The New President of ASSP Says Safety Professionals Should Tune out the Distractions and Keep Moving Forward

Linda M. Tapp understands these are uncertain times—and that ambiguity can elicit strong emotional responses. But for her part, Tapp, CSP, ALCM, CPTD, is determined to stay focused on the mission: creating a safe workplace for all.

Tapp is president of the safety training and consulting firm SafetyFUNdamentals. Starting July 1, she will also be president of the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP) and vice chair of the ASSP Foundation. Tapp is making plans and channeling her 36 years of tenure as an ASSP member (during which she served in various capacities and was named Safety Professional of the Year in 2007), 30 years of experience as an occupational safety and health professional, and the knowledge gleaned from authoring several books.

“I think ASSP needs to show our calmness and our strength and not overreact,” she says. “People look to us to see how we're behaving and the direction that we're going.”

Tapp spoke with Managing Editor Nicole Stempak earlier this spring about her plans, lessons learned and the legacy she wants to leave behind during her year at the helm.

Nicole Stempak: What's your first order of business come July 1?

Thinking more broadly about the next 12 months, are there certain things that you're planning to focus your time, energy and attention on?

There's a few. One is a focus on occupational training and communication. I really want to encourage people to take charge of their own professional development going forward. It's helping people realize, alright, these are the trends coming our way. These are the important issues. This is what I personally need to do to grow myself and make myself a better employee, a better manager. The field of safety has changed so much in the past year, which ties into the second part.

It’s not so much compliance based anymore. When I started, you had to know the regulations and quote the numbers in the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 20 (CFR 20). People are moving beyond compliance—to look at management systems and try to make an impact for the whole organization.

Let’s address the elephant in the room: What's going on in Washington, D.C. How are you trying to keep workers safe during these very politically charged times?

It's definitely been a challenge. We have members of all viewpoints and thoughts. ASSP isn't a political organization. We're trying really hard to keep looking forward. Our vision and mission are that safety is an inherent right for everyone. I think you can get distracted by all the noise, but we have to keep that focus. That's where we're going. That's our job.

ASSP is working on building a lot of collaborations and alliances. There's the Intersociety Forum, a coalition of over 30 organizations, including the American Industrial Hygiene Association and National Safety Council, that have signed on. When those other things change, you have these groups that have been together for a long time and can really make a difference by standing together and sticking to the program. This is what we do. This is our organization. We help to keep people safe. We help to give our members a place to learn the best information. That's what we can do, what we can control.

What is ASSP’s take on the legal obligation and moral commitment to take care of each other and to take care of workers?

That's back to that vision and mission. We believe it's the inherent right of every worker to have a safe workplace. That could be anywhere in the world. No matter what job you do, it's your right to be able to work safely.

I think we also have an opportunity to fill a gap that may start to exist. There are going to be things missing. I've heard about documents missing online already. You can look at it as an opportunity for people, who may not know us yet, but be able to rely on us to get that information.

Often, a change in administration leads to a change in policies and priorities, but some organizations might not want to reverse courses. After all, it takes a long time to build programs, and organizations might want to keep maturing or advancing those initiatives, regardless of how the breeze is blowing in Washington.

For a long time, people in the safety world have talked about going beyond compliance. You don't want to just follow regulations. There's management standards. There's ANSI standards.

Everything that ASSP does goes above and beyond. I know all companies aren't going to be as proactive. But I think a lot of companies will say, 'Even though this regulation doesn't exist or enforcement isn't as strong as it used to be, we can still go above and beyond. We'll still do the right thing.' We can support members who are taking steps to do that within their companies.

What do you think is the biggest challenge facing safety today?

I think it's the speed of change for members. I think back to COVID days. All of a sudden, safety people had to be COVID experts. They needed to know how to protect everybody with design controls and things like that. Now with a lot of the new things coming up, particularly AI, it’s the same thing. Senior people expect the safety person to know AI. How should a safety person who went to school for a degree in safety know AI? Everyone's learning at the same time.

It's funny that you mention that, because I was thinking about how change can sometimes trigger biological responses like a racing heartbeat and sweaty palms. Do you have any advice for safety professionals on how to stay calm and maintain perspective?

I think it goes back to self-care. We talk a lot about psychological safety. Hopefully, their workplace is psychologically safe enough that they can talk to their managers, and their direct reports can come to them with their worries. I think it's important for us to show that to our members, and for our members to show that to people that they work with as well.

[As a result of COVID], we started talking a lot more about stress in the workplace and burnout. I just hope people know that it’s not something you just have to grin and bear anymore.

Safety professionals are being asked to do more with the same amount of funding—or less. How can ASSP help those safety professionals, who are out there doing the work, not just survive but excel and thrive?

What you're saying is happening to a lot of occupations, honestly. I think that has been a trend for a while. People are watching budgets now more than ever. You may have less people, but you want to cover more things. It's just really prioritizing, which I think safety people are really good at. You want to keep people safe at the end of the day. That's the bottom line. You want to have a safe place for people to work.

I also think the community aspect of ASSP helped me when I was in plants. I would just call somebody and say, 'I need this answer. How do I do this?' Even though you don't have three people working for you, you can call somebody, and you get the answer. That’s back to safety people helping each other. I think this helps it be much more manageable than just trying to do it yourself. You need people to go to. If you don't have co-workers or corporate staff to go to or corporate support, having that ASSP community can really help fill that need.

You have a lot of experience creating and delivering professional development resources. What have you learned about how people learn?

That's what's my last book was about! I had to do a lot of research on how people learn when they're in the classroom. Of course, interactions have to be personalized. I think a lot of safety training in general is just, ‘Here's the content delivery.’ But it's got to make sense for that individual audience, so they see a way to tie it back to what they do.

When I do professional development for myself, it's the same thing. I don't want to read something generic. I'm constantly having to think: How does this apply to me? How can I use it going forward? If you don't, you're just going to read it and then you're not going to ever use it.

Is there something that energizes you when you get out of bed every day?

I really appreciate building relationships and getting to know individual members. When I was young and going to conferences, the board was always like out here [makes an off to the side gesture with hands]. You'd see them walking together in a different room. They weren't really accessible.

One of my goals is to be very accessible. When I get text messages at 10 o’clock at night from members, I think, ‘Why did I give up my cell number?’ [laughs] I think a lot of people know that they can just reach out to me wherever they are.

I've always been very appreciative of relationships and networking possibilities [with ASSP]. I could go on for days with stories about the relationships I’ve built, so I try really hard to build those, connect people with each other and build a pipeline as well.

Well said! Is there anything else you'd like to add?

I'm really excited about our board. I'm the 10th woman president of ASSP and, for the first time ever, the President [Pam Walaski], president-elect and Senior Vice President [Monique Parker] are women.

When I first started, there were so few women around. I used to go to the bathroom at conferences...and put sticky notes on the mirrors saying, ‘Meet for coffee at 5 o’clock.’ That was the very beginnings of the women in safety and health group. I think the first year we did it, there might have been eight or 10 of us. The next year, there were 25.

I never saw myself as president. There weren’t many women on that stage at that time, either. I think seeing Pam, me and Monique really helps people realize, ‘Hey, I can do that, too, someday.’