As we end 2024, let’s take stock of how the EHS field is evolving. First, we’ll view the landscape from 30,000 feet, the perch from which journalists often identify and analyze issues and trends — the new norms. My overview is based on interviews with EHS pros old and young, EHS association leaders, association educational sessions and research. “The new normal” will also be described in terms of new principles, technologies and regulatory approaches.

The EHS landscape today

• There is a broader model or role for safety and health professionals. A new mindset is forming, particularly with younger professionals. As one young pro says, “For many years now EHS professionals have been aiming to ‘send people home the same way they arrived.’ This is no longer enough to maintain and improve health and environment. We need to strive to ‘send people home better than they arrived’.”
• This describes Total Worker Health®, a holistic approach to the safety and health of workers 24/7, on and off the job. Total Worker Health® was developed by NIOSH. It goes beyond traditional safety and health concerns to recognize and improve the relationship between work and nonwork conditions. The goal: creating work environments that are safe, health-enhancing (personal well-being), and fulfilling (job satisfaction). It’s taken Total Worker Health®, first introduced in 2004, years to catch on. This holistic approach now is more visible and more widely used than ever.
• Health issues have stepped to the fore. It also relates to the increased importance now placed on health. Mostly large companies with deep pockets that are investing in wellness and well-being programs that address mental health, lifestyle habits, diet, exercise, sleep, substance abuse, referral services and education on how to maintain or improve healthy living.

The AIHA’s new motto — “Healthier workplaces, a healthier world”— reinforces the new emphasis on health: Technology such as health-monitoring wearables is a game-changer in terms of paying more attention to health. 

• The globalization of EHS continues. The scope indicated by “a healthier world” points to another trend: More pros, again especially in large corporations, are taking on global responsibilities, focusing on foreign cultures, safety and health practices and foreign regulations. High-level pros are racking up frequent flyer miles. 

This global orientation reflects the expanded role of professionals. A relatively new title for both professionals and departments is “occupational and environmental health and safety.” 

“The days of someone being strictly an industrial hygienist or strictly a safety professional are behind us. EHS professionals in the future will need to wear multiple hats and be a subject matter expert in multiple fields,” says one professional. 

• The rise of the generalist is an economic reality. This trend has been ongoing for decades. Many companies have reduced headcount in safety and health departments. Says one pro: “If you’re a publicly-traded company trying to improve the bottom line, if you can get one person to be able to do three jobs, that’s much more efficient.” Pros entering the field are encouraged to, if not expected to, get basic cross-over training in areas such as industrial hygiene, ergonomics, emergency response, workplace violence, mental health and environmental affairs.
• Knowledge beyond traditional safety and health issues is essential. Pros are now assuming roles in chemical management, ergonomics, mental health, infectious diseases, heat illness prevention, the effects of climate change and weather events, and emerging industries such as nanotechnology and biotechnology. It’s important to know the limits of your knowledge. Consultants are often brought in for specific technical issues. Continuing education on a broad range of issues is a must today.
• Greater collaboration exists between EHS disciplines. The pandemic forced pros to break out of their silos and engage other experts in a time of fast-changing health guidance and practices. Pros have not returned to their isolating silos. You now see cross-disciplinary teams working on issues such as infectious diseases and building the business case for EHS.
• Artificial intelligence booms. No one I’ve talked to says AI will make the EHS manager obsolete. It may mean fewer are needed, but pros believe safety and health will always require the human touch, face to face coaching and engagement, and interpretation and analysis of Big Data.

New principles

One aspect of the new norm is to look at employees as whole people, not just workers. Not simply employees who must follow rules, attend training, form committees and file reports. The age of the safety cop is long gone. EHS pros have embraced psychology as a key factor shaping behaviors. People-Based Safety, created by Dr. E. Scott Geller in the 1990s, and behavior-based safety marketed heavily in the ’80s and ‘90s by Behavior Science Technology (BST), later known as Dekra Insights, brought about a paradigm shift in EHS attitudes toward workers. The new norm became targeting specific hazards, conducting observations, giving feedback on safe and at-risk behaviors, active listening and emphasizing positive reinforcement.

“People are the solution” is one of the guiding principles of Safety Differently, a seminal book published in 2014 by Dr. Sydney Dekker. Safety 2.0 as it’s also called is about enhancing the capacities that make things go right. Safety is the presence of positives, not negatives. Another principle: Worker error is considered inevitable because humans are fallible.

Human and organizational performance (HOP) is often viewed as part of Safety 2.0. HOP holds that 1) People make mistakes; 2) blame is ineffective; 3) behavior is driven by context; 4) learning is key to improving; and 5) your response matters.

Approaching workers as people with multiple dimensions means accounting for an individual’s life outside of work: their health, their fitness, their mental health, their well-being. A reality check: off-the-job injuries and illnesses impact on-the-job productivity, teamwork, morale and the bottom line.

• Soft skills are a new norm. Whether it is talking to top management or frontline workers, success depends on communicating, listening, using emotional intelligence, empathy, coaching, giving feedback. If you want top managers and line workers engaged in safety and health, sharpened soft skills are a must.

Identifying hazards and responding to incidents and emergencies put pros in a narrow box where they are seen as problem-solvers. But the job is not simply reactionary, it’s being proactive. As the one pro says, the focus should be on improving the lives of our workers.

States pick up the regulatory slack

It’s safe to predict there will be no major new standards from OSHA in the next four years. In the first Trump term, a permanent OSHA chief was never nominated. Loren Sweatt was the de facto head of the agency after years as a Capitol Hill legislative aide.

I’m reminded of an incident in 2001. The new OSHA director, a true EHS professional, came to his first meeting with his boss, President Bush’s Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, with a binder full of his plans. She said, you can put the binder down. We’re not focusing on regulations.

The federal heat illness and prevention plan proposal issued earlier this year is just that, a proposal. Even in the best of circumstances, the reg would be years from being finalized. Now it’s likely dead on arrival. As the feds back away from standard-setting, the states are filling the void. For example, Cal/OSHA released a final standard in June 2024, for protecting workers from indoor heat in. The state’s outdoor heat rule took effect in 2005.

California follows Minnesota and Oregon as the only states regulating indoor heat exposure. (Oregon’s standard covers both indoor and outdoor workplaces.) California, Colorado and Washington have state standards covering outdoor heat exposure. Nevada, Maryland and Virginia are drafting standards to protect workers from exposure to excessive indoor and outdoor heat. More states may initiate standards action in reaction to 18 of the past 19 years being the hottest on record.

A patchwork quilt of state standards is not ideal. Decades ago states adopted hazard communication standards. This gave many multi-state businesses a compliance headache and paved the way for the federal hazard communication standard.

Technology dominates

Technology dominates EHS discussions in-house and at national conferences. Real-time data collection and reporting, EHS mobile apps for instant reporting of hazards and incidents, drones, ergonomic sensors, vehicle telematics, lone-worker wearables for vital signs and location monitoring are just some of the tech tools on the market. Many more are coming. Worker privacy and worker pushback against “Big Brother” monitoring are issues to be worked out for technology to make deeper inroads in the EHS field.

Investment money in safety tech is held back for many businesses. Only about one-third of companies have fully rolled out any of these technologies, according to a survey by Verdantix. About 25 percent have no plans right now for digitizing EHS. In the middle you have companies running pilot programs or are in the learning and planning phase.

Larger corporations with resources and companies in high-hazard industries are most likely to be at the forefront using these technologies. Small companies with less than 100 employees and no full-time EHS person are more likely to invest only in OSHA compliance to stay out of trouble.

Future norms

Safety and health is never static. There are always changes, new laws and room for improvement. In 2025 and beyond these are some areas for improvement:

• Greater use of EHS management systems.
• Tighter contractor safety oversight.
• Increased incident reporting. (Only 51% of workers who experienced harm reported the incident, according to a recent survey)
• Reducing serious injuries and fatalities.
• More substantial sustainability investments.
• More standardized leading indicators.
• More serious attention to employee mental health and well-being.

In the future, as progress is made on these and other issues, “The new normal” in EHS will take on additional components.