C5: Leadership and Innovation Addressing Workforce Shortages

Kansas City Convention Center 

Room: 3501 D 

This training session builds off lessons learned during 12 years of leadership training delivered to mining companies. All sectors and industries seem to be struggling to fill vacant positions. The strain caused by this lack of workplace development can create a vicious cycle for organizational resilience as well as worker health and safety. These challenges also affect the industrial hygiene (IH) field and create challenges for IH leaders who are shorthanded. Some organizations, such as those in remote locations, that require large IH teams, or in unique industries, have been especially impacted. In some cases, non-IH's are slotted into IH positions out of desperation.

The objective of this interactive session is to equip IH's with leadership skills to achieve more with less – that leverage existing staff and resources to exceed objectives. Participants will walk through several hands-on exercises that help them develop their leadership skills, as well as create vision, objectives, and evaluation plan for their teams. We will also discuss growing efforts for industry and academia to develop creative workforce development solutions that meet industry needs while delivering a practical package of critical competencies to new or early career IHs. Finally, we will discuss our efforts to create an IH bootcamp that turns non-IH's into functioning IH's in a short time.

Upon completion of this session, participants will be able to:
1. Describe their own leadership and communication style.
2. Identify team dynamics that can impede improvement.
3. Develop a vision statement, SMART objectives, and evaluation plan for their team.
4. Discuss 2-3 solutions designed to directly IH workforce shortages. 

Intermediate

Polling

Quiz

Small Group Discussion

Corporation/Company

All Industries

Available as part of AIHA Connect OnDemand

Changing Work Dynamics

Management/Leadership