A career in health and safety

Just The One

I am looking at a complete change of career and considering moving into the health and safety sector.

Can anyone offer advice reagrding what route to take... most companies require you to have a diploma in H&S. I will have to do a certificate initially.

any advice?

How Strange

Do you have any experience of H&S? Do you have any idea what a role in H&S involves? Have you been involved in it in your current job? If not is there any way you could be involved? If you work in a small company you could ask to be a safety rep.

You have to start with a cert and then go on to do a diploma if you wish but practical experience is also very important.

If you've never done it before on a practical level then def get some experience. It can be a very mundane and bureaucratic job which is why alot of people hate it. Lots of paper work and form filling.

Just The One

How Strange wrote: »

Do you have any experience of H&S? Do you have any idea what a role in H&S involves? Have you been involved in it in your current job? If not is there any way you could be involved? If you work in a small company you could ask to be a safety rep.

You have to start with a cert and then go on to do a diploma if you wish but practical experience is also very important.

If you've never done it before on a practical level then def get some experience. It can be a very mundane and bureaucratic job which is why alot of people hate it. Lots of paper work and form filling.

I have no experience. It will be a complete change of career. Once I decide on a course I intend to go to my employer and tell them what I am doing and ask them to let me get involved with H&S within the company.

Can you suggest any particular course?

sunnyjim

To work in H&S, you'll need to do the diploma in UCD (I think its done elsewhere....)

A cert will get you onto the course.

Do you have any degrees already?

To get a job incharge somewhere, you'll need a 3rd level award higher than a Diploma I think.

Oh, and be prepared to be hated. Very few H&S people are liked.

Moonbeam

Fas run an evening course in it.

Might be worth your while doing this as a taster first.

www.fas.ie

Just The One

sunnyjim wrote: »

To work in H&S, you'll need to do the diploma in UCD (I think its done elsewhere....)

A cert will get you onto the course.

Do you have any degrees already?

To get a job incharge somewhere, you'll need a 3rd level award higher than a Diploma I think.

Oh, and be prepared to be hated. Very few H&S people are liked.

I spoke with UCD this morning and a cert will not guarantee a place on diploma course.

They also told me that as a mature student, you may only apply for the course if you are working in health and safety/health and safety manager.

My question is how do I get the experience to become a H&S manager in order to do the diploma course as most companies require you to have a diploma before you get the job you are going to gain the experience in.

zoemax

You can do the diploma in many places, not just UCD. DCU also do it for one. You don't necessarily need to have a cert done first either.

Be warned though that the money isn't great unless you are at a very senior level. Average salary seems to be around 35k-45k but lots of well qualified people I know are on lower.

The job is far from mundane and bureaucratic if you make it so. Poor safety professionals work this way but people who are good at the job do not. As for form filling only some sectors require this, mostly construction. To state that h&s professional are 'hated' is indicative of an uneducated work force and or a poor safety professional. They have a job to do and if it is done well it doesn't have that much of an impact on workers. The old fashioned way of shouting and saying no to everything is gradually dying out.

How Strange

zoemax wrote: »

Be warned though that the money isn't great unless you are at a very senior level. Average salary seems to be around 35k-45k but lots of well qualified people I know are on lower.

A h&s person with a degree and a few years solid experience will always be in demand. It is a fairly new role in Ireland. IMO, setting yourself up as a consultant is probably the best way to achieve a high salary as alot of small organisations will only need a h&s person for small, specific projects.

The job is far from mundane and bureaucratic if you make it so. Poor safety professionals work this way but people who are good at the job do not. As for form filling only some sectors require this, mostly construction.

When I say mundane and bureaucratic I mean that h&s concentrates on standardisation from a quality point of view. I deal with a lot of h&s in my role which means auditing systems and procedures, carrying out risk assessments, completing work permits, writing reports, making recomendations on any risks and reducing risks. All that means is forms, forms, forms.

To state that h&s professional are 'hated' is indicative of an uneducated work force and or a poor safety professional. They have a job to do and if it is done well it doesn't have that much of an impact on workers. The old fashioned way of shouting and saying no to everything is gradually dying out.

I'd disagree. In large organisations, most managers and employees have a healthy respect for h&s because they most probably operate under quality objectives and guidelines. In smaller companies, and I've worked in large and small organisations, the general truth is that h&s legislation is barely tolerated.

OP, to answer your question about exposures to h&s, talk to your boss and see if you can get involved in h&s where you work. Get involved with organising fire evacuations, fire warden and first aid training, carrying out risk assessments on all day to day tasks as well as site risk assessments.

gary the great

I did a degree in a related area, then worked in england were i got myslef a diploma in H&S.

I really hated it, talk about bureacracy (sp), its very mundane, senior mgmt aernt really to intrested (you have to make them intrested or if they're not your not in the right place) and generally its not the best job.

Thats why i got out! Plus a lot of places want you to be able to look into the environmental side of things to, which is much more intresting and is the area im concentrating on career wise.

There is excellent forums at www.iosh.co.uk, get yourself IOSH membership, employers love it and think it means a lot - it doesnt really though. ALso have a look at how a lot of the H&S officers on the forum are really unhappy with their job - theres quite a large proportion.

Why do you actually want to do it?

Just The One

gary the great wrote: »

Why do you actually want to do it?

I want to make a change and it is something that interests me.

sunnyjim

The job is far from mundane and bureaucratic if you make it so. Poor safety professionals work this way but people who are good at the job do not. As for form filling only some sectors require this, mostly construction. To state that h&s professional are 'hated' is indicative of an uneducated work force and or a poor safety professional. They have a job to do and if it is done well it doesn't have that much of an impact on workers. The old fashioned way of shouting and saying no to everything is gradually dying out.

Hahaha, we have a pro on our hands.

H&S People are the same people responsible for

- stopping school children doing basic experiments in a school lab
- having office workers waiting ages for 1 person with a manual handling cert pick up a box of A4 paper for the photocopier
- have driving instructors wearing hi-vis
- anti-spill cups in the canteen

Seriously, you can't really make much of a change. Not in H&S.

How Strange

sunnyjim wrote: »

Hahaha, we have a pro on our hands.

H&S People are the same people responsible for

- stopping school children doing basic experiments in a school lab
- having office workers waiting ages for 1 person with a manual handling cert pick up a box of A4 paper for the photocopier
- have driving instructors wearing hi-vis
- anti-spill cups in the canteen

Seriously, you can't really make much of a change. Not in H&S.

They are also the people who make sure that people working in manufacturing, pharma, construction, farming sectors to name a few obvious ones don't get killed doing something completely dangerous and illegal because their employers are cowboys and want to do everything as cheap as possible regardless of the safety of their employees. H&S in the work place saves lives so while it may be annoying when taken to the extreme most people work in a safe enviroment because of it.

Electric

If you were going to study H&S I would go to DCU. My Dad is doing the diploma in H&S in UCD at the moment and he says it's the worst run course he has ever been on and the cert wasn't much better.

He is considering trying to transfer to DCU just so he doesn't have to go back to UCD next year

zoemax

Hahaha, we have a pro on our hands.

H&S People are the same people responsible for

- stopping school children doing basic experiments in a school lab
- having office workers waiting ages for 1 person with a manual handling cert pick up a box of A4 paper for the photocopier
- have driving instructors wearing hi-vis
- anti-spill cups in the canteen

Seriously, you can't really make much of a change. Not in H&S.

Yep I am a professional in the field or at least I was, I look after a few other things now as well.

Back to my point about being uneducated about h&s. It's not h&s professionals who insist on the silly restrictions that you mentioned in my experience. If you have a workforce of people likely to sue you for the slighest thing or a unionised work force where the local shop steward threatens a walk out over minor safety issues as a weapon then of course you are going to have more restrictions in place which will be insisted upon by teh employer for the most part.

Nobody has stopped kids doing basic experiments in school labs as far as I know. The only thing that has changed is that some chemicals / processes have been found out as hazardous. Nothing wrong with that unless of course you still think it's acceptable for kids to play with mercury.

I have never seen a person wait for an hour for a manual hanlder to pick up a box of paper for them, that's ridiculous and would only be insisted upon by a poor professional or an over zealous boss.

Why shouldn't people who work around vehciles wear a high vis, especially when unlicencsed drivers are at the wheel.

Anti spill cups in the canteen, the sheer folly of it all, why can't I be allowed to spill my drink if I want:p

Most of what a h&s professional does is driven by legislation and an attempt to make sure that the employer doesn't get sued. I am sure that the familys of the numerous persons killed in the workplace in Ireland every year don't think that health and safey is not able to make much of a change.

Back to my original point, if the h&s professional is good at their job and the employer and the workforce at large can understand why certain things are being done then it's not a bad job. If you have a workforce with the attitude that it's all a waste of time then you have a fight on your hands and to be honest in those types of workplaces you are wasting your time.

granturismo

Is there a Safety Manager in your current company, talk to them. If you have a degree already, then DCU will be closest to you for a parttime diploma. I see someone's dad was trying to transfer from UCD because they were dissatisfied - DCU isnt much better.

Starting out as a consultant isnt the best option unless you are highly experienced in a particular field or better still a wide range, you have experience in a niche area, are a natural sales person, or are just lucky and get some breaks when you start out.

Salaries - some recent posts for safety managers in single site manufacturing plants have been in the region of 50K-65k. Public sector doesnt fare much better - county council safety officers have been advertised in the region of 35k - below 60k. At this level, safety experience, qualifications and IOSH membership are essential.

You havent mentioned your current job, , experience, qualifications, etc so Moonbeams advice is spot on.

Moonbeam wrote: »

Fas run an evening course in it.

Might be worth your while doing this as a taster first.

www.fas.ie