Safety professionals are in a position where they often have to validate their departments to their employers. If you are in charge of your company's safety program, you need to be even more proactive than usual. Do not wait for management to come to you with budget cuts. You should be looking for ways to trim the fat out of your safety programs or safety processes to demonstrate how safety is a value-added component of your company. Areas you should be reviewing during these challenging times include:

• Staffing: Many times safety personnel are in the first employee cutbacks simply because of a personality conflict or because they have very little interaction with management. Comprehensive evaluations, which include information on earned certifications, performance, versatility, and commitment can open management's eyes to your staff's contributions to the company.
• Effectiveness: Now is the time to take a good hard look at all the elements of your safety program and see if the benefits justify the costs. When was the last time you revised your safety program? Is it flexible enough? Are you outsourcing some parts that could now be handled in-house?
• Program Model: Does your company utilize a safety process like Behavior Based Safety Process or People Based Leadership? Do you actually know how much the company is contributing to the process? Are you getting quality or quantity? A Behavior Based Safety Process can be a powerful resource with the right leadership, but it must be continuously monitored and tweaked. Throwing more and more incentives into the process is the wrong answer and will ultimately cause the program to lose effectiveness. The process must have accountability.
• Cost Savings: Does your company participate in a vendor partnership for safety related items? If not, take the lead and shop around. There are some excellent savings opportunities out there now.
• Incentives: If you have a safety incentive program, has it devolved such that employees view it as an entitlement? Even worse, does it encourage employees to hide incidents? Maybe it is time to raise the bar a little.
• Light Duty: Do you have an effective return-to-work, light-duty program in place? When was the last time you visited your primary care facility's waiting room to judge its performance? You might be in for a real surprise. Also, review your Drug-Free Workplace program to ensure compliance with all state and federal regulations.
• Equipment Review: Do you have a company fleet program? Many companies are installing GPSs in company vehicles to monitor compliance. There are pros and cons to this, but for some companies it can offer real value. In addition to identifying at-risk drivers, companies may find an increase in drivers' workload capabilities.
• Training: Each year the issue of training becomes more and more critical. Do you provide your training in-house or do you out-source? There are many courses now offered online and you can even develop your own remote training through the web. Training is one of your best loss prevention tools.
• Education: Encourage your staff to take advantage of the many resources available to safety professionals -- webinars, local associations, industry conferences. Networking gives you the opportunity to educate yourself on current issues and to promote your company's excellent safety performance.

Times are indeed tough, but in these tough times there is an opportunity to shine by promoting a lean, fat-free safety culture that will outlast even these difficult days.