The Safety Professional's Focus

The task of a safety professional is difficult, even under normal operating conditions. In times of crises like an accident or emergency situation this task becomes a nightmare event. It is normally expected of a safety professional to take personal responsibility for individual standards of professional performance and to take every opportunity to enhance and improve knowledge and competence.

To provide a framework for safety professionals could result in a checklist syndrome that can be counter productive. The values listed below should be seen as a guidance of focus areas to utilise for self improvement.

The primary duty of a safety professional is to protect life and serve all employees who may be at risk of industrial injury, ill health or death.

In order to achieve this, the safety professional should endeavour:

1. To safeguard life and property and to protect the workforce against objectively assessed significant risks.

2. To always act with no compromise for safety and with persistent elimination of significant risks, while enforcing the safety standards courteously and appropriately without fear or favour, malice or ill will, and never accept gratuities.

3. To always (whether at work or at home) comply with safety rules and behave in a manner which does not bring discredit to the safety profession and thereby set an example to anybody who may observe risky activities.

4. To remain focussed and calm in the face of danger, scorn, or ridicule and develop self restraint; and be constantly aware of the welfare of others.

5. To be honest in thought and deed in both personal and work life and be exemplary in obeying the safety standards applicable under the situation.

6. To conform to the code of confidentiality by keeping secret anything of a confidential nature that is heard or seen in an official capacity unless revelation is necessary in the interest of safety.

7. To never act dictatorially or permit personal feelings, prejudices, political beliefs, aspirations, animosities, or friendships to influence professional decisions.

8. To recognize the appointment as a safety professional as a symbol of faith and trust from both senior management as well as the workers.

9. To cooperate with all legally authorized agencies and their representatives in the pursuit of a safe working environment.

10. To respect the right of all employees to a healthy and safe work environment.

The above framework is by no means implied to be a checklist of a good safety professional, however it is a fact that the core values contained in this list will be present in some form or another in all truly professional safety engineers.

© 2009 Carl Marx