According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics study, white-collar jobs are associated with a considerably higher level of psychological stress. Among those white-collar jobs is daily EHS work.

A LinkedIn post by an HR director executive assistant talked about the parts of her job she was never trained on: “The hallway confession. The bathroom breakdown. The ‘do you have a minute?’ that turns into a 45-minute unraveling of someone’s personal life.

“And… you’re supposed to: keep it confidential; stay regulated; and know what to do next. All while your own pulse is spiking.
 
 “...behind the ‘HR shouldn’t get emotional’ advice… is a person sitting across from you who is clearly breaking.
 
 She described HR as “the department everyone jokes about until they desperately need it to feel human.”
 
 Commenters responded:

“…being ‘professional’ doesn’t mean being detached.”                                                                       

“HR people are carrying an invisible load.”

Daily emotional encounters

The same holds true for EHS people. They can’t be detached and effectively do their job. They carry an invisible load. That load includes emotional encounters with:

• trauma — witnessing or responding to a serious injury or fatality
• psychosocial invisible ills
• confidential mental health problems
• complacent workers and complaining workers
• macho “ain’t gonna happen to me” supermen
• disengaged, apathetic, tuned out employees
• active resisters (Gallup reports 17% of employees actively work against their workplace)
• the “present but absent” (about 50% of employees show up for work but are not contributors, according to Gallup)
• the cave man with neanderthal ideas about safety
• irresponsible management

“Handling workplace accidents, injuries or upset employees is emotionally draining, and without the right support or training, it can harm mental health. When stress is not handled properly, safety professionals may become disconnected, cynical, or doubt their ability to do their jobs well,” writes Scott Gerard, an EHS consultant, in an Intelex blog.

“Over my 42-year career,” he says, “I spent much of my time strapped to a pager or some kind of electronic leash, always wondering did someone get hurt? “

From a Frontline Data Solutions blog: “In many industries, proper execution of health and safety procedures is literally a matter of life and death. These high stakes are enough to keep a safety professional up at night. They have nightmares about someone falling off a platform or blowing up the facility.

“The thing that sets EHS professionals apart is that their work directly contributes to the wellbeing of their workforce. This pressure, especially when dealing with new or inexperienced workers, creates a lot of stress in health and safety. Other professions don’t have to deal with it.”

The life and death reality that EHS pros live with 24/7/365 is indeed an invisible load. So, in addition to conducting audits, training, coaching, assessing risks, ensuring compliance, analyzing incidents, evaluating the effectiveness of controls and tracking lagging and leading performance indicators, here is another responsibility: being mindful of the need for self-care and practicing stress-reduction coping skills.