Many organizations are currently working on Environment Management system, EMS or ISO 14001:2015 standard, employees of these organizations are aware of the fact that roles and responsibilities become one of the key factor for success and continual improvement of EMS. These roles and responsibilities will reflect different levels of leadership, internal decision-making, capability, and involvement in the day-to-day running of the EMS and in addition to these there are responsibilities related to compliances which are mandatory, depending on the scope, size, and sector of your organization. So, given this wide range of roles, where exactly does the standard guide us to and how we can improvise these so that the employees are more accountable for their own process.
What does the ISO 14001:2015 standard say?
Clause 5.3 of the ISO 14001:2015 standard is all about organizational roles, responsibilities, and authorities it suggests that top management shall ensuring that roles and responsibilities are assigned and communicated within the organization. There are two factors which the top management has to consider while assigning roles & responsibilities, first is to retain the responsibility for ensuring that EMS conforms to the standard itself, and second responsibility is assigned for reporting results to the top management team. EMS is all about making management system for interested parties through interested parties, for this roles and responsibilities assignment has to be accurate in terms of level of understanding and performance. While designing EMS considerable time shall allocate to decide the distribution of roles and responsibilities. After all you want your management in responsible hands.
Selection of leader for EMS
While selecting a leader there can be number of factors that can decide the future of environment management system into your organization. Certain factors can be prevailing at all the organizations and plays an important role in deciding the success of the ISO 14001:2015. Some prevailing factors are discussed below:
Strategic responsibility: Leader of the EMS shall assume responsibility for strategically blending of EMS, as the ultimate aim of any management system is to improve the performance of the organization, both in terms of business and strategy. While building EMS base a good leader shall demonstrate a high level of understanding if the issues and build management system in the strategic interest of the organization.
Planning: Planning is an important part of the EMS, while planning for the ISO 14001 one has to consider risks related to environment i.e. environmental aspect and impact on environment associated with it. Top management has to draw a line as to identify significant environmental impact. Compliances are also a major part of planning phase, various acts and rules are applicable on the organizations and every requirement of the law of the land has to be fulfilled. A good leader demonstrates high level of planning skills.
Support: In the clause 7 of the EMS or ISO 14001 it is clearly said that support from the top management has to be provided in the terms of resources that are required for the smooth functioning of the environment system. Top management shall help and support the ideas of the employees, a good leader shall be wise enough to visualize the need of the future and support promptly.
Communication: Communication plays an important part in building relations in your workplace and maintaining transparency in the relation. Generally, communication gaps are seen in many of the organization example, department-department gap, person-person gap, language gap, gap based on gender. Leader plays an important role in binding the whole EMS team together and boost meetings, debates, brainstorming session etc. from time to time.
Facilitation of continual improvement: Continual improvement is the intended outcome of the environment management system, since all the organization are working for making profits out of their business they require to see the impact of EMS on their financial condition also. Like if you work extensively on decreasing the waste that you generate it will certainly means less cost to you. A leader shall be able to collect ground level data, analyze and identify the points for continual improvement of EMS.
Why to plan for defining roles & responsibilities?
Ensuring that the EMS meets the requirements of the standard: This can be done by one nominated employee with the correct qualifications and knowledge level, and whatever the size of your organization, this task may be better to rest with one or two key employees to avoid confusion. Ensuring legislation is up to date is better to be handled by one competent person than multiple employees, for example.
Reporting on the performance of the EMS to top management: This is another key responsibility that may be best left to one competent employee, but in reality, should be the responsibility of several competent employees, and may be less work if you have set up the agreed key performance indicators accurately and correctly.
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