Originally posted on October 19, 2022 @ 8:52 PM
Isn’t it strange this industry that sets up people to enter the workplace with none of the skills or curricula needed to do the job or even better, fully equipped to do the wrong job.
In the standard NEBOSH curriculum there is nothing on: people, motivation, perception, judgment and decision making, ethics, critical thinking, learning, personality, politics, communication skills, listening, observation and culture. A sure recipe (curriculum) for a bus to nowhere.
I wrote about the need to reform the safety curriculum six years ago and nothing has changed (https://www.udemy.com/topic/nebosh/). Until this curriculum is jettisoned (along with zero) it is not likely that Safety will ever become professional.
And where are the so-called associations in any of this? Fortifying a curriculum with the same stuff. Look at the AIHS BoK, 75% of it is on the control of objects! I know, let’s have curriculum reform and bring in an engineer. This is how the industry bus picks up passengers to the same destination. Then when you challenge the curriculum, destination or character if the industry, you get demonised as anti-safety.
So, once you get your NEBOSH qualification what can you do? (https://www.sheilds.org/youve-passed-nebosh-what-happens-next/), not much. All the skills you need to engage the workforce are not a part of the qualification. What you have is a piece of paper that helps manage objects. And once you buy the Zero cool aid, you are on the bus to nowhere.
Of course, we know that zero is the symbol for nothing and utopia is the destination of nowhere (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/utopia ), and that’s where NEBOSH and the safety curriculum is headed.
The reality then hits.
The moment anyone enters the workplace to do safety, where all of the skills of engagement are needed, Safety has been trained to have none. More so, none of the technical knowledge or regulatory focus in the qualification will ever be helpful when something goes wrong. And all the policing of systems actually contributes to the cause of most accidents.
Once Safety hits the deck at work then comes the scramble for templates (you ought to see the data on hits on templates on this blog site), and this drives the adoption of more engineering designed forms that confirm the same curriculum. This further takes people away from the many freedoms needed to enact a mature approach to risk. Co-dependence on traditional safety systems is so deeply embedded it then becomes nearly impossible to image anything else.
None of this has any emphasis on visual or verbal systems (an essential understanding in any law court). None of this even scrapes the surface of Due Diligence. Nothing on the NEBOSH bus even slightly explores the need for human skills, people skills and organisation skills. And it is likely with all the sunk cost and confirmation bias in the system, things will not improve.
This is why anyone who takes up the challenges of SPoR methods (https://cllr.com.au/register-to-study/) and curriculum, wonders why they had not been informed or skilled in any of the essentials before. Most highly experienced safety people who engage in SPoR state clearly that they wish they had done SPoR 30 years ago.
SPoR is not about a few slogans or any of the ‘goop’ you read in the propaganda of BBS.
SPoR tackles everything that is NOT in the safety curriculum (https://safetyrisk.net/spor-and-disposing-of-bad-myths/ ). Moreso, the first stage of learning in SPoR is unlearning much of the mythology (https://safetyrisk.net/category/safety-myths/) indoctrinated by traditional safety.
This is why SPoR works (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/it-works-a-new-approach-to-risk-and-safety/). And everything in the SPoR curriculum is positive, practical, doable, person-centric and improves safety in the workplace.
If you want learn about SPoR the introductory course is free: https://safetyrisk.net/introduction-to-spor-free/
Similarly, all the books and resources in SPoR are free: https://www.humandymensions.com/shop/
Dr Rob Long
Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)
- Selling Safety and the Safety of Selling Safety Culture - January 19, 2025
- You Can’t ‘Bust’ Myths - January 18, 2025
- There is No Such Thing as an HRO - January 18, 2025
- Understanding the SPoR Worldview - January 17, 2025
- How to Escape the Safety=Zero Cult - January 14, 2025
Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below