In my previous blog post, I introduced you to AIHA’s new strategic plan, which covers the years 2022–24. For the first time, we’ll be broadly communicating the plan throughout the association. We’ve already started creating initial awareness during the recent Color Council calls, with more information to come. Our intent is for everyone in AIHA to become familiar with our organization’s overarching vision, values, and objectives. You can find the new plan on AIHA’s website (PDF).

Like the current plan, our new plan incorporates AIHA’s associated business entities: the AIHA Laboratory Accreditation Programs LLC, AIHA Registry Programs LLC, AIHA Proficiency Analytical Testing Programs LLC, the American Industrial Hygiene Foundation, the AIHA Guideline Foundation, and the Product Stewardship Society. Both the current plan and the new plan are built around five “domains,” or areas of focus: community, awareness, advancement and dissemination of knowledge, integrity of professional practice, and advocacy. Both plans identify strategic goals within each domain and the strategies AIHA will employ to meet those goals.

The focus of this blog post is to highlight the first domain: community.

STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS

For each domain, the new plan notes what we refer to as a “success statement,” which embodies what we aspire to achieve in this area of practice. The success statement for community is “AIHA will nurture and empower a diverse and inclusive professional community and engage with allied professional organizations to work towards achieving common goals.” I’ve highlighted the words “diverse” and “inclusive” because our association strives to strengthen its commitment in these realms.

Next, the plan lays out four strategic objectives, which define what we intend to focus on over the next three-year cycle. The objectives in community are:

1. Enhance AIHA’s value proposition to attract, grow, and retain a diverse and inclusive community of OEHS professionals as members. Supporting strategies reference ways in which we can enhance engagement, bolstering resources to help early career professionals navigate their career paths, investing in the success of our local sections, expanding scholarships for students, and strengthening and advancing our commitment to diversity and inclusion across all aspects of the AIHA enterprise.
2. Enhance AIHA’s value proposition to appeal to non-core OEHS and allied professionals. Here we envision creating a new suite of educational products and sense of community for so-called EHS generalists and safety professionals who are being tasked with more traditional IH responsibilities in their jobs.
3. Enhance the Product Stewardship Society’s value proposition to attract, grow, and retain a community of diverse product stewards as members. The Society has its own newly developed strategic plan, and this element of the AIHA plan is meant to capture the overall essence of community building, professional development, promotion of the product stewardship profession, and thought leadership embodied in this plan.
4. Identify and nurture relationships with allied professional organizations. Supporting strategies include reference to customized organizational memberships and continuing our extensive outreach to the dozens of allied professional organizations we partner with.

RAISING AIHA’S PROFILE

As you can see, the community domain reflects a broad array of activities that are designed to raise the profile of AIHA both within our core profession and to the broader realm of allied professionals. Next month, I’ll focus on the awareness domain.