The Safety Professional Today
The Challenges of the New Millennium
In the 21st century, safety professionals confront new challenges not faced a generation or even a decade ago. Today's safety professionals are well-educated, highly-motivated and must recognize, evaluate, and control risks to people, property and the environment. They must be able to apply technology and work with top management to minimize risk and ensure that safety, health and environmental performance are fundamental measures of business success.
Professional safety practice today involves aspects of engineering, business, health, education, laws and regulations, human behavior, education and training and computer and Internet technologies. They use qualitative and quantitative analysis of simple and complex products, systems, operations, and activities to identify hazards. They evaluate the hazards to identify what events can occur and the likelihood of occurrence, severity of results, risk (a combination of probability and severity), and cost. Besides knowledge of a wide range of hazards, controls, and safety assessment methods, safety professionals must have knowledge of physical, chemical, biological and behavioral sciences, mathematics, business, training and educational techniques, engineering concepts, and particular kinds of operations (construction, manufacturing, transportation, etc).
Safety professionals who can demonstrate their competency are in demand and receive pay well above others. Being able to compete for positions with responsibility requires the safety professionals take charge of their own professional development. More and more, safety professional are obtaining nationally accredited and highly recognized certifications to demonstrate competency and qualify for jobs, to compete for government and private contracts and to gain new clients.
Whether the career goals include seeking a new position, moving up in the current organization or moving to private practice, one can accelerate opportunities by achieving certification.
