ASSP Strategic Plan

Mission and Vision

Who We Are

ASSP is a global association for occupational safety and health professionals.

What We Do

We provide education, standards development, advocacy and a professional community to support the advancement of our members and the profession as a whole.

Why It Matters

Our members are dedicated to creating safe work environments by preventing workplace injuries, illnesses and fatalities. Sound safety practices are both socially responsible and good business, leading to increased productivity, a better reputation and higher employee satisfaction.

Values Statements

Member Community

ASSP is where occupational safety and health professionals find a vibrant community — one that helps them grow professionally through education and networking, and advocates for the profession.

Education

ASSP is the preferred source for education among safety professionals, providing valuable training, networking, knowledge, skills and continuing education.

Standards

ASSP is a leader in the evolution of voluntary occupational safety and health standards that reflect recognized best practices, both in the United States and internationally.

Value of the Profession

ASSP elevates the value of the safety and health profession through innovation, thought leadership and objective promotion of science-based approaches to OSH practices while communicating the value of OSH to key stakeholders.

2022-23 Strategic Goals

In response to the ongoing economic impact of the pandemic, the Board of Directors is diligently focused on delivering the highest member value while protecting the health and safety of our member community.

Based on this approach, we are focusing on the following goals through June 2023:

The Board of Directors’ top priority is engaging members to discuss the changing nature of work and the impact of these changes on safety professionals, their companies and the employees they keep safe. This engagement will inform ASSP’s next generation strategic plan.

In addition, the Board will focus on the following three areas to strengthen and advance ASSP and our mission.

Goals and Objectives

MEMBER COMMUNITY

Goal 1: Build meaningful member engagement through community by establishing definitions for what it means to be an engaged member and develop plans to grow highly engaged segments.

Objectives:

• Develop a clear definition of member engagement.
• Implement mechanisms to measure and analyze the defined engagement behaviors.
• Establish growth targets and plans for segments of engaged members.

Goal 2: Increase the collective expertise of the ASSP community by growing the ASSP membership.

Objectives:

• Develop and execute a growth and engagement plan for young and emerging OSH professionals.
• Develop a member value proposition to engage at the corporate level.
• Increase the number of paid ASSP members to support diversification of revenue sources.

Goal 3: Sustain a vibrant community of OSH professionals by increasing the retention of ASSP members.

Objectives:

• Establish a consistent measurement of member satisfaction.
• Establish a consistent measurement of why members leave and develop targets and plans to reengage members who left for reasons, within our control.

EDUCATION

Goal 1: Grow and diversify professional development revenue sources.

Objectives:

• Expand the number of online courses delivered by ASSP.
• Increase the number of formal training courses and experiential learning opportunities ASSP delivers to the OSH community.
• Increase formal in-person learning opportunities delivered at clients’ worksites.

Goal 2: Improve the OSH professional's knowledge, skills and abilities by increasing the number of OSH professionals who have earned an ASSP certificate.

Objectives:

• Increase the number of certificate programs offered to the OSH community.
• Expand the number of learning mediums that ASSP employs to include at least face-to-face, virtual and asynchronous options.

Goal 3: Sustain ASSP’s longstanding reputation as the preferred source for education among safety professionals by growing the learning experiences available to OSH professionals.

Objectives:

• Enhance existing formal learning programs by adding blended learning solutions.
• Deliver certification preparation workshops in face-to-face, virtual and asynchronous learning mediums.
• Grow informal just-in-time learning resources available to the OSH profession.

STANDARDS

Goal 1: Build a robust, balanced line of business to reflect the full life cycle of OSH standards that affect members and the profession.

Objectives:

• Increase ASSP resources by growing standards revenue.
• Publish a standard or technical report addressing the leading causes of occupational fatalities.
• Publish an implementation guide to address each of the top-five selling ANSI/ASSP standards.

Goal 2: Streamline processes within each stage of developing voluntary consensus OSH standards and technical reports.

Objectives:

• Accelerate the timeline for standards development.
• Implement an enhanced tracking system to ensure continuous improvement of all processes in the development of OSH standards.
• Increase participation from business and industry on committees to enhance the consensus process.

Goal 3: Collaborate and cooperate with private and public-sector stakeholders to move ASSP standards forward to serve a diverse range of OSH professionals and associated audiences.

Objectives:

• Implement data-gathering tools to track member and stakeholder use and recognition of standards.
• Increase adoption of OSH standards on a national and global level in the private and public sector.
• Increase total member and stakeholder participation with full standards committees and subgroups.

VALUE OF THE PROFESSION

Goal 1: Increase the number of ASSP members who hold OSH-related accredited professional designations.

Objectives:

• Define and promote professional capability/competency standards within the OSH community and among employers.
• Expand the number of accredited college and university OSH programs.
• Increase the number of students graduating from ABET-accredited/model-learning-outcome-adopted academic programs.

Goal 2: Establish the OSH profession and its members as a source of competitive advantage.

Objectives:

• Educate OSH professional and the business community on the importance of risk assessment and corporate social responsibility and OSH professionals’ capabilities to support these key business objectives.
• Identify and support research to identify evidence-based ideas, innovations and solutions that further validate the value of the OSH profession and OSH professionals.

Goal 3: Influence, engage and educate government, business and other key stakeholders on issues important to the OSH profession and the key role of OSH professionals in addressing those issues.

Objectives:

• Promote integration of OSH metrics into corporate sustainability and annual reports to better connect human capital issues to business outcomes.
• Use alliances to advance major issues concerning the OSH profession.