they're starting to do walks, team walks where it's dedicated that get away from your desk, reset your mind or opportunities to say, "Okay, I get a chance to connect with an online therapist, if you will, someone I can talk to about things." But those times, they've talked about true dedicated times where there's no more meetings, there's no ... this is blocked off for physical mental wellbeing and putting some investment in that. But that's easier said than done when it comes from leaders than from the safety office for sure.

Jill James:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So here's a hard turn, John. So one of the attendees of the webinar said that their safety department was created over a year ago and they still don't have a budget. And they're saying, "If you're starting from zero, where do you start?"

Jon Liesmaki:

So that's a great question. And I'm actually working a little bit through this with one of the guys that works for me right now. And I have a budget, but there are certain things that this new role that we created in our manufacturing spot for a new EHS manufacturing manager would like to take on, and we're trying to standardize on some PPE. And that typically to me, having my own budget, okay, operations is buying their PPE, that's just one less thing for me to handle. But he's been challenged with making sure it's standardized and they're using the same vendor. And a couple of our different sites have disagreements about who the right vendor should be. So he wants to take it over so that he can control standardization between the various plants. And so, that's kind of gave me the answer to this question of, it never really mattered to me that PPE was in operations, but he wants to be able to control it. And so, we touched a little bit about this on the webinar and going and saying, "Hey, do you mind if I ... could we break that out of your budget and I could manage that and take that off of your plate?" What are those other services? Even though ... so these departments, the attendees department, him or her was created in 2005, in April, they have to be spending on something. They have to have some level of spend when it comes to things for safety or environmental. Go and find out what those are. Identify, "Hey, guys, I know you've been using this vendor, but there's another vendor that we could use or a different way or we could change out these gloves or whatever, and I think we could get some savings. Is there any chance I could maybe take over this part of the budget?" And if you can show ... We talk about, you could establish some credibility, you can show that you care about every dollar has its purpose, and you could then use that as an opportunity to start to carve out. And say, "Well, how about ... is there any way that maybe I could just manage this on a separate budget, then I could be in charge and take something off your plate?" I think you could build some small wins, build up that credibility, and then start to peel away that onion. And then, as you get confidence with that, as you show wins, then you could use some of the examples that you and I have gone after and said, "Hey, if we spend a little bit of money and maybe we can add this to my budget, in those things that we talked about, forecasting, budget reviews, if we spend a little money, I'm going to ask for some money here. I think we can reap some benefits in some of these other areas."

Jill James:

Yeah, and you'll have built some trust in.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah.

Jill James:

For the person in our webinar who's like, "I still don't have a budget." Yeah, that's so common. And it's so common that even through an entire career, you might not have an actual dedicated budget. You may have things like John and I are talking about today, and that might be it, or maybe you will get a budget. I'm thinking about, John, to your story, similarly in terms of taking something off someone else's plate, when I was working in the clinic system, that's a lot of offices, a lot of desks, a lot of labs, a lot of people sitting. So there was lots of office ergonomic risks. And after I had been there a little while, some of the managers were coming to me and saying, "So-and-so is requesting a new chair for their workstation. Is that something you can help me with?" And it was this, managers were just approving or not approving office chairs. And I went to the CFO and I said, "Hey, I'm getting these requests. People want office chairs, and I don't know if we have an actual policy. How often do we replace chairs? Do we have a vendor that we usually work with?" And he's like, "No, we don't have a vendor." And I said, "Well, in your mind, how many dollars do you think is reasonable to spend on an office chair?" And he gave me a number. And I'm like, "Okay, so how about I see if I can find a vendor who could give us some reasonable options and we could standardize the way we do this?" And he's like, "Yeah, please. Do the work. No problem." And so he gave me the dollar amount. I went to an actual local vendor and I said, "Here's what I've got. And I need chairs that are going to do this, this, this, and this." "Can you show me some samples? And can you bring those samples into the work environment?" And they're like, "Okay." And so, I lined all these chairs up outside of one of the biggest break rooms in the facility, and I put a ballot box at the end of all the chairs. And I labeled all the chairs like A, B, C, D, E, F, G. And I had people sit in the chairs and vote on their favorite chairs. And the top three getters are the ones that turned into the chairs that we just standardly offered. All were within the budget of the CFO. The employees chose the chairs out of the chairs that I knew that I wanted for adjustability, and they became the standard. And then, every time there was a chair request or I did an ergonomic evaluation, I was able to say, "You can pick one of these three." And the managers were all like, "You mean, I don't have to do that anymore?" I didn't have a budget, but I did.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah, absolutely. You were spending other people's money, right?

Jill James:

Yeah.

Jon Liesmaki:

That is a fantastic example. And there's so much to be said about that, right? And there's some tangents that we can definitely take that example. So one of the questions ... so did they approve everybody getting a new chair or was there some sort of, did you break it up into, "Hey, over the next three years, we're going to replace everybody's chairs starting with the oldest and most broke down, and then we'll have some sort of replacement cycle?"

Jill James:

Yeah, I was able to establish a cadence for that every so many years and/or if I did an evaluation and someone just didn't have the adjustability they needed for correct ergonomics, we could do that, or of course, the broken, worn out-

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah.

Jill James:

That kind of business. Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Liesmaki:

And then, did you keep up or did you task maintenance with, "Hey, some of these will be under warranty. If they go bad, make sure we don't buy another chair, make sure that we go after the warranty amount." Then building more credibility with management to say, "Hey, we're just not going to buy another chair because one broke and we don't really care, but we looked into it and this one was still under warranty and we're going to get this one replaced for free."

Jill James:

Yeah, I hand-managed that stuff, John. I wasn't able to get that somewhere else. I had the relationship with the vendor, and that was a job where I was really close to those kind of things at that time where I was trying to build my case for "Trust me. Trust me, I'm reliable. You can come to me."

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah. And that's definitely different size. And maybe if you're in a union shop, there might be somebody that says, "Well, hey, that's my responsibility." But yeah, all of that, having a replacement schedule ... and it doesn't necessarily have to be chairs, it can be big things too like, "Hey, do we have a normal replacement schedule planned for forklifts, or are we just going to drive it until the thing falls apart and the first time, the mask breaks, it's going to possibly seriously injure somebody?"

Jill James:

Yeah. Take us out of business for a bit.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, right? And having those standup desks were probably another big one that was probably right behind, if not a lot of people going through that currently. The walking treadmills, right?

Jill James:

Yeah.

Jon Liesmaki:

The other part of that is a double-edged sword is what I'd love to get a little bit into as we're going down some of the questions from some of the attendees is what about that other side where you get people coming to you and saying, "Hey, Mark, this is safety. Mark, this is safety so I can get it through my budget."

Jill James:

Do you have that happen?

Jon Liesmaki:

I did for a while. When I was in that middle role when I didn't really have my own true budget to say, but I was doing very similar to what you were doing was spending other people's money. There definitely would be times where I would get the ... there's a big button at the bottom of our capital request sheet and our operating expenses. Is this related to safety? And there was no real description of how it related to safety. Any priority, any quantification of the risks it was going to solve. It was just if someone in ops or one of the project managers could squeeze in and find just the smallest inkling of how this could make it safer, they would check that box, or John said, they would try to use that to push their priority to the top above maybe somebody else's, even if it was only the slightest of safety improvements.

Jill James:

I had that happen more with policy things than I did with spend things. Because once people knew that I was making some headway in some areas, they'd come to me with things that were safety policy adjacent, let's put it that way.

Jon Liesmaki:

Got it.

Jill James:

And we're trying to leverage like, "Hey, you should be the one that's going to push that forward or I've been trying, but I haven't been able to," and it was again, safety adjacent. And I fell for that once and that bit me. Sure, I'll help you. You want to be helpful, right?

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jill James:

But it wasn't squarely my lane and I needed to get good at setting a boundary to say, "That's the scope of your work, not mine."

Jon Liesmaki:

Yep. Yep.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Jon Liesmaki:

All right. As we continue through the conversation, next one, have you ever had a critical safety need that leadership simply would not fund? We touched a little bit on, both of our railing examples.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Jon Liesmaki:

Is there anything else that comes to mind and what do you do next in those scenarios?

Jill James:

Yeah. I mean, the whole no-thing, A, you can look at it as, "Well, no, not now, and I'm going to come back, like when would be ... when can I come back and ask or schedule the next ... how about in a quarter? What about next year?" Nos can sometimes be the beginning of the conversation. But I think maybe what we want to talk about is it's a critical need. You got to know, "Now what are you going to do?" Is that what you're thinking about, John?

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jill James:

Yeah. So what are the hacks? Yeah, so let's maybe talk about some of the hacks, which one, that I'll start with, and then maybe you want to go, is finding out what can you get through your insurance providers. Everybody is paying for workers' compensation, whether it's a third party administrator, you're fully insured, or you're paying property casualty liability insurance. All of those types of insurance companies employ people like John and I, and they also employ industrial hygienists or at least contract with them. So if you're trying to, let's say you need noise sampling done, go to your insurance company and see if it's already included in what you're providing or what you're paying for your premiums or at a greatly reduced rate rather. I've done that with hexavalent chromium surveys where I got the insurance company to do it. It was a hack. It was a way to get it paid for without me actually having to ask for budget. How about you? Something else?

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah, I was going to say the next one that even comes to mind is if you are really scrunched and it's harder to get or do, there's college programs. And Jill, I remember when I went through the program, there were a number of businesses in the Duluth area that kind of relied on us to do some of their annual surveys. They knew it was a fresh crop of students coming in. It was good for us to get the experience. It wasn't one of those dire situations where, hey, we need to know if we're exposing employees or not. So that if we didn't quite get it right, then we had professors there overlooking us. But a number of college programs, if you reach out to them and say, "Hey, I'd love to partner. We have some things that we'd love to look at. Is this fit in the wheelhouse of your students?" There is some opportunity to get some free work done there as well.

Jill James:

Yeah, right. Yeah. And then granting was something else that we talked about. State OSHA programs, many of them, and I know Minnesota is one of them that have offered granting programs before to fund initiatives that you need. So look into safety grants. That's another hack. Another attendee mentioned that the State of Ohio specifically has a granting program that's linked with insurance carriers. And I believe that's likely because Ohio, from a work comp standpoint, is a monopolistic state. And I know they specifically have money available. There's a couple of other monopolistic states in the US. Washington is one, John. I think there's like ... is there three or five or something?

Jon Liesmaki:

There is. I have work in Ohio and Washington-

Jill James:

Me too.

Jon Liesmaki:

So I know those two off the top of my head for sure.

Jill James:

Yeah, me too. Yeah.

Jon Liesmaki:

The other part, and the way to look at this as well is outside of some of these funding hacks that we talked about is also showing cost of time. So if we go back and look ... let's go back to the railing example that we talked about, right?

Jill James:

Yeah.

Jon Liesmaki:

So if it was a hard no for us and, "Hey, sorry, but you're just going to have to use the movable anchor point."

Jill James:

Yeah.

Jon Liesmaki:

The weights will sit up there, they'll just have to roll it into place and do that sort of thing. The ways that we also talked about it was, "All right, well, this is a union shop, so it's going to be, our HVAC guys are going up there. Here's what they make." Every time that they're going to have to re-roll and stack that anchor point, that movable anchor point with the weights, and then they're going to have to tie off. They're going to have to go get their harness. They're going to have to be in our fall protection program. And they weren't before because they never had anything. All of the other utilities that they work on are not in the ground. All right, well, here's this much extra time that we're going to be paying these guys every single year. And going back and showing, getting to ... we kind of talked about getting down to that granular level.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Jon Liesmaki:

All right, well, here's an extra 16 hours a year of just getting into the safety gear and filling out the forms for a work permit and getting access to the roof. Whereas if we spent the money on the guardrail, they just walk up there, they don't talk to anybody, it's fully guarded and off they go.

Jill James:

That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's a good hack to prove your case later. Yeah, I like that. I like that. We've talked quite a bit about collaboration and different internal partners. A couple that maybe we haven't talked about, HR is one of them. So I like to think about HR is also very compliance driven and it's so similar to our practice. And they also have ... especially when it comes to training, they have training requirements as well. I'll argue that it's not as rigorous. There's not as many topics as safety has. So that's a really good partnership to draw alliance with. HR departments also are invested in growing employees, upskilling employees that can also land with operations. But collaborating with your HR department, especially when it comes to training things, or even for those of us who are tasked with the dreaded 300 log, which is probably everybody listening, sometimes HR departments have that and you're like, "Hey, would you like me to take that off your plate?" "I know you're using whatever system, and your HRIS system that's kind of crappy. How about maybe we can do that better and we can do it with a piece of software, or let's collaborate on asking for budget on training?"

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah, we had something very similar a few years ago where HR was trying to purchase a suite of trainings online for those things you talked about, for the code of conduct and stuff like that. And for a minimal fee, they could add on the safety module and pick up ... I forget, there was another 200 safety classes in there for online training. And so, that was kind of an easy win for us to collaborate with them and it hits their budget, but we got the benefit of it. The other part is that some of the functionality in some of the HRIS systems, so the one that we're using today has an LMS built into it. It came as part of the ... out of the box, right? So if you're looking at getting some of that stuff, it might be a, "Hey, this may not be the best solution for us, but at least I got something that I didn't have to spend money on. And I can at least check one of my boxes for now." Now, down in the future, if you ever wanted to separate that out because there's a better solution ... because a lot of times on those HRIS systems, there's no future development. They just kind of tacked it on in there. But you can then go and use that. Well, hey, we have an LMS. We need a nicer LMS because it takes me this much time to manually load the records and do that sort of thing, getting back into that hack where I talk about how much is my time spent doing a task where I could ... if I automated it or used newer solution or newer software, I can free up that much more of my time.

Jill James:

Yeah. Yeah. What's another department, John, collaborators that we haven't touched on that you want to talk about?

Jon Liesmaki:

Risk management, I'm doing a lot of work with lately. I'd say over the last year on our property insurance side, we've collaborated with them more. A lot of the findings that come from our risk management and our property insurance company are mostly EHS related activities. When we talk about hot work and sprinkler impairment and stuff like that, that usually kind of falls within the EHS professional's responsibilities. The other part of that is there is some collaboration there with maintenance groups or facilities groups, depending on how your organization is laid out. But we've worked really well of showing, the current risk management company we're working with has great ROIs. "Hey, if you improve this, this is the reduction in risk that you have." And then that in turn allows our risk team to negotiate not only budget for us for capital projects, but then go and show when they're working with those property insurance companies, "Hey, I want a reduction in my rate because we've done X, Y, and Z." That's kind of a win-win for the company. So we've done ... the latest review that we did with our property insurance over the last three years since I've started to take over that program and mostly own it now, we've done over 200-some recommendation closures from their property insurance audits. And this year, we were successfully ... my risk management lead, successfully argued a 7% reduction in our premium. And those are our hard numbers that management loves to see.

Jill James:

Wow, that's a great win. That's fantastic. One of the other departments that I guess I wanted to highlight, and we talked about this in the webinar as well, is the IT department. When you're making requests for things, particularly when it comes to software, they are a collaborator that you're going to want to bring in early because they could shut something down 100% after you've done a lot of work by saying this is an internal risk or we have our process and system whenever we're going to bring in something new, especially when it's a piece of software. Here's our gates and this is our process. And you might not know about that. So talk ... especially when you're asking about software, go to your IT departments and find out what sort of ... how they can best partner with you and the questions that they're going to want to get in front of any vendor that you're working with.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah, I agree. And we touched a little bit on them in the webinar about there's certain certificates and testing and security protocols that they're going to have, especially if you're looking at a software solution. The experience I had was kind of funny because we started to put into my budget the cost for our latest safer for our HSI platform. And because IT does have a budget and they hold the ownership of their budget very tightly. And I alluded a little bit on that, "Hey, spend your whole budget or maybe a little over your budget because you want to make sure you get it." They were quick to jump out and say, "Well, that's a software piece that goes in our budget and we need our budget increased." And so it was-

Jill James:

Awesome.

Jon Liesmaki:

I had already got a little bump in my budget, knowing that software was going to be in there and then, it never got taken out. Don't tell anybody, hopefully my department is not listening. But then, the software team was like, "No, no, because they want to grow their budget. They want to be able to show their worth and what they're managing and what they're looking at. And so they quickly pulled that into their budget and then, I didn't have to really touch it after that.

Jill James:

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. We should probably mention that one of the other tools that we offered in the webinar that I'm sure Emily will put in the show notes is John and I developed budget justification toolkits, like an actual form, a template that you can walk through. And we did three of them. We did one for software requests, one for equipment requests, and one for service requests. And when we thought about our careers up to this point, it feels like everything we've ever asked for falls into one of those three buckets. And so, we customized a template for you to think about and gather all of the information that you're going to need. You might not present all the information that's in the justification toolkit, but you'll have it at the ready so you're not ever caught off guard. And so, we put those together for anybody who was part of the webinar and now anybody who's listening to the podcast as well. Yeah, let's move on. Let's see. What else do we want to talk about, John?

Jon Liesmaki:

We did have the career development one, someone transitioning from risk management and insurance into safety. And what advice would you give them? To me, that one is ... I think just anybody in safety, is building relationships, soft skills, getting to know your people. And from a risk management and insurance place, sometimes it's a, "Hey, you have to do this because otherwise we're going to drop your insurance." You don't necessarily get to play that card all the time. And I think we've talked about that, Jill, in the past, where you can't go to the safety cop and you must do it, whether it's budgeting or anything across the safety realm. But understanding that budgets I'm sure are quite different from a risk management insurance standpoint than they are transitioning into safety. I'm sure there's some good skills and knowledge about the technical pieces, but taking a look at understanding what your employer is looking at, what do they need as you transition into that safety part? And the other part is you have to understand that facilities and employers are going to look for you now to finish any recommendations or finish on projects. I think as a consultant is a little bit similar to how risk management and insurance works where, "Hey, I can just give you a recommendation and I get to walk away from it." Whereas when you're working for an employer that, "Hey, I need to take that in concrete, implement that."

Jill James:

That's right.

Jon Liesmaki:

And kind of what that looks like.

Jill James:

Yeah. I mean, I think that was the biggest shift for me when I went from being an investigator with OSHA into the private sector. I always thought when I left an inspection like, "Oh man, I'm glad I don't have that guy's job." Because they're the ones that are going to have to put it all ... I got to just have the luxury of telling people what was wrong and how to fix it. I didn't have to implement it. And so, I guess my advice would be to really understand the goals of your business. What are the KPIs of the business for this quarter, for this year, and turn every initiative that you're working on toward those goals and being able to show how this piece and this piece and this piece that you're working on, the initiatives you're trying to get through, the money that you're asking for is aimed toward the business being able to meet those goals for that quarter or for that year.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah. Hey, as we kind of start to wind down here, let's talk about some of the major requests. We're talking big money stuff. How important is it finding an executive sponsor before you make that major request?

Jill James:

Yeah, I mean, I think that's everything, right? I mean, in my opinion, in my experience, that's been everything. I've had the best success with operations and operations managers being able to be that person that'll stand alongside you and say, "This is good for my area." How about you, John?

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah, I'd say the same thing. If it's a major request, I think we talked about some of those individual collaborators, how can you use HR? How can you use ops a little bit? Risk management. Major requests, it's all of them, right? It's the whole list. I would say you need to intimately know your material and the request, the impact it's going to have on the organization. You kind of have to be able to go from granular to the top in the business acumen, when you're making major, major requests. And you have to ... I use the word socialize the idea. You have to be in talking about it and understanding it and making sure all of those collaborators, HR, operations, engineers, facilities, that everybody kind of knows and has heard almost ad nauseum of the problem, of the solution, having a couple different options. Having the Lamborghini option and the Chevy truck option down to the Suzuki option, if you will, knowing that one of them is going to work, but they're still all large requests. But socializing it, the last thing you want is to get into a major budget review meeting or request meeting with leadership and they have no idea what you're talking about.

Jill James:

Right, and everyone is like, you've taken the entire meeting a completely different direction and everyone's like, "What? What are they talking about?" Instead, you're able to say, "So-and-so and so-and-so and so-and-so and I have been working on this for a while. We've vetted these sort of things. We've identified the problems in these areas." It doesn't have to be every single person at the so-called table, but a number of people so that everyone's heads can at least be nodding and you're not taking a decision makers off guard or the rest of the room.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah. And so, if they've heard about it and they have a general idea, they don't need to know the details as much as you, but having conversations early, knowing that when I get to the table, Bob, Frank, Susie, Lynn, everyone is going to know, at least have an idea of what I'm talking about and why it's been an issue and why I believe we need to spend the money and where my solutions sit. Versus like we said, you bring up, "Hey, I'd like to request money for this." And you just get head scratches and blank stares because no one has any idea what you're talking about.

Jill James:

That's right. Yeah, that's right. And then my closing thought on this piece before we close things out, John, is the follow through. Being able to set up cadence and make some promises like, okay, you're making this investment ... I'm going to come back to you after this piece, this piece, and this piece, and I'm going to do a readout on how it's going, what we're seeing, what wins we've had, how it's aligning with business right now, and then dedicating yourself to actually doing that part.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah. And I had that, one of the major softwares that I rolled out with the HSI platform, it was a, "Hey, we like the idea. We just want more buy-in. Can you get down to this level? Can you do some beta testing? Test it out in the sandbox with this group. What did you do? How many records did they put in? How well do they feel comfortable?" Because the last thing you want to do and a quick way to fail is for you to rush through a major costly request. And then whether it's software or equipment or whatever, and not get end user acceptance. If you use a major purchase and push it through too quickly, not understanding what your end users are going to use, and then nobody uses it and it sits on a shelf and it collects dust, good luck getting any kind of approval in the second time

Jill James:

Around. Yep, that's right. That's right. Yeah. So I guess if I were to say what's an action listeners can take immediately to just help, it would be just learning the vernacular, getting our resource on the accounting 101 terms, if that's something that sounds new to you, and starting there.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah.

Jill James:

How about you John?

Jon Liesmaki:

I 100% agree. Understanding the terminology and the processes that they use to get to budgets is just huge. I mean, that's your first step in understanding what you're going to need and what you're going to look for. And oftentimes, at least through my career, typically you have a chance when you set goals and HR says, "Make sure there's smart goals and there's timing." Sometimes there's either smart goals that you can say, "Hey, I want to learn more about this." Or some companies put those into, "Hey, you have three kind of tactical goals, but maybe you have one or two developmental goals. And where do you want to develop your stuff?" And oftentimes, a lot of people will be like, "Oh, I want to go to a conference." And HR always kind of cringes when you put that as your development goal that you want to go to a conference because you picture those being in Las Vegas and you not learning anything other than going out and hanging out.

Jill James:

Right.

Jon Liesmaki:

But if you ask for a financial acumen class, and there are tons of them for financial games for non-financial people.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Jon Liesmaki:

In understanding and being part of those groups or using that as a, "Hey, I want to mentor so-and-so. And so once a month I'm going to have a one-hour sit down with whether it's the ops guy talking about his budget or whether it's some of the financial team members." It could just be as simple as your company's controller and who does that and how those tasks are handled, right? And just starting there and getting the base knowledge and raising your hand and saying, "I want to learn more," definitely is the first step in the right direction than just a crash course. Now you have to ask for money way outside your skis.

Jill James:

Right, right, right. John, thank you so much. I know we could talk about this forever. I appreciate you coming on the podcast to continue the conversation. Thanks for being here.

Jon Liesmaki:

Yeah, absolutely. It's been a joy, Jill.

Jill James:

And thank you for spending your time listening today. And more importantly, thank you for your contribution toward the common good. May our employees and those we influence know that our profession cares deeply about human wellbeing, which is the core of our practice. If you're not subscribed and you want to hear past and future episodes of the podcast, you can subscribe in any podcast player you'd like, or you can read the transcript and listen at hsi.com. We'd love it if you leave a reading and review us on iTunes. It really helps us connect the show with more and more health and safety professionals like John and I. Special thanks to Emily Gould, our podcast producer. And until next time, thanks for listening.