Safety Knights

Yes. You are the one who must decide daily if your work is of any value. It starts and ends with you. Safety can be a thankless job. If you came into this career field looking for accolades and a pat on the back you’re probably going to be disappointed.
Determine what it is you want to accomplish. Make a plan. Set long term and short term goals. Work your plan daily. Then at the end of each day you get to decide how well you are doing and where you need to step it up.
This career field can be incredibly rewarding when you stop looking to others for validation. I have done nothing else for the last 38 years. I would be glad to discuss it with you if you like. Just let me know.

I feel like it can take years to learn the hazards of your company, and every company has it's own safety nuances. Be patient and stick with it! You're definitely not alone.

Oh boy HAVE I!

I'll admit my imposter syndrome was much worse when I worked under a micromanager. Once I was able to get out of that environment, I shocked myself at how much I knew and could accomplish. If that is the situation, you're in, that can be a part of it. I felt that I didn't produce any valuable or contribution when I was constantly held back by a former manager. If this is your situation, I encourage looking for work elsewhere. That's easier said than done, though.

You could alternatively go for 'small wins' through interactions with employees on the floor. Often, their appreciation will help make you feel more confident in your knowledge and abilities.

As for imposter syndrome, check out "The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women" by Valerie Young. Yeah, it's more applicable to women, since we second-guess ourselves more often than men, but there's valuable insight, even if you're male.

Safety is rewarding yet tough but hang in there and make the employees number 1.

I just went through this over the past year with my previous employer. I have a decent amount of experience across a multitude of industry to know that my position was simply a place holder to make corporate happy and my input was not valued. When I found out that I was going to be the 32nd EHS they lost within a year, I took a sigh of relief knowing I wasn't the only one that felt this way.

Ultimately it has to come down to you. What your expectations are going forward and what theirs are. I would hold a meeting with your supervisor and on up the chain if needed. I did this and it helped me make a decision as well.

The market for EHS workers has blown wide open and you may find what you are looking for somewhere else. I am getting ready to move on and won't look back. For me it was by far the worst year in my EHS career.

Best of luck to you!

A year? You've been in safety at your current company for a year? That's definitely not enough time to learn the interworkings of a business when it comes to Safety. In a year, you might not even know the true safety culture of the business. With only a year of being around middle and upper management, you might not yet know who really runs the company. Value is not something you get from a job, it is something you bring to the job. Don't get me wrong, I've had days where I am feeling much like your post and just want to throw in the towel. But then I find another way to add value to the organization. Maybe that is from an idea that comes from our Safety Committee. Maybe it's a new training that I can bring to the organization to help reduce MSDs for our employees. Maybe it's a new safety bulletin I can create to share the information from our incidents.

When many of my colleagues found out that I was leaving the world of surface coal mines to take a lesser job for the City, they were so judgemental. Some laughed, some looked down on me, and others just couldn't believe I was leaving corporate coal mining to go work for the government. In fact our main safety vendor drove to the mine to tell me to my face, "Randy, you are going to be sooooo bored and you're going to hate it."

But, I entered into the job with my passion, morals, and ethics in check and found a way to add value to the job. In all reality, this is the best safety job I have had in over 25 years and will more than likely retire from this position.

My advice is to find a mentor. Someone you can vent to when you feel like you want to just give up, quit, and go do something more worthwhile. If you cannot find a personal mentor, work on growing yourself every day through websites, blogs, vlogs, and podcasts. You have to start adding value to yourself before you can ever offer value to someone else.

Good luck and I wish you the best Mr./Mrs. Anonymous!!!

"Ethics my Boy/Girl", must be your internal compass! You will always be able to look yourself in the mirror." That's what my Ethics Instructor always said. One of the best and my most favorite courses in Grad School was called "Ethics in the Business World". I had been in the corporate world as a Manager for almost 20 years and they wanted me to take a class in ethics, I kept asking myself, "Are they kidding me?" They weren't and I am glad they made me take it.
In management I had to do tough things. I had to terminate people, put them on Last Chance Agreements, Layoff people (which for me was far worse as people were terminated because of no fault of their own), tell people they would not be getting that big promotion, call a spouse to tell them their spouse was seriously injured, go up to the hospital with that spouse, and/or tell a long tenured employee that the injury they thought occurred at work would not be covered under Workers Comp! I have read every Jack Reacher novel, and what I love about Jack (NMI) Reacher is that he always does the "RIGHT Thing!" as his mother taught him. I identify with this, as I always did the same! I was always able to look myself in the mirror before I went to bed every night. I knew my job was to protect the resources of the stock holders and to protect my employees. Sometimes that was tough, especially the layoffs and the WC situations. I would always look to do the RIGHT THING! If it took telling someone they did not have a job, I did it. On the same token I have called Corporate VPs and said, "I am NOT doing this it is just wrong!" and I paid a price a time or two. But I could look myself in the mirror. I have to admit it got harder when I went passed 50, because I knew it would be harder to get another job, but I stayed on course.
One more thing that has always stuck with me from Ethics, "Ethics is of the person, NOT of the organization!"

Absolutely! I give talks on Imposter Syndrome actually. It sounds like, on addition to I.S., you might be burnt out or not properly valued at your organization. Might be time for a new company, not a new field!

Never rely on emotions to seek the worth of your duty. We all have felt the way you do at some point. I will leave you with this. You set your own expectations of how you value yourself, it’s not in the hands of other people to place a value tag on you.