OSHA encouraging development of new EHS professionals

July 13th, 2016 by Dakota Software Staff Industry News

There's a growing need for EHS professionals, but the development of new specialists in the field may be lagging behind. This is obviously bad news for every company that has safety compliance concerns and related issues to contend with: Business growth will be more difficult and complicated when organizations can't find qualified EHS staff to fulfill a variety of essential duties. EHS Today reported a 2011 study from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health found a significant difference between the projected number of active EHS professionals and the number of open positions businesses need to fill.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and its National Advisory Committee on Safety and Health recently addressed this issue in discussions with members of the American Society of Safety Engineers, according to industry news provider OH&S.

ASSE developing definitions for EHS discipline
One tactic taken by ASSE to address the lack of EHS professionals is defining the work these employees do and explicitly listing the core competencies required. The efforts date back to a competency summit hosted in 2015, where the issue was discussed. Following that beginning, the professional organization brought together a group of experienced EHS staff to establish a list of seven competencies for the profession in concert with the International Network of Safety and Health Practitioner Organizations. As listed by OH&S, those qualities are:

• Business: The ability to create and follow through on a business case for protecting organizational assets, stakeholders and community.
• Communication: The ability to effectively communicate information and hold discussions with business leaders, other EHS staff, a wide variety of employees and other stakeholders to create consensus and improve health and safety conditions.
• Evidence-based practices: The regular use of general and specific information to make EHS efforts as successful as possible, improve problem identification and resolution and incorporate practical health and safety goals into broader business plans.
• Informatics and technology: Technological literacy is crucial for efforts to support EHS operations across many different common areas of responsibility.
• Leadership: Successful EHS professionals have the ability to influence the decisions and processes used by both staff and business systems to push toward organizational goals related to EHS principles.
• Professionalism: EHS professionals are consistently moral, ethical and socially responsible, and institute new programs and initiatives for health and safety with those values in mind.
• Risk management and control: An integral part of EHS duties is minimizing loss and preserving operational staff and assets.

Michael Belcher, ASSE president, believes the definitions will increase the strength of the profession as a whole and provide clear goals and guidelines to everyone involved in EHS.

"For the first time, an advisory committee is taking a serious look at the issue of professionalism and connecting the dots between the quality of the professionals and the strength of the profession," Belcher said to OH&S. "These questions - who does safety now and who will do safety ten, twenty, and thirty years from now - have long been overlooked. We look forward to working with NACOSH on this charge, sharing all the resources and knowledge we have developed from considering these questions, and moving toward long-term solutions that ensure a strong profession made up of passionate and qualified professionals."

What's next in the process
ASSE has a number of initiatives in place to encourage more people to enter the EHS field, including scholarships and working with INSHPO to raise awareness in other areas. The definition of core competencies gives all professionals looking to enter the field a stable set of goals to seek in education and professional development.