Struggling to keep hold of Health and Safety staff?
Health & Safety practitioners are in high demand and in particular experienced and competent ones.
There will be many reasons for Health & Safety practitioners are moving roles, this could be salaries, location, new challenges, culture etc…
One thing I do know, it is better to have consistency rather than continually replacing staff and particularly when it comes to health & safety practitioners
Every Health & Safety practitioner will have their own ideas and way of doing things. How they set the health & safety management system up
Risk matrixes in risk assessments, templates of safe systems of work, communication methods and so on…
And if they leave the next one will have their own ideas and a lot of times its like going back to the start, rewriting risk assessments, safety systems of work etc…
This can be incredibly frustrating for the leaders of the business. When if you have a settled health & safety structure and person leading this up, you get consistency of message and consistency in the management system which allows for continual improvement in your health & safety standards overall.
Instead of the Groundhog Day of new health & safety practitioners every 12-24 months.
Some of the most successful health & safety practitioners I know are hired from within the business. They have shown an interest in health & safety, have went on a few courses and this has tweaked their interest in becoming a health & safety practitioner.
The advantages to hiring and promoting from within is that they understand the business and can quickly settle and adapt into the role. They understand the day-to-day workings of the business and already have personal relationship built up.
But they do not have the health & safety experience or competence just yet and they will not have the confidence to start leading health and safety.
What is missing a lot of times in these situations is mentorship.
An experienced health & safety practitioner, someone who has been involved in health & safety over many years and has the knowledge and experience in how to mentor new or inexperienced health & safety staff.
Someone to steer them in the right direction
So they, and the company, are working to the correct plan, all the while steadily progressing and gaining confidence and not feeling under pressure to make decisions, they do not yet have the competency to do so.
Until the time comes when eventually they are ready to break free from the mentorship and become the main health & safety practitioner for the business or the area within the business.
All the while they have become a real asset to the business, they will be grateful for the opportunity to progress their career into health & safety which increases the chances of them staying in the business and saves all the hassle and costs of constantly hiring new health and safety people
Think mentoring new or inexperienced health & safety staff would work for you?
Email Paul at
paul@paulfeely.com for more information.
