I currently do ~20% safety in my current role, and I’m considering a move into H&S as a career move.

Any thoughts, comments or things I should know?

Have you gone mad?

what do you know about cows?

Any thoughts, comments or things I should know?

People are stupid ….so you’ll have a job for life.

Any Health and Safety professionals?

No, as far as my experience goes, not a single one. They’re nearly always incompetent amateurs.

what do you know about cows?

Given the username, that could be taken more than one way. I was personally worried about his failure to install a suitable guardrail around the plum pudding mixture. 🙂

I was personally worried about his failure to install a suitable guardrail around the plum pudding mixture.

Look it’s been reported as a near miss and H&S is never about blame. Until it is, of course.

a near miss

I’ve always struggled with that one.

Surely, if you nearly miss something then that’s a hit?

A lot depends on industry and specific role, but one thing you need to consider, as ‘thegeneralist’ alludes to, you will either be incompetent or spend half of your working life trying to prove that your not!

I’ve always struggled with that one.

Surely, if you nearly miss something then that’s a hit?

A near miss as in near to being a hit, near as in close, like a close miss. So nearly a hit. Not a near hit (close hit?), which is a hit, I guess, but not a very good one. Nearly a miss.

Giving up here before I die of comma overdose.

Nearly a miss

Just married?

People are stupid ….so you’ll have a job for life.

This.
If you understand this, you also then understand why good H&S is beyond a systems approach.

I am *not* H&S, but do have it as 10% of my job. I find that the staff culture and training about culture to do with risk and challenge in Education is fascinating, and again may be a future direction of work for me.

Like some others it’s been part of my job in the past and having worked in some interesting places the focus on the why not the rules has really helped.

There are places where the culture is there and you have a bought in workforce, this goes beyond H&S and through the values of the company, there is a healthy respect across all levels and a sound challenge culture where the guy at the bottom can challenge a senior manager without fear of losing his job. Those are places where a career in H&S would be very rewarding and interesting especially if there are a wide range of challenges to face.

Doing it somewhere that is clock watching and not bought in – perhaps not.

Spent the best part of 20 years either managing/leading it or having it as a substantial part of my job.

Got absolutely **** sick of it. Now doing something completely different. I regularly get approached to consult on it and my answer is always nope 😂

Highly dependent on what industry and which company.

As said above, in a decent company where there is a genuine cultural approach to welfare, wellbeing and safety it’s fine. Everywhere else is a total ball ache, you are in the direct firing line and you can never, EVER win.

Unless you are really, really passionate about it I’d steer well clear.

Yup, been a QHSE bod for a good while now, working within the O&G industry. Prior to that i worked offshore operationally, so tend to have an easy time with the operations team as i have worn that hat and have their respect rather than just being the elf n’ safety man!

The company you work for is key. Some genuinely embrace H&S, others pay lip service so you can be on a slippery slope from the get go.

This industry is quite unique as the majority of focus is on not realising major accident hazards (i.e. things going bang), although the occupational hazards are also important.

I really enjoy my job, predominantly because i enjoy this industry. It’s never dull and no two days are the same. Not sure i would want to do it in another industry.

I’m a safety adviser for an engineering department at an University. It’s by turns fascinating, horrifying, frustrating and hilarious. It’s definitely not for everyone but it suits sciency and engineering types who can argue rationally with people who think they are being told that what they do “isn’t safe”, rather than “you’re not following company policy”. I’m doing my NEBOSH diploma at the moment and there’s been a few times when I thought about jacking it all in, partly due to course providers and partly circumstances at work. But if there is serious and tangible committment from senior leadership that they want to excel in safety, then you’ll be fine. Don’t even bother if you have any doubts about this, but as has been said you’ll never be struggling to find work elsewhere.

No one will like you.

You will hear “I have have been doing this for 20 years without an accident” or “I always remove the guards as they just get in the way” and “in the good old days”

I’m an EHS Advisor in a large comms company. My background is in engineering so I work mainly on projects where my previous experience and qualifications help me to understand the problems being faced and also gains me more acceptance. It is interesting and varied but sometimes drives me mad and I wonder why I bother when some project managers are merely pretending to take it seriously.
I’ve been in EHS for about 15 years now so it can’t be that bad.
As others have said it really depends on the culture in the company you are working for.

H&S qualifications are a pain in the derrière, especially NEBOSH. You can know a topic inside out but if you don’t answer the exam question using the correct NEBOSH-speak it’s zero marks. Be prepared for an uphill struggle if you go down the Diploma route. Course content is great but the exams are just a money-making scam as far as I am concerned: fail half the people that sit the exams and then charge them to resit.

wrightyson

Member
No one will like you.

In many good companies you will be valued and appreciated and be the person who people come to for advice. If your company is not like that then you need to have a good think about why.