EHS professionals have gotten the word for years in books, articles, conferences, webinars, podcasts and social media platforms. Build up your people skills and professional networks. Go out of your way to make contacts. Get exposure. Collaborate more. This is how the profession gains visibility and credibility.
Pros have been schooled in technical knowledge, and regularly apply their technical expertise to comply with regulations and engineer out hazards and risk. But to raise the profile and clout of the profession with senior managers, the public and the media pros must push beyond their techy, compliance-oriented image. Call it the law of unintended consequences: the pandemic — which pros will tell you is still ongoing — has challenged EHS pros to use their people skills perhaps like never before, reaching out, working together, and getting unprecedented national exposure.