Safety Knights

It depends on several factors regarding the various locations, such as the hazards/risks, type of operations, number of employees, etc.
- Are all of these locations doing the same type of work? Or are they different operations?
- Is there anyone at these other sites that report to you?
- Is there other relevant information that would make you want to visit the site more/less?

If there's NOT a safety professional at each site that reports to you or that you otherwise coordinate with, then you may need to visit their site more frequently. If there IS someone there, then as long as you properly delegate the tasks to each site's safety professional, then you could get by with fewer site visits.

When I worked as a Global EHS Manufacturer, we had sites throughout Indiana, Iowa, Texas, Netherlands, and China. I had people at each site that "somewhat" reported to me, but not directly. They were typically either maintenance managers that had safety thrown onto their plate of extra responsibilities, plant managers, etc., so I knew that they had LOTS of other things to take care of, in addition to safety, so I visited each of these sites at least monthly to assist with training, audits/inspections, and just checking on things in general. We'd have bi-weekly meetings via Zoom/Teams to stay in touch, but I knew they weren't safety professionals and had a lot of other things to manage, so I assisted a bit more. It also depends on if they have projects going on. For example, when we were building our new facility in China back in 2017, I ended up being in China 33 weeks that year (which is part of the reason I left), but I had to be there to oversee the safety side of the construction operations, meet with local officials, etc.

At my last job as a Corp. Safety Director for a large umbrella company, I had 8 different OpCo's I was responsible for overseeing all across the US. However, I had safety pros at 5 of these sites, so I could assign responsibilities to them easily.

My experience was with two locations. One was my home base and had 400 employees. The other location had about 50 employees. My home is in NE Wisconsin on the shore of Lake Michigan, and the other was in Central Northern Minnesota. The locations were about 8 hours a part by auto. Both were machining plants. Every process the smaller plant the bigger plant also had plus more. A supervisor at the smaller was the local "safety rep" and had a dotted line to me for Safety matters.

I was the "Safety Manager" for both locations, the HR Manager at the smaller, and Asst. HR Manager at the bigger. HR manages WC in my former Corporation so I also had WC responsibilities for both. They are self-insured in WC in both states.

WC in Wisconsin is a bit different than Minnesota but are basically the same sort of systems. (Minnesota is very much more like Michigan's). WI is a Fed OSHA state, and MN in MnOSHA. (MnOSHA was very similar to MiOSHA).

I usually visited the other plant at least once a quarter, but sometimes during benefit enrollment and hiring, training, or other stuff would often go more often. I went up to the smaller plant a couple times for Corp EHS audits. I almost always drove over on a Monday and came back on a Friday.

I had to be aware of the weather when going to MN. Being a born and bred Midwestern boy snow and ice and driving in it is seldom a problem esp with 4-wheel drive. However, -30 to -40 F takes some getting used, even the toughest Midwestern boys!

Sadly, they closed the Minnesota location in my division in 2012. My corporation still has several locations in MN bit they are in other divisions.

I am the only safety person for two locations. Each with about 90 employees. I visit the other location 1-2 times per week just to stay consistent with a presence. I have walk around inspections each time but am also very fortunate to have a great management team that can handle what I ask of them when I am gone. Without them, it would be much more difficult to juggle both locations.

It depends, how many locations?
2? 200?

I try to set a routine for visiting - at least once a week, at a given time, so people know when to expect me. People often say "Oh yes, i knew you were going to come by, let me show XYZ".

But showing up unannounced is also helpful in its own way ;)

It might be helpful to set up some "safety champions" at each of the sites to help with gathering information in your stead when you're not at that site. Meeting with team leads/supervisors when you visit to do walkarounds is very helpful as well.

It doesn't have to be a big formal thing, but making the effort to reach out and speak with operators out on the floor always makes a big impact, even if you're not on site the entire time.