Unfortunately, the old adage of ‘everyone is an expert’ is applied frequently to safety management and to compliance post-holder roles. These are skilled roles and, where undervaluing takes place, it is often the case – in my own experience – that other roles are undervalued also. The ‘root cause’, therefore, is often cultural. All roles have their particular requirements and all incumbents their own sets of skills, experiences and virtues.
Perhaps under the combined pressures of time and of cost, once audit techniques training is delivered an approved organisation frequently will consider that the training needs of safety and of compliance post-holders have been satisfied. This serves only to ignore completely the need for career development, through improving the skill set of an individual. It serves, also, to perpetuate the belief that the duties of said post-holders are limited to encouraging safety reporting or the execution of audits respectively. This is a fallacy.
Safety and compliance post-holders are specialists in very particular sets of techniques. They are, also, specialists in the applicable regulations. In fact, regulations are at the core of what they do – every single day. There is, often, no value assigned to the problem-solving skills of either speciality or of the commercial value that such persons bring to an approved organisation at the time of audit by third parties (potential clients or authorities). Strong performance under audit by a third-party translates to business won or to an improved relationship with the authority.
Safety and compliance monitoring post-holders should be used in designing solutions to operational issues. There is ALWAYS more than one solution. Said positions are, therefore far more than the simple cost centres they are often regarded as being. Take one real-life example: that of an engine service bulletin (SB) and a spare engine held by a maintenance organisation that lacked a B-rating (engines) on its approval. The SB might be carried out on-wing or on a stand; however, for it to be carried out on a stand, a B-rating would be required for the maintenance organisation and for it to be carried out on-wing would require an engine change (with all of the risks that poses). The tooling and the maintenance procedure were simple. The solution adopted was a one-off B-rating for carrying out the SB, on a stand, for a named (by serial number) engine. Often, it takes confidence to ask the authority for such permission and it takes coaching for a post-holder to reach that point.
Taking safety and compliance post-holders beyond their initial training, and teaching them to be imaginative in how they devise solutions to operational issues, is where I am able to invest my 34 years of practical experience.
