If you accept a job as an industrial hygienist at a business, for example, you should shortly know all the IH hazards and risks at that workplace(s). More importantly, however, you should know who’s who in the organizational structure. You should know who the customers for the business’s products or services are. What does it cost to run that business? Where do the profits come from? What risks does the business face? Eventually, at least in your mind, you should know how to make the products, or perform the services, yourself. When you are comfortable that all this knowledge has been obtained, then you must use judgment to determine your fate.

Hitch a ride

It is hard to achieve OHS success if you choose to work for the wrong organization. Hitch a ride with an organization that prioritizes conformance to systems over mere compliance to OHS objectives.

Time

Systems vary in size and complexity. At a chemical business (Plaskon) with less than 500 employees, it took me about one year to understand the entire system. It took me over a decade to understand the entire system for a manufacturer (Aeroquip-Vickers) with 16,000 worldwide. Time is your most valuable resource, use it well.

Business-speak

The better you understand the system, the less you will describe it by OHS language. The more you use system or business-speak, the more that you will be appreciated by the system’s leadership. Express yourself in business or system terms as soon as possible. Engage in system activities outside your OHS comfort zone.

Create an unconventional image

You need to know everything. People should not know everything about you. Create some mystery about your abilities or influence. My killer image? Upon my return from a two-week vacation my boss inquired if I enjoyed my time away from work. I briefly stated, and showed evidence, that I spent time in China with a global team of experts helping to train representatives of the government, including their military, how to respond to chemical disasters. The more I stayed tight-lipped, the more people, particularly business leadership, inquired about who I was.

Loyalty

Every system is driven by people in leadership positions. Usually there is one position e.g., president that leads everyone. Use judgment when to bypass the chain-of-command and express loyalty to leadership, if they deserve it. Never abuse the oath of loyalty. Mutual trust will open doors that once appeared closed.

Objectives

Every system has objectives — some ultimate goal that it seeks to achieve. Ensure that your OHS objectives complement and are subservient to the system objectives. Business objectives must greatly align with personal objectives. Personal objectives are paramount above all other objectives.

Plan

You must develop and commit to a plan. A plan is a roadmap to get from one destination to the next destination. Roadmaps have detours. Plan for detours but do not deviate too long or too far from the ultimate destination. My career plan is extremely long. The plan may be visualized as a pyramid with its base as Education. My E-plan evolves generally over ten-year long stages that include Experience, Exemplary, Expatiate, Expire, and lastly the peak of the pyramid, Epitaph. I’m nearing the end of the Expatiate stage now. Fun begins as I now know how the global OHS system operates, more than a four-decade journey, to influence its direction.

Judgment

Shannon McKeen, a professor of Practice and Executive Director of Experimental Learning and Innovation at Wake Forest University School of Business, is a global communicator on AI’s influence on systems. McKeen has stated that “When knowledge becomes cheap, judgment becomes expensive. AI is not eliminating the need for human expertise. It is raising the standard for what expertise actually means.”

As my E-plan helps to demonstrate, I have decades of building OHS knowledge. AI may replicate much of this acquired OHS knowledge at a moment’s notice. AI may also replicate in ten minutes how a particular system works, when it took me ten years in the past to accomplish this task. What AI cannot replicate, however, is what I am able, and perhaps you too, are able to accomplish, as described in this article’s opening paragraph. Continually test and trust your judgement.

Validate

Nowadays, because of AI and other factors, everyone must validate claims. ChatGPT claims that I wrote my first monthly article for ISHN in 2002. My first article for ISHN, however, was in the late 1990s. I write a lot, but so what?

My ISHN articles and other publications all contribute to my E-plan. I execute judgement, i.e., act upon nearly all information that I convey. For example, I encourage you to follow the link at reference No. 1, a 2013 paper written for presentation at ASSE’s 2013 annual conference. At a minimum, read the conclusions.

More than a dozen years ago the paper explains that because of OSHA, “SH&E pros are part of the public health workforce that may help ensure healthy children.” The paper predicted that the PWFA would be federal law a decade before it happened. Most importantly, read the PWFA law at 29 CFR 1636.3(l)(3). The law recognizes industrial hygienists as “healthcare providers.” That law exists because I understand the key aspects of the global OHS system and how to bend it to our advantage. Always test and validate your judgments. Personal validation is more rewarding than public validation.

Rigged system

If you were appointed the head of OSHA by a US president, do you think you would greatly alter the agency’s culture and influence? More than a half century of evidence demonstrates the OHS system at the government level is rigged mostly to achieve a status quo. Do not count on government agencies to help you achieve OHS success. Achieve OHS with a personal plan. Stick to the plan.