Stephen Covey has said, “Leadership is getting results in a way that inspires trust. It's maximizing both your current contribution and your ability to contribute in the future by establishing the trust that makes it possible.” For safety and health professionals, that insight is not abstract, it is lived every day. As an organization, ASSP can have an impact on the future of EHS by leading based on the trust we have earned.

For decades, ASSP members have worked tirelessly to reduce injuries, protect workers and meet regulatory expectations. We should all be proud that our work has saved countless lives. Yet it has also revealed a hard truth—compliance alone is not enough. Serious injuries and fatalities continue to occur, often in organizations that believe they are doing everything right.

Whether our members are advising senior leaders, partnering with operations, working alongside frontline employees or collaborating with vendors and contractors, our effectiveness depends on trust. There is internal trust, the credibility we build as leaders within our own organizations, and external trust, the confidence earned with others. In both categories, our members must consistently demonstrate competence, integrity and relevance to be heard, believed and followed. The same applies to our Society.

ASSP is addressing this challenge by advancing a fundamental shift in how safety is understood, applied and measured, one that positions safety and health not as a regulatory minimum, but as a strategic business driver. ASSP is leaning into our role as trusted adviser with the launch of standards-based user groups (SBUGs).

Safety and health excellence cannot be achieved in a vacuum. That is why ASSP is bringing leaders together through two industry convenings designed to accelerate shared progress: Chicagoland on March 24 and Washington, DC, on April 16.

Consensus standards have always been one of ASSP’s greatest strengths. Developed by practitioners, informed by research and refined through real-world experience, they represent the profession’s collective wisdom. Unfortunately, standards are sometimes treated as static documents, referenced only during audits or cited in policies and then set aside. SBUGs were created to change that by giving ASSP members new ways to bring standards to life in their organizations and strengthen their credibility as business partners.

SBUGs are collaborative, industry-led networks where employers, safety professionals and technology innovators work together to operationalize ASSP standards inside real business systems. Rather than asking organizations to simply “adopt” a standard, SBUGs focus on translating requirements into repeatable, measurable and scalable practices that influence leadership behavior, operational decisions and workplace culture. This evidence-based approach helps safety professionals earn trust at every level of an organization.

A powerful early example of this approach is ASSP’s collaboration with Avetta, where elements of the ANSI/ASSP Z10 and Z16 standards have been embedded into enterprise technology. By converting concepts such as leadership commitment, trust and engagement into standards-aligned metrics, safety culture is no longer assumed or described anecdotally. It can be measured, benchmarked and improved. This can provide safety professionals with the proof points they need to influence decisions and drive change.

Through SBUGs and a growing ecosystem of partnerships, ASSP is providing a blueprint for how trust can be earned-measurably, collaboratively and at scale. This is an enormous step in helping safety professionals turn that trust into action. SBUGs are closely aligned with ASSP’s trusted adviser strategic domain, and expanding this trust can help ensure that every worker returns home safely while building cultures of accountability, credibility and performance.

Peter Drucker is often associated with the phrase, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” SBUGs put Drucker’s idea into action, deliberately creating the future of safety so we can get the results needed to ensure that ASSP’s vision-a world where safety, health and well-being are recognized as inherent rights of every worker-is not just aspirational, but becomes a reality.