Hi McNeil

Interesting question but one that I think is largely of little relevance to the work of the typical health and safety professional EXCEPT one who thinks that they should be the LEADER rather than the ADVISER or ENABLER.

So, except where an organisation bows to that thinking and appoints a "Health and Safety Director (or similar title) to the Boardroom, then my view is that the "stress" of dealing with H&S issues for a Director is probably quite mild compared to the "stress" that they face when doing the job of a Director whatever their scope - e.g. Finance, Production, Human Relations etc etc.

...and the "stress" faced by such a Director is likely to be a tiny fraction of the work-related stress that these Directors (and the management chain) impose on those lower down in the food chain.

So, until such time that organisations routinely assess work-related stress and tackle it via the General Principles of Prevention aka Hierarchy of Control Measures instead of picking sticking plaster solutions such as Mental Health First Aiders, Employee Assistance Programs (US spelling deliberate) and bowls of fruit, then I don't really think that worrying about the stress on the bosses is likely to get anywhere close to the top of my priorities.

Stress is relative:

- to the individuals circumstances at any specific moment in time

- the environment in which they find themselves along the time line

- the support (or more correctly absence thereof) which presents itself when stress is felt

It is no greater or lesser based upon any employed position as it is very much in the mind of the individual and relative to their accessible support network.

Nod to Peter captacha Qqps

To presume bearing the title H&S Director derives any more stress relative to others is not only offensive within the board room but also amongst the wider pool of colleagues across the whole business.

As individuals we all have our own triggers and buttons which are never constant but perpetually morph - what may be a minor inconvenience today could be a full blown rage tomorrow and vice versa.

In this modern age of sustainable, ethical, financial and shareholder accountability an H&S Director could be considered to be getting away lightly compared to others at the top table.

Originally Posted by: McNeil17458

I have a perspective based on years of presenting annual conferences to senior members of the profession on health and safety law. I would love to hear what you think. 

As an ex inspector of 30 years experience I think you are out of touch with the real world. Very few companies have a director of Health and Safety! Presenting at Conferences is great - but again only a very small proportion of companies send people to these events, due to cost and even a smaller proportion of companies actually act on the ideas brought back.

Sorry if that sounds very negative

To follow up on what HSSnail has written, attending Conferences is extremely expensive, mostly NOT because of the Conference Fee and how many ££ it takes to travel and be accommodated but due to the "opportunity cost" of NOT doing what one could otherwise be doing.

So, suppose the Conference lasts a day. Could easily spend another day travelling to and back. Then another 1/4 day (or more) thinking about what, if anything you have learnt and perhaps deciding to pass that on to others.

So, that amounts of about 1% of the attendee's total working hours for the full year and they have other priorities which are slipping while they are away. How many OSH professionals have time on their hands?!?!

Attending Conferences is rarely going to provide the delegate with much CPD, whatever the promoters may say - UNLESS the programme is very well attuned to the delegates' needs and these vary dramatically from one delegate to the next, whereas the marketing tends to be of a scatter gun nature - "this is THE Health and Safety Conference of the Year"!!

Hence, there has to be a sound business reason to attend. May be the "networking" does add value, may be that is an illusion. Sometimes it is about using a Conference as a soft marketing opportunity.

Last such event I attended was the British Dam Society conference in 2012. I was co-presenting a paper on the implications of forthcoming changes to the Reservoirs Act 1930 and I was in awe at some of the technical stuff that my co-presenter had to say and what some of the delegates (lots of ICE "Panel" engineers) had to say in the Q&A session. Being there did also heighten my appreciation that the Client I had being doing a project for was in the vanguard when it came to their categorisation of their dam portfolio even if it was done on the basis of calculating the potential impact by hazard rather than downsteam risk of human (or other) harm.