Ensuring expert advice: the role of safety and

health professionals in a changing world

Andrew Hale

Delft University of Technology, Safety Science Group,

Delft, Netherlands

Presentation to 5th Occupational Risk Prevention Conference.

Santiago, Chile 9-11 May 2007

With thanks to Frank Guldenmund for the analyses & the many colleagues
from ISSA & ENSHPO for their work on the surveys
Overview of presentation

• Sources of information & research

• Developing professions: historical roots &
changing challenges
• The road to professional recognition: legal
requirements and voluntary certification
Sources of information & research

• Historical studies of safety regulation & professional

development 1844-2007
• Development of professional training courses:
networks of universities: ISSA Safety Training Sector
• ISSA surveys of qualification & certification systems
• Development of networks of safety and health
professional organisations (ENSHPO, INSHPO)
• ENSHPO survey of role and tasks of safety
professionals
• ENSHPO voluntary certification system.
Status of the safety profession
A venerable profession, but still progressing to full
maturity and respectability
• Professional inspectors – a British invention
• 1833 working hours & conditions
• 1844 safety
• 1890s Safety museums & Institutes
• 1920s Safety First movement in industry
• 1940s Associations of safety officers/professionals
• 1970s Academic courses at universities
• 1970s Scientific peer reviewed journals
What defines the job of the safety
professional?
• The law and regulations:
• direct legal requirements for safety inspectors and safety
practitioners
• interpretation & enforcement of the law as task
• The employer as boss or as client of a consultant:
• avoiding prosecution or liability claims
• commercial interests: survival, loss control
• enlightened self interest, industrial democracy
• Scientific & professional development:
• repository of exclusive knowledge & experience
• professional association claiming territory
Ages of safety

First: Technology & Law 1840s - 1970s

Second: Human factor 1910-1940 accident proneness

1965- cognitive ergonomics

Third: Management & 1985-

Interorganisational
 Stages of development of safety
management systems

1. Struggle for 1. Inspectors & safety

commitment officers as enforcers
(pathological) & policemen
2. Dedicated safety 2. Health and safety
services do the work advisers as subject
(reactive, calculative): specialists
3. Integration in the line. 3. Safety staff audit &
(proactive, generative) monitor & act as
change agents &
company
conscience
 Competing professionals
Disaster management
Engineering Insurance
Fire economics
Safety prevention Risk
Chemistry Engineer manager

Management
Occupational HSE(Q)
Environmental Hygienist Risk and Manager
science working
Ergonomist conditions Occupational Medicine
physician
Socio-technical
systems
Occupational Occupational
psychologist health nurse
Primary
Psychology
health care
Clusters of professions: Netherlands 1997

Occ. Occ.
Occ.
Hygiene Health
Physician
Fire Nurse
Ergo.

Risk Safety Work &

analyst Prof. Change Organisation:
agent Stress & Absence
What do safety practitioners do?
• What the law says?
• What the professional association says?
• What the courses teach?
• Or is it something else?
Need for studies of the actual tasks of safety practitioners
• Difference between the normative and the descriptive.
• Different job profiles, requiring different training
• Harmonisation or mutual recognition of qualifications across
countries
• Potential for collaboration or merger with adjacent professions
(training, professional association)
Development of ISSA and ENSHPO
survey of actual role and tasks of SPs
• Questionnaire aimed at understanding the depth &
frequency of tasks, hazards dealt with & network of
contacts of safety professionals
• Included tasks & hazards often associated with other
professional groups – like occupational hygienists, risk
analysts and occupational physicians – to test overlap
• Translation and adaptation: national vocabularies and
approaches
• Distribution via professional association or training
body – biased sampling?
Questionnaire content
• Who are they? 8 questions (age, gender, education and
training, experience)
• Who do they work for? 11 questions (internal/external,
industry sector, full/part-time, many sites, international)
• What tasks do they do?* 83 questions (risk analysis,
prevention, management, monitoring)
• What hazards do they deal with?* 31 hazards
• Who do they work or deal with?* 36 contacts
(internal/external)

* How often = weekly, monthly, yearly, not yet, not part of job
Participating countries

All EU members and candidate countries invited

- Problems of establishing network contacts
- Problems of financing & analysis (volunteer’s work)
Final agreement and participation from:
• Europe: Austria, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Italy,
Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Poland, Portugal,
UK
• Asia: Singapore
• Australia
 Demographics
The safety professional is:
• Over 35 and working in a second career, but staying there
at least 10 years. All countries.
• Two levels of job: higher education & middle technical
education: Av.59% graduate at bachelors level or higher
• Male dominated (Lowest Australia 71% Highest NL 96%)
• Mix of full- and part-time: Av. 69% full time
• Mix of internal & external employment: Av. 61% internal
Core competences: all countries
Tasks:
Compliance checks, workplace and job risk
assessments, accident investigation, personal
protective equipment, physical inspection & behaviour
audits, emergency procedures.
Hazards:
Machinery safety, physical work/posture, human error,
noise, lighting.
Contacts:
Employees, line and top management, maintenance,
government inspectors.
Core competencies: 8 out of 11
countries

Tasks:
Training/information/motivation, safety management
and safety culture, annual plan & report.
Hazards
Dangerous materials, fire & explosion, electricity,
vehicles, work at computers.
Contacts
Professional H&S colleagues, employee representation,
quality, finance, fire service.
Differentiation: 3-7 countries with a
majority dealing with:
Tasks:
Design involvement, sustainability, performance
indicators, document & audit SMS, emergency drills,
permits to work.
Hazards:
Occupational disease, vibration, biological,
environmental/external, workload/stress/bullying, road
& transport.
Contacts:
Lawyers, trades unions, specialists/consultants
Minority tasks in most, if not all
countries.

• Peripheral tasks:
Cost-benefit, insurance and compensation tasks,
maintenance planning, environmental policy.
Radiation, subsidence/collapse, violence, product
safety, third party safety.
Policy makers & planners, standards/certification
bodies, insurers, employers/industry bodies.
• Niche involvement:
National level activities, first aid/fire brigade, keeping
sickness statistics, expert witness
Evidence from studies of safety
improvements
• 22 projects subsidised by the Dutch Ministry of Social
Affairs & Employment.
• Companies wanting to improve safety performance by
15-100% using safety management and culture
interventions
• Ongoing evaluation study: preliminary conclusions on
success factors
• Top management commitment
• A motor for change to plan, discuss, stimulate,
activate, empower, make explicit, remind:
safety professionals fulfil that role
A task of Sisyphus
Where you need contacts and
help
Project teams,
sounding boards,
working groups
Broad conclusions

• There is a broadly shared international profile of the

safety professional, with a common core competence,
but with nuances per country, or safety tradition. This
forms the basis for European certification by ENSHPO
• The safety profession is one of broad generalists with
knowledge extending far into the fields of risk
management, occupational hygiene and ergonomics
• They are increasingly needing and getting competence
in management, organisational change and the ethics
of their profession
 ENSHPO: European Network of Safety
& Health Professional Organisations
• National fora of SHPOs, united in a European Forum
• Dialogue partner nationally and at EU level: a voice for
the combined professional bodies of the prevention
professionals
• Influencing legislation
• Exchanging good practice, knowledge & experience
• Clarifying role and training: harmonisation & overlap,
recognition and interchangeability
• Identifying and addressing needs
• Promoting recognition of S&H practitioner qualifications

At world level INSHPO does many of these things

 Harmonisation:
European certification by ENSHPO
European Occupational Safety & Health Manager (EurOSHM)
• At least Bachelors level education
• Training course in safety & health: minimum 250 hours with
final examination
• Required minimum years experience in safety & health job
• Membership of professional association (ENSHPO member)
with a code of ethics

Certification committee to accredit national qualification

schemes where possible and to honour individual
qualifications where no accredited national schemes exist
More information?

www.enshpo.org