We need a seat to handle safety compliance and OSHA regulations for our manufacturing plant, which only takes about five hours of work per week but carries massive legal liability. We cannot afford a full-time safety officer, and none of our current operations team members have the expertise. How do we structure this highly specialized, low-hours seat on our Accountability Chart?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A critical safety or compliance seat that requires only five hours a week but carries massive liability is a common challenge for lean organizations. You cannot ignore the seat, and you cannot afford to hire a full-time specialist. The solution is to separate the accountability from the daily execution.

On your Accountability Chart, you must create a dedicated safety and compliance seat. Even though it is a low-hours seat, it must have its own box with five clear roles. To fill this seat, use one of these strategies:
- Combine it with an existing operational seat. Assign the seat to a current operations manager who has the GWC™ for compliance. They will wear two hats, dedicating ninety-five percent of their time to operations and five percent to safety, with distinct roles for each.
- Outsource the expertise but keep internal accountability. Hire an external compliance consultant to perform the specialized audits and physical inspections. Then, place your internal operations manager's name in the safety seat on the Accountability Chart. Their role is not to do the technical work, but to manage the consultant and ensure the compliance metrics are met.

By documenting the seat and assigning a single owner, you ensure that safety compliance is tracked on your weekly Scorecard and never treated as an afterthought.