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peter gotch  
#1 Posted : 15 July 2024 11:41:20(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
peter gotch

Prompted by this IOSH post-nominals | IOSH

including......They show your employer, peers and external contacts that they’re dealing with someone with the relevant professional status and experience.

However, I am not convinced that simply having some letters after your name proves or even suggests that you may have the "relevant professional status and experience", and each case needs to be considered on its merits.

Someone could gain e.g. CMIOSH with experience that has rarely gone beyond generally lower risk environments.

Conversely, someone could be a key player in a high hazard environment without any postnoms whatsoever.

Postnoms do NOT equal competence but MIGHT indicate a level of competence in SOME scenarios.

Would you think that someone who is CMIOSH and with experience mostly in looking at risks in offices would be competent let loose in a chemical works?

Possibly, but probably depending on what you actually want them to do. If it's assurance work on checking that the organisatoin does what it needs to maintain an ISO accreditation, probably. Helping do the DSEAR or COSHH assessment, may be not!

When I worked for HSE there came a point where our employer suggested we might want to have new calling cards with our postnoms. Most of the Inspectors working around me declined this offer, most on exactly the same basis - why create an entirely artificial barrier to communication with people without such grandeur alongside their name?

At the time I was working a a Group covering Construction and Fairgrounds. I gave my calling card to all and sundry and I wanted the bosses and the labourers to understand that they would be treated equally in my eyes.

Then into the private sector and I assumed that it was the content of my CV that "sold" me - not mention of my educational qualifications and professional memberships at the back end of the CV.

How important are these postnoms in reality?

thanks 1 user thanked peter gotch for this useful post.
MikeKelly on 15/07/2024(UTC)
A Kurdziel  
#2 Posted : 15 July 2024 12:48:08(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
A Kurdziel

I work in an environment where loads of people have Post Nominals and Pre Nominals (eg Dr. or EUR ING) but as we are British, we tend not to bother with them. We understand that they do not mean that a person is competent in all things (Quote from a line manager whose employee injured themselves with a big industrial mixer: “She does not need any training; she has a Ph.D. for God’s sake!”). In some parts of the world, possibly those areas where IOSH is pushing itself hard, letters before and after your name are a big deal.  Are they trying to impress those people?    

 

thanks 3 users thanked A Kurdziel for this useful post.
MikeKelly on 15/07/2024(UTC), Roundtuit on 16/07/2024(UTC), peter gotch on 16/07/2024(UTC)
Kate  
#3 Posted : 15 July 2024 15:33:53(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
Kate

The postnominals are the only way that IOSH has now to retain my membership, as I don't much value any of the other benefits. 

I worked hard to get the postnominals and I do think they have value, both for impressing prospective clients and for my own confidence.  Confidence is, I gather, much more of an issue for women than for men, and for my generation that is presumably as a result of being brought up and introduced to workplaces in much less enlightened times than today. 

Postnominals are all the more important to me now that I am no longer an employee but self-employed and so have to sell my skills more frequently.

Do postnominals mean I can do any H&S work in any sector, no of course not.  It's my responsibility as a professional, indeed it is included in the IOSH Code of Conduct, that I have to refuse work I am not competent for.  Have I ever had to do this, yes I have.

Edited by user 15 July 2024 15:36:46(UTC)  | Reason: Psotnominals don't mean I type accurately

thanks 6 users thanked Kate for this useful post.
A Kurdziel on 16/07/2024(UTC), peter gotch on 16/07/2024(UTC), john@fordfarm.com on 22/07/2024(UTC), RayRay01 on 06/08/2024(UTC), toe on 17/08/2024(UTC), LancBob on 19/08/2024(UTC)
Roundtuit  
#4 Posted : 16 July 2024 08:49:48(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
Roundtuit

Originally Posted by: A Kurdziel Go to Quoted Post
“She does not need any training; she has a Ph.D. for God’s sake!”

I feel that pain.

Having commenced employment at a time when personnnel were transitioning to Human Resources and there was a surge in graduate recruitment (graduates employing graduates) there was a proliferation of business cards with ever greater pre & post nominals listed. Trouble is their degree is sociology really didn't talk to the individuals capability as a production manager.

The EU only recognised Chartered Members of iosh on their regulated professions database.

I have had the miss-fortune to cross paths with many a stuffed shirt with post nominals on their business card and no idea in regards of the business they have walked in to. Following on from this experience do post nominals themselves adequately display and demonstrate the necessary individual competence demanded by HM gov response to Grenfell?

My money is on some form of NVQ or yet another Construction Card being held up as a "gold standard".

thanks 4 users thanked Roundtuit for this useful post.
A Kurdziel on 16/07/2024(UTC), peter gotch on 16/07/2024(UTC), A Kurdziel on 16/07/2024(UTC), peter gotch on 16/07/2024(UTC)
Roundtuit  
#5 Posted : 16 July 2024 08:49:48(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
Roundtuit

Originally Posted by: A Kurdziel Go to Quoted Post
“She does not need any training; she has a Ph.D. for God’s sake!”

I feel that pain.

Having commenced employment at a time when personnnel were transitioning to Human Resources and there was a surge in graduate recruitment (graduates employing graduates) there was a proliferation of business cards with ever greater pre & post nominals listed. Trouble is their degree is sociology really didn't talk to the individuals capability as a production manager.

The EU only recognised Chartered Members of iosh on their regulated professions database.

I have had the miss-fortune to cross paths with many a stuffed shirt with post nominals on their business card and no idea in regards of the business they have walked in to. Following on from this experience do post nominals themselves adequately display and demonstrate the necessary individual competence demanded by HM gov response to Grenfell?

My money is on some form of NVQ or yet another Construction Card being held up as a "gold standard".

thanks 4 users thanked Roundtuit for this useful post.
A Kurdziel on 16/07/2024(UTC), peter gotch on 16/07/2024(UTC), A Kurdziel on 16/07/2024(UTC), peter gotch on 16/07/2024(UTC)
M.cooper.99  
#6 Posted : 16 July 2024 08:58:20(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
M.cooper.99

Coming from someone with no postnoms, I am not predicting a huge gain from having them. I'd see them as a nicety to have once I have more time and experience in the profession.

The main reason to go and get them for me is the employers that require them when recruiting. I also imagine it might make some recruiters interested if they see it on a CV and it tells them you are committed to CPD.

Outside of that, if a person wants to know about my experience, professional and competentence, I wouldn't start by mentioning any postnoms. 

M

thanks 1 user thanked M.cooper.99 for this useful post.
peter gotch on 16/07/2024(UTC)
A Kurdziel  
#7 Posted : 16 July 2024 09:26:24(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
A Kurdziel

Post (and Pre) nominals do not always mean that “you are committed to CPD.” Academic degrees don’t; the number of academics I deal with who still want to run their labs  how they were run 30 or more years ago(when they were  acquiring their PhD)  is gobsmacking!

thanks 1 user thanked A Kurdziel for this useful post.
peter gotch on 16/07/2024(UTC)
toe  
#8 Posted : 17 August 2024 08:00:12(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
toe

In Africa, where I work, letters after your name are everything. It’s part of their culture to display postnoms at every opportunity, and every manager's office will have certificates plastered onto their office walls displaying their qualifications. They will post every certificate achieved on LinkedIn and use postnoms such as MsIOSH, DipNEBOSH, DipOHS, etc. If they have two bachelor qualifications, they will state BSc twice.  This is just what they do.

I have never been a fan of displaying postnoms unless absolutely necessary. There was an occasion when I was having an intense email exchange with a Fire Officer, in which we were at odds because of a difference of opinion. He cc’d a senior officer in an email, and the senior officer offered a response with his postnoms included in the footer of his email. In my email response I included my postnoms in which my membership grade was higher than his. I never got a response back from either of them.

thanks 2 users thanked toe for this useful post.
peter gotch on 17/08/2024(UTC), A Kurdziel on 20/08/2024(UTC)
peter gotch  
#9 Posted : 17 August 2024 09:06:28(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
peter gotch

Thanks Toe

Imagine the hullaballoo if the locally born site chemist in a major hazard works in Africa who might be an Affiliate member of IOSH had the audacity to tell the expat CMIOSH that said site chemist disagreed with the CMIOSH!!

CMIOSH - "My post noms trump yours".

thanks 1 user thanked peter gotch for this useful post.
toe on 20/08/2024(UTC)
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