Often during my time in a number of safety roles, I had been tasked with recruiting safety officers to support the HSE team in the various activities within the department. The majority of the time this involved interviewing safety personnel to work for our contractors for the full duration of a given contract or hiring short-term employees for periods of plant turnarounds, maintenance activities or projects. On occasion, the hiring involved recruiting safety officers, specialists or advisory safety positions directly to work for our own team.
I remember it being quite a daunting task when I first started out as interviewing people was not something I generally enjoyed doing and often never really knew what the right questions were to ask. With much support from peers, supervisors and department managers over the years, I learned how to perfect the process and developed a formula that ensured we hired strong and determined safety professionals with a good combination of safety competence, care for people, communication and an overall long-term vision for developing strong safety cultures. A formula that has served me well and that I still use to this day.
I have used this article to highlight some of the key areas to consider when recruiting personnel for safety officer or advisor positions within your organizations.
Attitude
I always believed that to be a successful safety professional you must always care for people and have an innate desire for everyone to go home safely after a day at work. Unfortunately, these days, too many people are in the health and safety business for the wrong reasons and I often tailored my questions to be able to understand a candidate's motives for choosing such a profession as well as seeking for them to demonstrate that duty of care.
"Who do you believe should be responsible for health and safety in our company?" is undoubtedly the one question every candidate should be asked at some stage during the interview. This says quite a lot about a candidate's outlook on how health and safety should be managed within an organization. The answer that I generally look for is something in the lines of "Everyone in the company should be responsible for health and safety". This indicates that the candidate understands that health and safety is a collective task and that he or she is just someone that facilitates this process. Answers such as the "safety department is in charge of safety" or "this comes under the responsibility of the section manager" indicates that the candidate might have a more authoritarian outlook on how health and safety has to be managed, an outlook which is genuinely not advisable when it comes to establishing a strong safety culture.
One of the key attitudes a candidate must demonstrate is a willingness to suggest and work with employees to come up with safer ways to support ongoing operations. Candidates must understand that your company is a business with ongoing processes that must be completed in a timely manner and they are not there to merely stop ongoing work for a safety reason and walk away.
Asking them to explain a scenario of their experiences from when they stopped work on a site and what they did after can give you an indication as to their way of thinking.
Knowledge of Behaviours
Candidates need to demonstrate an understanding of the at-risk behaviors that might lead to future incidents, they need to demonstrate thinking in terms of leading indicators and proactive approaches to potential safety concerns. Experience of participation in behavioural safety programs, participation in supervisory behavioural meetings, understanding key terms used and providing solutions to remove safety barriers are all key markers of having this understanding. More advanced candidates may have even been involved in delivering behavioural based safety training in the past.
Questions to gain an understanding of such knowledge revolves around asking about key behavioural safety areas they would focus on. Answers such as the line of fire, pinch points, tools and equipment are common ones for personnel involved with behavioural safety programs. You might want to ask about what type of solutions they would recommend for any major trends in these areas and how they would monitor these for improvements.
Cultural Awareness
Local culture, as well as the culture of the general workforce, must be taken into account when reviewing safety officers previous experience. Working in the middle east, for example, much of the labour force within the construction industry are from the far east and Indian subcontinent. Unless you are happy to provide ample time for an individual to adapt or you are prepared to provide extensive cultural awareness training, having a safety officer who has no exposure to working elements in the region may present a challenge.
Hiring the right safety officers is one of the most impactful decisions an organization can make for its safety culture. The right people, with the right attitude, knowledge and cultural awareness, can transform a safety culture from compliance-based to commitment-based.