Careers in Construction: HSE Management
Sonja Hatfield is one of the most passionate people I have met in the industry. She's innovative, driven, determined, and plays an extremely important role in the functioning of a construction business: safety management. Safety is not an afterthought when delivering projects. It's one of the fundamental pillars of delivering successful projects. Sonja has over 20 years experience, so her insights into HSE* management are well worth the read. It's not a career path that is widely promoted, at all, but it's a chance to create real and tangible difference in the lives of others. Here's what Sonja had to say about a career in safety:
HSE stands from Health, Safety, and Environment.
Tell us a bit about yourself;
When I left school, I wanted to be a lawyer! However, one year of a law degree scrapped that idea (blame it on Latin and Economics) so I switched to a Business/Psychology degree which was a far better match to my personality. Along the way, I’ve added in qualifications in Management WHS, Training and Auditing.
My best qualification, though, is lots of general knowledge covering lots of topics. To paraphrase Forest Gump’s chocolate quote – "you just never know when you need to know something." (My other favourite saying is “you don’t know what you don’t know, until you don’t know it”.)
Pastimes? Freeform painting (the artwork in my house is my own), gardening (it’s quite cathartic), reading (mostly on flights or late at night) and travel (when I can afford it).
How did you get into industry, and did you know from the outset that HSEQ was the path for you?
My pathway to HSE hasn’t been your typical career path. While I’ve been in the HSE field for many years, my working career, post uni, started in HR.
My first role after finishing my degree was as a recruiter in a boutique agency that specialized in industrial roles. From there, I moved into in-house HR as a generalist and worked in several different industries, picking up subject matter knowledge along the way.
I’m a naturally curious person and my time spent in HR gave me the opportunity to see the “human” side of operations. So, when an opportunity came along for me to get involved in HSE and utilize my HR skills at the same time, I grabbed the opportunity.
The road hasn’t always been easy. As experienced by many females working in male dominated field, I’ve had to work harder, smarter and faster to achieve an outcome. But, I’ve been fortunate to have worked with some great managers and mentors, who believed in me and provided opportunities to cut my pathway.
If I was advising my 18-year-old self on a career path, I don’t think I’d change many things.
You’ve built an incredible career in safety, what have been some of your highlights?
I’m not sure that I can pick highlights as each role that I’ve had has provided opportunity, challenge, outcome and its fair share of frustrations.
Each role has added to my knowledge base which in turn has fed my yen for more knowledge. I’ve never been afraid to ask “why” or “please explain” and I’m passionate about using my knowledge to assist others to reach their goals.
Personally, I’m thrilled when someone has a “light bulb” moment and “gets safety” or when someone that I’ve mentored or coached reaches a goal (whether its writing a submission, getting the job they want or receiving their qualification).
Why is safety in construction so important, to help those understand who aren’t yet in industry?
Call me biased, but I’m a fervent advocate of “a safe job is a profitable and quality job”. Ask any Project Manager what happens to their project schedule or profit margin when someone doesn’t have the right equipment for the work or there’s an incident resulting a time delay.
What many fail to appreciate is that planning for safety starts at the tender stage of the project and finishes at the post-project review meeting. By planning at tender stage, you have the best chance of identifying the safety risks of the project, who is responsible for the risks and how they should be controlled during the project stages.
By reviewing safety performance at the end of a project, you identify what worked well, what was left out, what didn’t work so well and what the opportunities for improvement are.
You don’t need to be an HSE subject matter expert to manage safety on a project. What you need is an understanding of risk, a common-sense approach and a pragmatic HSE team who can advise and assist.
What exactly does a HSE Manager do, and how does that role fit in a construction business?
Good question - the phrase “Jack or Jill of all trades” springs to mind.
On the technical side, an HSE Manager should understand the operational aspects of the business. In the construction world, this means: having a good understanding of construction methodology (and terminology), an ability to assess risk and communicate controls and importantly, provide value-add advice and direction to project teams.
On the compliance side, an HSE Manager has the role of ensuring (so far as is practicable) that the company operates in accordance with its obligations under legislation. The value of an HSE Manager also lies in their ability to interact at all levels (CEO to Labourer) and advise, coach and mentor.
A good HSE Manager will have skills in HR, employee relations, performance management, planning, problem solving and innovation as well as being pragmatic, having common sense and a sense of humour (always useful when dealing with humans!).
A day in HSE management could include: writing a submission for a tender, chairing a design meeting to discuss HSE risk, completing or co-ordinating an incident investigation, preparing for or conducting a site audit, dealing with a non-negative D&A result, or writing a new procedure.
Somewhere in all of that I should find time to have a cup of tea, eat lunch and use the restroom.
Whom is this career path most suited to?
I think that to be successful in HSE (as opposed to just being in HSE) you need:
- A genuine interest in human behaviour (how nature, nurture and culture shape what humans do);
- A healthy repertoire of general knowledge (plus the desire to learn more);
- The ability to listen (to everyone) and learn (constantly);
- The capacity to be pragmatic and innovative (your stakeholders need you to work with them not against them);
- The hide of a rhino - you’re going to need to be tough and stand your ground; and
- The energy of a hummingbird – you’ll need to move quickly between issues and still stay afloat.
Why is a role in HSE so important, and why do you think it isn’t promoted so much as a viable career path?
Years ago, safety was a stand-alone job and a Safety Officer position was a “resting place” for those about to retire or those that no-body knew how to manage (performance management wasn’t a big thing). Over the last 20 years, as more companies saw the benefits of integrated safety, environment and quality systems, HSE as a wholistic and corporately beneficial practice, has really taken off.
Along the way, other disciplines have blended into and with HSE (think psychology, behavioural science, occupational medicine, law) and an entire industry has developed.
Great results are being achieved. While every injury, death or contamination incident is one too many, significant in-roads have been made into understanding what makes humans do that they do and, developing tools and methods to manage the challenge of keeping ahead of the next curve.
HSE is a career path with an enormous variety of roles. Every industry has some requirement for HSE - the higher the industry risk the greater the need to manage risk, human behaviour and outcomes.
The HSE industry may not always pay mega-buck salaries, but the rewards are there if you’re prepared to put in the effort.
What advice would you give to students who want to work in construction?
If you want to be successful in construction, whether as a Designer, Estimator, Project Manager, Site Manager, etc, make the effort to understand the whole of the industry and, how the pieces of the jigsaw fit together.
If you want to be successful in construction, you need to understand that people are the biggest and riskiest asset that you will ever work with.
If you want to be successful in construction, you need to keep your eye on the ball as you’ll be remembered for successes as well as failures.