Oh tricky em, friendly I work in the head office and there's an
awful lot of people there from all sorts of different disciplines, but
everybody is very friendly, very supportive and we work in teams
so yeah I'd go with that, friendly and supportive and busy as well.
We work together in teams of different specialists, different regulators
and we get to know people very well it's a really friendly atmosphere
because you work people with the same people
quite often day in day out and people are really supportive, and because of
that it's quite a relaxed atmosphere so generally it's quite a friendly place to be.
So the process safety group who I work for
there's roughly I'd say about 20 of us we are based all across the country,
so we cover the length and breadth of the UK. We are based in all
the different offices and cover all plants across the UK.
we're a mixture of chemists, mainly chemical engineers
and I'd say about 50 percent of us are women.
I think flexibility is a huge plus for me I, I am office based and I work in the
office a few days a week, but I also work at home on occasion, which is a huge plus,
especially because I'm a working mom, I've got fairly young children and I
can manage my time a little bit around and around their needs.
So for example if there's a school assembly I need to be at I can
maybe go but then work later on in the evening
to balance my time out so for me is a huge draw
to have that flexibility that I don't have to be in the office every day.
We're very focused on what we're doing, we have a very clear
idea of what our job is and what our purpose is, and because of that people
are very willing to help out and be very open about what they need in order to reach that.
I find I know people much better because I'm working with a lot of different people
and that's from across the country that's not just on one site.
We've got multiple offices and I cover quite a large area
so I work with people from lots of different offices
and and I like that. I like the fact that I know people all over the country and I
know that if I have a problem I can pick up the phone and they're quite happy to
help me. it's very supportive, it's friendly
and it's a very willing organisation.
Busy, I would say we have a lot of work on and we're all doing our best to
to do that work. It's quite nurturing maybe that's not a bad word to pick,
I think we do our very best to support each other and and bring each
other on and friendly, we we are quite a close team and on the whole we like
each other and like working together. So I feel that a lot of my colleagues
are my friends as well.
I've been in HSE quite a while actually, I joined in 1999
before that I was a chemical and process engineer working in operations
on a very large nuclear plant
in an operation support role. My degree was Chemical Engineering
so it was working in that field.
I came into HSE, but I didn't come the usual route for process
safety specialists. I joined as a regulatory specialist,
which is which is more of a general type of inspector,
I think it's probably fair to say I didn't fully understand the differences
when I applied for the job, between a more general inspector and a specialist inspector
which is what I am now. Over that time I've done several different jobs
I've worked in several different areas of HSE and I've moved
from being a regulatory specialist towards being a process safety specialist which really
reflects my degree and my background.
In some ways I feel we are a little bit like a consultant. We have teams of regulatory specialists
who are who are more general health and safety inspectors
and they go into major hazard plants, because I work in a major hazard sector,
and they would call specialist inspectors in to do specific pieces of work
that are relevant to our specialism.
I'm a process safety engineer, process safety specialist, chemical engineer and
they would call me in if there were any issues involving fire and explosion risks
or toxic hazards and I would go in to do a very
targeted inspection based on what they want me to do.
So I can routinely go into any type of plant it's generally the larger major
hazard plants, chemical plants, maybe an oil refinery,
but in theory I could be called in to any plant that has had a
process safety type incident. That could be as a planned inspection,
but it could also be an investigation because something's gone wrong.
I tend to deal with incidents and major accidents that are less frequent but potentially have catastrophic outcomes.
The sort of incidents I deal with are things like a Flixborough type accident
or Bhopal or Bunsfield. These are the incidents that will not
just affect people onsite and not just workers onsite but it could be
people living around the plant. The incident could be so large that it
will affect people living off the site. I feel that I can make a difference
because hopefully I am increasing the safety of people you don't even realise
they're necessarily at risk.
These are the major consequence type events and hopefully I can help prevent them from happening.
I think that fundamentally I'm a people person
and I like to see different people. One of the big things that I
get out of the job is the fact that, not only am i working with a large group of
people across all backgrounds, but actually I get to go into plants as
well and see people and see what they're doing.
I've got quite a wide knowledge of the chemical processes now,
and mixing with different people, and that's what I like.
It's given me quite a broad understanding of different
chemical and major accident hazard processes, so in terms of process safety
it's given me a vast knowledge of how to apply them all different types of
chemical processes. If I was working in industry now I would know one process
very well, but that's all I would see whereas now what I see is across the
board I see all sorts of different processes so from a
technical perspective, from an engineering perspective it's given me
far more exposure to different processes than I will ever have got if I was on a
single chemical plant. It's the challenge of working with
different technical sorts of issues that you wouldn't get necessarily on the one
plant and working with all different people as well from different
backgrounds in different industries. It's provided me with an awful
lot of different experiences but I just wouldn't have got.
I've been in HSE quite a long time and I've moved quite a long time in
as well and and I would like to continue doing that,
for me the next thing I'd like to do rather than working in the
frontline of inspection is pulling back a little bit and doing a
more strategic role and looking at developing guidance, developing
standards and working with trade associations that sort of thing
so at a more strategic role, but ultimately more management as well
which of course is all an option within HSE.
I think the training is very good and it's ongoing I still do a lot of training,
and that's both technical training, and training in softer skills
as well as legal training which of course you wouldn't get.
another industries necessarily in the same way. It's important for
us to to know current good practice, current industry standards and because
that's what we're talking about when we go out onto site. We get a lot of
training to reinforce that and we do a lot of peer-to-peer training
so we we arrange within our discipline within the Process Safety Group
We have seminars, technicals seminars, we have group get-togethers where we
talk about different issues to make sure that we're all consistent in
our message, so we spend several days every year doing that sort of thing,
as well as more formal training. We do a lot of webinars
where we can link in with trade associations who are delivering
maybe just an hour on a set topic like a bite-sized chunk.
So whilst when you first come into the organisation the training
will be quite a lot of your time and it inevitably will tail off it
doesn't go to nothing, we always do carry on with the training.
I would say come and give it a try go for it, it's a good organisation it's a very
friendly organisation and it's a supportive organisation.
From the Process Safety perspective if you like the technical challenge you will get a
lot of that here, across all different types of industry, looking at all
different types of issues, but it's not only that it's not only the technical
challenge, you'll also have the challenge of dealing with people on a daily basis
which can present its own difficulties, but you'll be supported in that
and we work together very much as a team and you'll be a valued team member