Prompted by Torres' posting about Permits and another thread.

This is aimed mostly at those who work in places where accident rates have progressively reduced since about the Second World War, so that even minor accidents don't tend to be a daily experience.

If you work in health and safety, does your job title say so, or does it still just focus on Safety?

There's the holistic view Safety encompasses health and wellbeing, but in practice, these are still the poor relations, with Safety taking first priority - that's where most of the bad news happens, that cannot be ignored as the consequences happen NOW!!

But, in most working environments the adverse consequences of occupational health risks are MUCH, MUCH worse.

So, as example in the UK, statistics reported on the Health & Safety Executive website paint a portrait of far more days lost at a much, much greater socio-economic cost.

Now, I realise that you might work in an environment where life (at least for the lower levels of society) is "cheap" and the immediate safety risks just simply need to be dealt with as the No 1 priority and you just don't have much time to deal with the risks whose consequences may not be noticed for months, years or decades.

But for most people on these Forums that isn't the case. So, if you are one of them, when are you going to take steps to get Health added to your title (if it isn't already)? After that we can have a debate about all the other things like Welfare (by whatever name)!

Then after that what comes next in the title? "Guy" is OK in a discussion thread! But it's probably not in the title of that "safety guy".

So, is it Officer? - do you want to be a Policeman, when you are there - and if so, who owns health and safety when you are NOT there?

Is it Manager, or even Director? Do you have the power to manage or direct, backed up with control of the resources? Usually not.

So, why not push to be what you should be - an Adviser (with an 'o' or 'e', whichever is your organisation's preference!)?

Get that title sorted and those who should be Managing health and safety might find it easier to remember that is NOT the job of the Safety Guy.

Not Guy.

Safety Champion maybe. 

Manager.

Director.

It used to be Safety Officer, years ago, then Safety Advisor, but due to a combination of budget cuts, staff cuts, equal rights, political correctness issues and changes in perception, the original role of Health and Safety has grown to encompass Security, Transport Control, Environmental Officer or Manager, Welfare Officer or Manager and Human Resources Manager (what was Personnel until people were replaced with anonymous staff numbers). 

Whatever the title, please just make sure they are paid more than the going rate, whatever that is. 

When I was in the civil service the official title was Safety Officer but this gave people the impression that I “did” safety rather like the finance officer did money. When we became an agency what could choose our own titles (a colleague wanted to be H&S czar, which was bit much!). I went to for adviser.  This is because my job was (and still is) to advise people of how they should approach H&S. I don’t do the risk assessment because I don’t know enough about the nit gritty of the job to do them effectively and am certainly not an H&S policeman.

H&S champion is what I’d call some person without any particular qualifications who in addition to their normal operational role promotes H&S in their area.

H&S repetitive is someone appointed to look at particular H&S issues without any  responsibilities for making anything happen eg by a union

An H&S consultant is an outside person who brings in extra expertise but is not a direct employee of the organisation.

The H&S manager is the person that signs off my expenses

I am quite simply the 'UK Facilities Manager' the international company I work for being of the opinion the H&S comes under Facilities.

Edited by user 27 January 2020 10:55:29(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

This is a topic where IOSH should take a greater lead I believe. A consistent approach to job titles would go a long way in giving our industry some much needed identitiy and kudos. It might also better reflect the different grades within IOSH if job titles were made more relevant to a person's status.

First though, we need an industry which is recognised as an industry sector. Having Googled 'Industry sectors list' the first item was International Labour Organisation (ILO) list of sectors. Health Services was the nearest option to health and safety. Therefore I suggest lobbying ILO to include 'Safety, Health and Wellbeing' as a starter for 10. 

Initially that would seem a good idea, but would that not say “you have to be in IOSH to be in H&S” and so inadvertently strengthen their monopoly. It would also suggest that to be an advisor you need to be Chartered, but there are perfectly good H&S people who are Grad or Tech IOSH and whatever grading system IIRSM for example use. The law is written so that a small business / even one-man band could do their own H&S, ie make suitable arrangements with respect to the nature and size of the organisation.

Chris