A coalition of safety organizations urged employers to go beyond legal compliance and adopt risk-based safety and health strategies to protect their workers, the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP) announced March 5.
The Intersociety Forum (ISF) of two dozen safety-focused organizations includes the ASSP, the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), the Board of Certified Safety Professionals, and the National Safety Council (NSC). The ISF released a brief report on its “Core Principles of Modern Occupational EHS Practice.”
The three core principles to help ensure workers return home safe and healthy each workday are:
- Prioritizing standards and worker well-being—creating and implementing standards that foster business success while promoting holistic worker health;
- Embracing risk and safety management systems—utilizing modern occupational environment, health, and safety (EHS) practices that go beyond checking a box, helping organizations proactively mitigate risk and embedding safety into every aspect of business decision-making; and
- “Revolutionizing” recordkeeping for predictive insights—tracking leading safety indicators that empower organizations to predict and prevent serious injuries, illnesses, and fatalities.
“We urge today’s business leaders and policymakers to prioritize environmental, health and safety practices as a foundation of economic growth,” ASSP CEO Jennifer McNelly said in a statement. “When workers are protected from injuries and illnesses, they perform at their best, which fosters productivity, innovation and global competitiveness. Safety strengthens resilience and enables businesses to thrive.”
The ASSP suggested that the coalition’s report offers employers several ways a business model of safety and health can create a strategic advantage that powers positive business outcomes.
The ASSP also remarked that despite advancements in technology, workplace injury and fatality rates have remained relatively flat for the past decade. A worker died on the job every 99 minutes in 2023, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data cited by the group.
The ISF’s report contains a QR code allowing organizations to show their support for the groups’ core principles. The coalition’s leaders plan to meet with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) once a new assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health is confirmed later this year.
“It’s vital that the coalition has achieved meaningful cross-organization collaboration to speak as one voice from the safety industry,” McNelly said.
The ASSP was founded in 1911 as the United Association of Casualty Inspectors following the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in which 123 women and girls perished—some as young as 14 years old. The group was renamed the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) in 1914 before taking its current name in 2018.
The ASSP recently released a new industry consensus standard for construction and demolition worker EHS training. The NSC’s MSD Solutions Lab recently issued a guide to the surveillance of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), which are some of the costliest workplace injuries. Its approach to preventing MSDs through injury surveillance systems involves standardized recordkeeping; maintaining injury surveillance frameworks adapted to the employer’s size and capabilities; and leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) analytics, automated systems, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices (sensors) demonstrated through real-world use cases and interactive exercises.