I'd say the personality is that it's a really helpful environment to work in. You're
going to come across things that you've never seen before,
things that you just don't know what to do with, and, it's the environment where
you can go into the office, or phone a friend, and they're always willing to
help you, they're always willing to share their knowledge, give their advice.
It's just a very helpful learning environment to be in. I think the
benefits of working for the HSE is the variety of what you get to do.
No week is the same, you get to go out to a site, you get to do inspections but
then in the same week you can be standing in front of a judge, doing a
prosecution or taking a witness statement. It's the type of job that
you never get bored, there's always something to do, there's always something
to learn and I think that's a great benefit, that you can develop a
career in the HSE and you can learn new things and always be challenged.
You never ever get bored.
With the HSE they've got a very clear purpose, they've got very clear aims of
what they want to do and that goes through from the top down, so you
know when you're coming into work that you're here to make life safer
for people, whether that's through inspections or investigations or
proactive work or reactive work, so you come in and you know what you're here to do.
I think what makes it unique is that we get to go and experience people's
working lives. You get a glimpse into industries that I never thought I'd
go and see. I got to see how plastic sheets are made, I've been able
to see behind the scenes of an airport, I've been able to see houses going up,
ground being dug out, cranes operating, there's such a wide variety of
industries that you get to be part of and see and influence and I think that's
quite a unique position for us to be in.
I'd say collaborative, hardworking and supportive.
I think the preconception is that we are fun killing
traffic wardens, we're all these boring people who all go around with our
clipboard telling you that you can't do anything and trying to make everything
harder and to stop things progressing. I think what I found from joining
the HSE is that actually it's the complete opposite, so we're actually
progressive, we're actually working with industry, we're driving industry.
We work with them to make sure that things can be done as safely as it can and
I think what industries that we work with do get and do grasp, which unfortunately
possibly isn't put out there for everybody else to understand, is that
when a working environment is healthy and safe it's more
productive, it increases productivity, it actually gives
people things like a work/life balance and that people get to go home safely at
the end of the day.
So I've been in the HSE just over three years and prior to that I was already in
the Civil Service, so I worked for the Office of the Public Guardian and I was
an investigator, which was more financial and it was also civil law, so when I
joined the HSE I was able to use those skills that I'd gained as an
investigator and have been able to transfer those into part of my role as
an inspector for when I am carrying out investigations, so that's what I did
before the HSE. I think what I enjoy most is the
variety of what I get to do. I get to go and do different things in a week but
also you do feel like you're making a difference. There's that moment where
you've gone to visit a contractor at a size, and maybe they've done something
that wasn't good enough and they've had to do some corrective measures, and then
you see them again on another site and actually
they're doing it right and you do feel those little moments of 'actually,
what I'm doing is making a difference' and there's that satisfaction of walking
away from a size and knowing that you've left me left it in a safer way than it
was before you got there no one's going to get injured just being
there doing their daily work I think I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I like to
know what I'm doing and I think the challenging thing about this job is that
sometimes you just don't know you don't know what you're going to get when you
walk into the site yes you might be going to see a house being built and you
know that you might going to see some things like a scaffold or a train so
you've got an idea about what's actually in there but you don't know what you're
going to see when you're walking you don't know if what you're gonna see is
good or bad how the reaction if someone's going to be so it's
challenging it's also really the exciting part of our job as well that it
does keep you on your toes but it is that challenge that every day you're
gonna walk in and you're gonna see something different or experience
something different and that's that's yeah that is can be quite challenging it
for me they are one of the difficult and challenging part of our job sometimes is
dealing with the bereaved families where there's been a fatal incident or someone
who's been seriously injured and their lives have changed and I think that
really brings home the humanity and the human element in what we do that it
really informs why I do what I do and I take that with me
whenever I go to the site I take that with me that I know that yes I might be
talking about falling off of a scaffold but I know that I just don't leave every
family of someone who's died from that so I think when you do have to deal with
a brewery family and you do have to deal with people who have had life-changing
injuries that it just really informed they also motivate you to make sure that
you're doing the best job that you can do
I think the training for the regulator's training program is quite an intensive
course that you go through so you get the classroom based learning you do your
home study but you've also got your on-the-job training so for the first two
years is quite intensive you know you have got to pass your legal assessments
you have got to pass the the training program as it is but on top of that
you've also got some of your continued professional development which is where
I'm at at the moment so I'm doing some more focused courses so things on
Electrical Safety on asbestos so it's the kind of job where yes you do do your
regulator's training programme but you've also continually developing your
practice and I think what's great about they the HSC is they they want us as
inspectors to be as well trained the commitment to training from the HRC is
like nothing you've ever seen before from any of the workplace because they
understand that for us to go into industry for us to be able to go and
regulate we need to know what it is we're looking up so the commitment has
support from the top down but the HSE before training can be like I've never
seen before and I think that also goes through onto your teams that's I've been
really looking in the team I mean in Birmingham in that no matter who I speak
to they are always happy to help they are happy to share and I think that's
what then then you can then pay that forward so when we've had new trainees
come in I've been able to do that as well so I've been able to learn from
each other and it's that continual learning environment that you'll ruin so
even though you've done your RTP training actually you never stop
learning and I think that's just the life and inspector you do never stop
learning
now it asks I think we've done safety very well and it's very easy for us
inspectors to go into a site and to look at all there's a part missing of a
scaffold someone could fall off that or fall into that and it is sometimes hard
to to challenge some of the health issues I think in construction when
you're dealing with asbestos you've got a whole industry that understands it but
then you've got things like silicosis and trying to talk to people about
something that might not get or they might get in 10-15 years and that's
quite challenging to try and get them to understand why we're asking them to do
what we're doing but I think there has been a change in the industry and I've
seen that just in the three years that I've been in the HSE that people are now
a lot more aware of the health issues it's actually one of the reasons I
joined the HSE so my dad and my uncle both works in factories and yes
obviously with old age you can get back problems and human problems but I know
that part of that is also because of the environments that they were in it was
noisy and loud there's a lot of heavy lifting and I think actually if we can
make it so that in 10 15 20 years time people aren't dying at asbestosis people
aren't dying of silicosis they don't have the or pilling disorders because
these are all things that are highly preventable they don't need to happen so
if we can do what we can do and I like the fact that there is that push on it
and I think especially as new inspectors we are very very pushed to look at the
health and safety honest honest
what would decide to someone thinking of joining night you say that it's the type
of job that you're never going to be bored that you're always going to be
challenged yes it is hard work but it was also really rewarding and you do
feel like you're making a difference you do feel like you're having an impact on
the world around you and it is a very very rewarding job to do
you