The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) is piloting a shadowing scheme in the food and drink sector in which students completing or having recently completed a health and safety -related degree will spend time following experienced H&S managers around their factories.
This will provide students with work experience, increasing their employability, while allowing manufacturers to assess new H&S professionals, says Carolyn Issitt, head of the pilot scheme and membership development manager at IOSH.
New graduates can be a better choice for a H&S role than a more experienced manager, since most experienced H&S managers come in from other industry sectors, says Issitt. This means they often lack the necessary understanding of key food industry issues.
Headhunters quite expensive
Equally, the use of headhunters or recruitment agencies can be quite expensive. What's more, parachuting someone into a role fails to promote organic growth or instil the company's culture, she says. Many experienced H&S managers also took over the responsibility as a secondary role to their main area.
"Someone saw that they weren't too busy and said: 'You'll do, you can have the hazard tape and hard-hat and be the health and safety guy.' And they got educated on the back of that," she said.
The IOSH scheme is free to join and provides unpaid placements for students. The only cost to companies is for the placement's reasonable travel expenses. The pilot is currently running and is open only to food and drink manufacturers. The scheme will be officially launched around October.
Placements run for three months with a six-week review to make sure candidates are up to expectations, happy in their roles and gaining the necessary core skills, said Issitt.