Where Fractional HSE Leadership Fits In

Why Safety as a Value Matters – and Where Fractional HSE Leadership Fits In

Over 29 years in health, safety, and environment, I’ve worked in everything from plant-floor operations to corporate HSE leadership roles. Across all those environments, one thing has been consistent: the organizations that truly win are the ones where safety is a core value, not a box to tick.

When safety is treated as a value, it shows up in how leaders make decisions, how supervisors run their shifts, and how workers look out for one another. When it’s treated as a task or a project, it becomes something people “get through” instead of something they own. That difference is where culture starts.

In this blog, I want to walk through why safety as a value matters so much for small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs), what gets in the way, and how a fractional HSE leadership model can bridge the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.

Safety: More Than Compliance

Compliance is important—but it isn’t the finish line. It’s the starting point.

If safety is only about “meeting the minimum,” you’ll always be at risk of being caught off guard: by incidents, by inspections, or by issues that quietly erode trust with your people. When safety is a value, you’re not just asking, “What does the law require?” You’re asking, “What does good look like for our people, our operations, and our reputation?”

I’ve seen this play out in real organizations. The ones that treat safety as part of how they do business—just like quality, delivery, and cost—tend to:

• Reduce injuries and serious near-misses

• Improve engagement and retention

• Strengthen client and community confidence

• Build operational resilience through change

That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because leadership decides that safety is not negotiable and then backs that up with consistent actions.

The Reality for SMEs

For many SMEs, the challenge isn’t a lack of care. Most owners and leaders genuinely do care about their people. The challenge is capacity.

Common situations I see include:

• Safety responsibilities scattered across HR, operations, and supervisors, with no clear owner

• Supervisors “doing their best” but without coaching, structure, or a roadmap

• Paper-based systems that check boxes but don’t change how work gets done

• Leaders pulled in every direction, trying to keep up with production, customers, and regulations all at once

You might recognize pieces of this in your own organization. You feel the risk, you know you need to tighten things up, but you’re not at the point where you can justify a full-time senior HSE leader. That’s a very common place to be—and it’s exactly where a fractional HSE model makes sense.

What Is a Fractional HSE Leader?

A fractional HSE leader gives your organization access to senior HSE expertise and leadership on a part-time basis. You get strategic, embedded support tailored to your needs, without the full-time salary, benefits, and overhead.

This isn’t just “consulting” in the traditional sense. A fractional HSE leader doesn’t just produce a report and walk away. Instead, I integrate into your leadership rhythm—joining key meetings, helping set priorities, and staying engaged to support execution over time.

In practice, that can look like:

• Establishing or refining your HSE strategy so it aligns with your business objectives

• Identifying your highest-risk areas and ensuring controls and practices are fit for purpose

• Coaching leaders and supervisors on how to lead safety, not just enforce rules

• Supporting your Joint Health and Safety Committee (JHSC) or safety reps

• Providing Board or executive-level visibility into HSE risks and performance

You get a senior HSE partner who thinks strategically about your people, your operations, and your reputation—on a flexible basis that matches your size and complexity.

Expertise Without the Overhead

As a small or mid-sized business, you may not be ready to bring on a full-time senior HSE leader—but that doesn’t mean your risks, responsibilities, or expectations are any smaller.

With almost three decades in health, safety, and environment, I bring the experience of large, complex operations into an SME context. You get the benefit of that depth without committing to a permanent senior HSE position. I step in at a level and frequency that fits your reality—whether that’s a few days per month or a more intensive engagement when you’re going through change or growth.

The result is simple: you don’t have to choose between “doing nothing” or “hiring big.” There is a middle path.

Tailored Strategy, Not One-Size-Fits-All

No two operations are the same. A safety program that works for a large manufacturer won’t necessarily fit a growing construction firm, a warehouse, or a food processing facility.

When I work with an SME, we start with where you are today:

• What are your real risks—by task, area, and process?

• What are your regulatory obligations—provincially, federally, and with your clients?

• How does work get done on the floor, not just on paper?

• Where is your culture strong, and where is it fragile?

From there, we build an HSE roadmap that reflects your world. Sometimes that means getting the fundamentals in place—policies, procedures, training, inspections. In other cases, it means maturing existing systems, preparing for ISO 45001, or aligning HSE practices across multiple sites.

The point is: nothing I create with you is “off the shelf.” It’s built around your risks, your people, and your goals.

Leadership Development

Paperwork alone doesn’t change culture—leaders do.

A key part of my fractional role is leadership development. I work with owners, executives, and supervisors to help them lead safety in a way that’s consistent, credible, and practical. That often includes:

• Clarifying what “good safety leadership” looks like in your context

• Coaching leaders on how to have effective safety conversations

• Helping supervisors balance production pressure with safe work expectations

• Supporting leaders in responding constructively when things go wrong

When leaders are confident and aligned, the message to the organization is clear: “We mean it when we say safety is a value.” That clarity is powerful.

Engagement Across the Organization

Real safety culture is not built on top-down messages alone. It requires engagement at every level.

Workers need to feel that their voices matter—that when they raise a concern, someone listens and acts. They need to see that procedures and controls are realistic. And they need to understand not just what to do, but why it matters.

In my work with clients, I focus on helping workers shift from passive recipients of rules to active participants in safety. That might involve:

• Involving front-line workers in risk assessments and procedure reviews

• Simplifying reporting processes so people actually use them

• Building routines that make safety conversations part of everyday work (not just monthly meetings)

When engagement increases, you see more near-miss reporting, better hazard identification, and more practical solutions coming from the people who know the work best.

Proactive Risk Management

Too many organizations only get serious about safety after an incident, a complaint, or an enforcement visit. By that point, the damage is already done—to people, to trust, and sometimes to the business itself.

A big part of fractional HSE leadership is helping you move from reactive to proactive. That means:

• Identifying critical risks and verifying that controls are working

• Tracking meaningful leading indicators (not just lagging ones like injury counts)

• Building preventive actions into your regular operational planning

• Learning from small events and near misses before they become serious injuries

Over time, this proactive approach doesn’t just reduce incidents—it builds confidence.

Your people know you’re serious about their well-being. Your clients see you as a reliable partner. And you, as a leader, can sleep better knowing you’re not just hoping nothing goes wrong—you’re actively managing the risks.

Is Fractional HSE Leadership Right for You?

When I sit down with an owner or leadership team, we often start with a few simple questions:

• Do you lack internal HSE leadership, or is safety currently “on the side” of someone’s job?

• Are safety responsibilities scattered or unclear, with different people assuming “someone else” is looking after it?

• Is your team largely disengaged or reactive—only talking about safety when there’s an incident, inspection, or audit?

• Are you growing (new sites, new lines, new clients) and need safety support that can scale with you, without committing to a full-time senior hire?

If you’re nodding “yes” to most of these, you’re exactly the type of organization that can benefit from fractional HSE leadership.

Bringing It All Together

At the end of the day, this isn’t just about compliance programs, documentation, or even KPIs. It’s about people. It’s about whether your team goes home safe and healthy, whether your operations can grow without stumbling over preventable issues, and whether your clients and community see you as a company that does the right thing even when no one is watching.

My role, through 20/20 HSE Consulting Solutions Inc., is to come alongside you as a partner—to bring nearly 28 years of experience, a practical mindset, and a focus on culture, leadership, and risk into your day-to-day reality. I help you turn “safety as a value” from a phrase on a wall into something your people can see, feel, and trust.

If you know you need more structure, more clarity, and more leadership in safety—but you’re not ready for a full-time HSE leader—I’d welcome a conversation.

You can book a discovery call directly at 20-20hseconsulting.com, and we can explore what a tailored, fractional HSE approach could look like for your organization.