Bring your skills to the OSH profession

Many IOSH members have found their way into safety and health from a different profession or role. OSH has often been their second – or even third or fourth – career.

When they do move into health and safety, they bring with them their previous work experience. This can include technical skills and know-how, sometimes of a very high order. But it can also include less tangible skills, such as the ability to work under pressure, the ability to persuade people to behave in a certain way and the ability to communicate clearly. Valuable skills such as these are transferable to many roles, industries and professions.

Charles Fidler and Jimmy Quinn were filmed separately in conversation with members of IOSH’s future leaders steering group about the transferable skills they brought with them when they became OSH professionals. 

A stroke of fortune

Charles ended up in health and safety by accident. After his geography degree, he taught and coached sports for a couple of years, and then spent another two years training to be a store manager. He applied unsuccessfully for a job at the headquarters of a supermarket chain, but by a stroke of good fortune, it turns out, they offered him a health and safety role instead.

He says: “From my previous roles, whether coaching or managing a team, it’s been really important to understand who you’re working with and pinch-points in certain tasks or processes and things like that.

“Having a very clear communication process with people and understanding what might work for one group doesn’t work for another group. And then really trying to tailor that to the audience that you’re speaking to.”

A gradual decision

For former IOSH President Jimmy Quinn, it was a long process to join the health and safety profession after a career in the military. He’d been planning it during his last four years in the Army, taking health and safety courses and gaining qualifications.

He reflects on the leadership skills that he had developed, which seemed a natural fit alongside the technical health and safety skills that he had been learning on courses.

“The more senior you become in terms of rank, the more responsibilities you take on with regard to health and safety for service people that come under your command. So, going from a sergeant looking after a platoon of soldiers up to a warrant officer sergeant major looking after about 140-150 soldiers, you tend to get involved in the day-to-day health and safety. That could come from going for a run if it’s a hot day, or on the firing range or looking after health and safety when you go out as part of a workshop, as part of a repair team, if you’re in one of the corps.

“From a leadership perspective, you need to know how to see things and you want to be able to see people and talk to people. That ability to communicate is absolutely key.”

A range of skills

So, if you’re thinking of joining the health and safety profession, what skillsets do you need? It’s not just about the health and safety knowledge. Many of the competencies in IOSH’s competency framework are not, in fact, directly related to technical health and safety at all. There’s a whole range of soft skills that come into play. There are many transferable skills that are needed to become a successful OSH professional.

“To be a health and safety practitioner, you’ve got to have that customer focus, because you’re dealing with people.” This is about listening skills and being able to understand how to meet people’s needs. And, says Jimmy, “organisational ability, the ability to understand legislation, the ability to lead, to communicate – all that comes into it.”