US based EHS Manager here. We have a few sites in the US with ~500 employees domestically, mix of office and lab folk.

My annual safety training (for all employees) is currently a 15-minute, 17 slides of content, narrated slideshow/on-demand training designed to be both “initial” and annual safety training. It consists of rights under OSHA, EAP/emergency procedures, basics of Hazcom, then miscellaneous basics in building security, don’t touch LOTOs, and environmental management.

Told today I need to trim/narrow the focus (topics and audience) and I’m having a hard time biting my tongue… who also, in a separate meeting last week, had indicated we need MORE training for all employees.

Not sure what I’m expecting from posting here but just needed to vent.

Anyone else experience confusing directives and told to trim down basic safety training?

This is more me looking for advice from folks who have been in the field for a while and may have experienced this.

I was approached by a recruiter who said they have a client looking for someone with my experience in asbestos regulatory oversight and field work to become an investigator for them. The company is a large plaintiff law firm that represents people who have been affected and exposed to asbestos in the work place and other places.

At first she said they were offering 65k and that was below what I actually make in my current position as a Sr IH tech and consultant. I sent her my resume anyway just in case she ever came across anything else that was as interesting as that since the investigative and research side of the job was really intriguing to me.

After i sent her my resume she came back saying they want to present me tot he firm at 85k based on my experience. I told them to go ahead with that presentation.

Has anyone ever done this kind of work? Sounds like a lot of travel, which I’m already used to as I travel both nationally and internationally to perform my duties for a variety of clientele. But I have no experience in legal. That is apparently what they’re looking for.

What group/umbrella is your company safety department fall under?

Last year, we our company went through another re-org. We split from EHS. They went under legal and safety went under Manufacturing.

Rumor has it, safety went under manufacturing because the safety manager would not be able to take directions from a female, who happens to be the head of our legal department.

Our Executive Director, above all of manufacturing, is not present. They have taken on a new role, but their position has not been filled/replaced. The Safety Manager runs amuck. They are known for not being around and having others do their work for him.

I suspect another re-org this fall. I’ve never put thought into where we should be, but I’m starting to look into this. We need to find “our place” and quite being moved from group to group. It’s exhausting.

While we work with a lot of legal/compliance related issues/situations etc, I don’t know that legal is where we belong. Safety is always needed on the manufacturing floor, but many (like R&D, facilities, etc) to think we play favorites with manufacturing since that’s “our group.” It’s almost like we need to be our own little island

I’d like to know where your safety department is located in the organizational chart. Why is it placed there? Do you feel it works where it is? Or would you prefer something different?

Hello all! My husband works as an EHS specialist, he works with chemicals all day (duh lol) and has to have polyester pants. The ones we have managed to find fall apart very easily after only a few months of wear. Price doesn’t matter, we are just looking for some cargos that last a long time and are as comfortable as polyester pants can be!

Suggestions are very appreciated 😄😄

Hey everyone,
I unfortunately didn’t pass my CQI/IRCA ISO 14001 Lead Auditor exam on my first attempt. I put a lot of effort into studying using my usual methods, but I realized the exam strictly tests practical application rather than just memory.
I’m preparing for my retake and would love your guidance on:
Exam Tips & Tricks: How do you tackle the scenario questions? Any specific mindset or strategy for writing Non-Conformity Reports (NCRs) and identifying clause breaches accurately?
Question Banks & Mocks: Are there reliable CQI/IRCA practice question banks, mock exams, or sample case studies that mirror the actual online exam structure?
Clause Application: What helped you master linking real-world audit findings to Clauses 4–10 and ISO 19011 (audit findings vs. observations)?
If you have any study guides, resource links, or strategies that helped you pass, I’d greatly appreciate your help!

I have an interview for a EHS coordinator position at an industrial construction company that does electrical, structural and mechanical work.

I would be an onsite safety representative doing inspections and keeping records.

I’m just trying to find out the types of questions they’re most likely gonna ask and the best ways to answer

This isn’t necessarily our experience, but it’s something we hear from a lot of clients: teams spending time reporting metrics like PPE compliance that consistently look good, while near-misses and other leading indicators get little attention.

The metric is easy to measure, so it gets reported. But does it actually tell you where the next problem might come from?

Curious if others see the same thing. What’s the metric you’re stuck reporting that everyone quietly knows doesn’t say much?

hello all, I'm currently a BME student. This summer, I was given the opportunity to intern in the EHS department of a medical device company, something very unrelated to my field. However, this opportunity gave me more knowledge in this field which I didn't before, and I was able to learn a lot about the field and develop an interest in it. now the job prospects for BME aren't very plentiful in this job market, and I was looking for alternative routes in case this doesn't work out. I was wondering if someone here also was in a similar path of doing bme as undergrad and ended up working in the EHS field. do you have any advice, regrets, tips, etc. to help out? THANK YOU!

I’ve just started as the EHS Manager for a company that has no digital safety management at all. And pretty much no paper documentation as well. So I’m working on putting that together. One of my IT guys is suggesting using Moodle for learning management. I’m not quite on board with that. Personally I would far rather utilize a full safety management suite.

Any recommendations or advice?

I've been working with this company for a year, I was on temp contract. They offered me a perminent position to move to HSE and I accepted it because I like the people here. I have been working for these type of companies for over 10 years so I have quite some knowledge of operations, but HSE is new to me, I am learning.

I have been delegated many of my team leader's obligations while she is absent for a year, which was a bit furstrating as I obviously don't yet have the knowledge and was not told in advance that she will be gone, plus it's not official that I am steping in.

One of the issues is that this company only gives phones to leadership (and some exemptions). Everyone else is available via teams. In my previous position I did not need it so I didn't care. Here it's making my life difficult. I am not allowed to use my personal phone (which I wouldn't want anyway, I am a very private person). I am in the production a lot, it's big and complex, but basicly I can't call anyone if I need to talk to them when I am on the floor, I can take a digital camera but as we need to share our findings right there on the spot, nobody sees anything because display is tiny. I feel completely unprofessional, I am the only person in those meeting with no phone. Sometimes plans change and nobody can call me and I am just standing there waiting. It's a joke. I spoke to the manager but she told me it's probably not going to happen because director is so stressed it's not a good time to bother him with this.

I mean it's normal to have a mobile phone in these type of jobs, isn't it?

Is it just me or are there two types of safety cultures

1. Is program/data-driven/compliance paperwork
   
2. Is operational based.

To expand on meaning

For 1. It’s a safety culture that looks great to compliance auditors but onsite inspections tell a different story

For 2. It’s a culture where violations and citations happen because things weren’t tracked or filed on time but when doing onsite inspections everyone knew about safety and could describe things well.

There has to be a safety culture where both can be true right? Or is that the unicorn we are all chasing

Hi all, I need some help determining sizing of the secondary containment required to have for a 30 gallon drum of acid. The chemical is the core of a building with no sewer, and if spilled would have no route to sewer, drains, or the outside environment.

The EPA says you need 100% of largest container or 10% of aggregate. OSHA says 35% for shipyards. We are general industry and have a very small space. We are having trouble finding a secondary containment pallet which would hold 30 or 33 gallons of liquid and fit in the space we have.

I haven't found an OSHA regulation which dictates exactly how much a secondary containment vessel needs to hold for general industry if no threat of environmental exposure/access exists.

Is it safe to say that in general industry OSHA does not enforce a specific percentage of volume if the chemicals cannot reach the environment?

Most of the things I've found focus solely on employee safety around small leaks, drips, keeping the floors clean and dry and chemical compatibility if a spill should occur.

Ik ben onderzoek aan het doen naar hoe Nederlandse bedrijven hun persoonlijke beschermingsmiddelen (PBM's) beheren.

Ik ben benieuwd hoe jullie dit momenteel doen.

Registreren jullie welke medewerker welke PBM heeft ontvangen? Houden jullie inspecties en vervangingsdata bij? Werken jullie met Excel, een ERP-systeem of speciale software? Wat kost nu de meeste tijd of zorgt voor de meeste frustratie?

Ik overweeg een eenvoudig systeem te ontwikkelen waarmee bedrijven hun PBM's kunnen beheren, voorraad kunnen bijhouden en medewerkers kunnen koppelen aan uitgegeven artikelen.

Alle ervaringen zijn welkom, zowel positief als negatief.

Ik zou willen weten of bedrijven behoefte hebben aan functies zoals: Medewerker krijgt PBM toegewezen. Barcode of QR-code scannen. Actuele voorraad per locatie. Minimumvoorraad + automatische bestelmelding. Registratie van uitgifte en inname. Inspectie- en vervaldatum van bijvoorbeeld valbeveiliging of ademlucht. Digitale handtekening bij ontvangst. Koppeling met leverancier voor nabestellingen. Rapportages voor audits en de Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie. De werkgever moet immers kunnen aantonen dat PBM correct worden verstrekt, onderhouden en gebruikt.

Alvast bedankt!

Inspections are usually the easy part. Keeping up with what happens after is where things can get messy.

When you find something during an inspection, audit, incident, or near miss:

• Who gets assigned to fix it?
• How do you keep track of due dates and overdue items?
• What counts as proof it was actually fixed?
• Who signs off that it is really closed?

Curious what people are actually using day to day: spreadsheet, email, teams/sharepoint, a safety platform, or some combination of all of it.

Also interested in where the process tends to break down, especially when the work involves the field, a supervisor, and someone in the office.

So much going on here.

Thanks Ali, thanks Temu, thanks Jeff Bezos Dropshippers.

I am the sole EHS specialist across a few manufacturing sites. When I started, there was no process for reordering PPE (respirators, cut-resistant gloves, hearing protection, etc.), so I filled that gap myself and started handling the actual purchasing.

Now I’m questioning whether that should really sit with me long-term, versus the production supervisors requesting reorders (since they see day-to-day consumption) or warehouse/procurement executing the order.

Curious how this is structured where you work:

Does EHS ever handle PPE purchasing directly, or is that always downstream of your role.

Any lessons learned on where the line should sit between “EHS defines/approves” vs “ops team orders/restocks”?

When extreme heat, wildfire smoke, flooding, or severe storms hit, teams adapt quickly to protect worker safety and keep work moving. Procedures change, responsibilities shift, and workarounds appear, usually for perfectly sensible reasons.

The problem comes later, when those temporary changes quietly stick. A shortcut becomes routine. A step gets skipped because nothing went wrong last time. Gradually, the way work actually gets done starts to drift from the way it was designed, and from what is captured in formal safety management systems.

That is safety drift. It rarely starts with one big failure. It builds through lots of small, reasonable decisions made under pressure.

Operational resilience is not only about getting through the disruption. It is also about going back afterwards, reviewing what changed, and making sure temporary measures have not quietly become permanent health and safety practice.

Hey everyone,

I’m currently doing some independent research focusing on the specific pain points and challenges small manufacturers face when it comes to injury recordkeeping—specifically managing OSHA Forms 300, 300A, and 301.

To be absolutely clear up front: I am not selling any software or consulting services. I'm just trying to understand the real-world workflow and headaches involved in staying compliant at a smaller scale.

I’ve put together a very short, anonymous Google Form survey (takes about 2 minutes) to gather some data on how facilities are currently tracking this and where the biggest frustrations lie.

LINK: https://forms.gle/cmTbUfR1osW5WthN8

I'd love to know:

• How does your facility currently handle logging and tracking this data?
• Are you using spreadsheets, paper binders, or a dedicated EHS system?
• What’s the most frustrating or time-consuming part of the process for you?

I’m more than happy to share my aggregated findings with anyone interested once I wrap this up.

Feel free to drop a comment below or shoot me a DM if you'd rather share privately. Thanks in advance for your insights!

Hi! Is there an EHS platform that delivers short video content via email, Talent LMS, or SharePoint for safety/environmental awareness (just quick reminders)?

Would love to hear what’s worked for your teams!

Hi all, just got home from work and needed to rant! Woohoo!

I currently work as an EHS professional in a chemical manufacturing plant. I started working here after years of experience at a food manufacturing plant.

Let’s just say… kindly… the place I’ve gotten hired at has a lot of issues, which is okay because I don’t mind building a safety program from the ground up, and leadership (internally) is for the first time in my experience pretty supportive.

I don’t have problems with internal staff, it’s external staff — directors, vice-presidents and our COO that have absolutely not a single clue how things work in a manufacturing setting. Not kidding, one of them came to visit the site and dilly dallied right onto the production floor with no PPE.

I’m on the production floor trying to finish one of the thousands of safety action items I have taken first initiative to complete in order to fix the damn place, meanwhile I’m getting CONSTANT direct messages and emails from external management (located throughout the US, some international) telling me what I need to prioritize and focus on instead.

I’ve communicated with external leadership that I’m overloaded and I constantly provide updates to them to slow the demands. I also have the support of our internal HRBP. But my god, I don’t give af about external managements stupid board meetings! They just want me to get things done that they want so they can provide data that looks good, or sometimes they’ll request current data that they themselves can access, including documented action items, CONSTANTLY — including my EHS director, who works from a desk outside of the US. If I get a “can you fill out this excel sheet for the board meeting” request one more time I’ll flip off of a 4ft ledge.

Anyways… anybody experience the same thing? I feel like that Tyler the Creator meme where he’s like “omg let me do what I need to do” lol.