As a young, passionate, and resourceful young individual who is always on the lookout for challenging opportunities to impact positively in the lives of others, I find myself in no other career than that of the Occupational Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) Profession. You don’t often get to hear people in this career path talk about why they love their profession. Maybe I understand them because the job can be tough and tiring, but hey, it can be fulfilling sometimes.
Read with me as I scribble my thoughts in addition to the few who have been able to share why they love this profession.
First, of all, I love my profession because it is a leadership and management role. As an HSE Advisor, my job gives me the opportunity to lead and supervise a group of workers and even managers to work safely without risk. This means I get to influence worker’s behavior and influence decision-making positively at top management to make a positive impact on how work is performed. As a passionate believer of the phrase by Prof Stephen Adei – “Leadership is a cause, everything else is an effect”, this passion for leadership drives me to work diligently as if the whole organization rises and falls if I act unprofessionally.
My profession provides me the opportunity to Learn, Unlearn and Relearn. It is said that life is a journey on which we get to learn, unlearn and relearn at each point in time. As smart as this may sound about life, it’s not always the case. When one is done with school and lands a job, all that begins to matter is getting a roof over your head, your daily bread, and adequate money to take care of other responsibilities. These alone can sometimes be enough headaches and not allow you to learn. Unfortunately for me, despite all these adult responsibilities and work stress, I ought to learn, unlearn and relearn each day as I go about my professional duties. A day without these means a day without work. That aside, workers and managers also expect you to know better than them in matters relating to health and safety and as such, always look up to you when matters of such come up. So ladies, look no further when you searching for a smart husband/boyfriend, he will definitely have to be an HSE Professional to be smart. 😂😂😂
Let’s continue, I love my profession because it’s Challenging. Dealing with different people from different backgrounds with different mentality and literacy can be tough. But hey, remember I earlier said in the first paragraph that I’m looking out for challenges to impact positively in society. Though doesn’t mean it can’t be done, it only means it requires a little more effort to get it done. Sometimes not just a little, but more effort. The satisfaction here is that I get to achieve something that seems unachievable, I get to make the impossible possible. Challenges only make us stronger and build our resilience. This part of the job can be depressing but with high emotional intelligence, a positive attitude, and a strong support system(management commitment and HSE professional networks), it can become fulfilling.
As an HSE Advisor, I’m positioned to impact on people’s lives positively. I often have to engage workers and managers in discussions at safety meetings or toolbox talks. I’m not a preacher but you should experience me when I’m in the act during these engagements. Sometimes, I feel like taking offertory after such meetings to replenish the energy dispensed 😄😄😄. Fact and fun part of this is, my profession gives me the opportunity to train and impact knowledge into workers and managers to keep them safe as they work daily. These trainings/meetings are sometimes taken for granted but hey, you never know when you need to hear something from such a forum just to save you from an incident the day after. For those who don’t take these engagements seriously, these meetings can save them from being injured or being involved in accidents that are easily preventable. Some of these engagements can positively impact on workers’ behavior on the job and even at home. If this is not impactful, then I don’t know what else is.
Lastly, I get to save lives and mitigate the consequence of dangerous situations. One aspect of my profession deals with emergency response. This implies that, in cases of medical or fire emergencies at work, I am the one they look up to. Trust me, I’m not a doctor nor a fire tender, I’m only a Health, Safety, and Environment Advisor (or Officer in this case). It is my responsibility to keep almost everyone safe during such emergencies. You can call me the Messiah but I know I’m not the Messiah because as and when an emergency situation exceeds my competence and authority, I quickly refer to the appropriate authorities or invite competent parties to take charge. I don’t claim to know it all, I just know what my job is and not, and I do what I ought to do diligently.
So these are the few reasons I can share with you on why I love my profession. I want to quickly add that I’m not overly smart nor a savior. That’s why I always advise that; your health and safety, and that of others around you are your personal responsibility as an individual or a worker. My role as an HSE Advisor is to support individuals or workers to live up to their responsibilities for health and safety and not shoulder it all. I hope you enjoyed the read. Always work safely, because safety is our Life.
The writer is a young passionate leader and professional HSE Advisor.
Raphael Badohu
HSE Advisor