The NEBOSH National General Certificate In Occupational Health And Safety is a catalyst for yours (or your staff’s) career development because it improves your skills and makes you more employable…
The qualification asks for significant time investment and comes at a price that might make your employer hesitate. But, when you look at how it’ll strengthen your CV, the benefits far outweigh the concerns.
Here you’ll find 6 compelling reasons why taking the NEBOSH National General Certificate will benefit you and your company:
Key points
- If you take the NEBOSH National General Certificate, your skills represent a world-class proven standard of health and safety
- If you’re a manager, supervisor or have health and safety responsibilities at work, this course is designed for your level of experience
- There’s no evidence that proves a NEBOSH General Certificate guarantees a higher salary, but your newly found leadership experience and skills will give you leverage for career progression
Download your free guide to the NEBOSH National General Certificate In Occupational Health And Safety
#1. NEBOSH is a highly respected awarding body
There are lots of health and safety training courses out there, so what makes NEBOSH better than the rest?
- The General Certificate is widely respected and well-known gold standard in health and safety
- World-class health and safety experts build and review the course contents
- The syllabus reflects employer needs, so the skills you learn are immediately relevant regardless of the industry you work in
- What you’ll learn is relevant to every workplace in every sector and support you to make wise health and safety choices
NEBOSH is a globally respected awarding body, so if you choose one of its qualifications, it signals to your would-be employers and peers that you have a proven standard of health and safety.
#2. Support your role and long-term career
If you’re a manager, supervisors or a member of staff that’s responsible for health and safety, the NEBOSH National General Certificate course is designed for you.
You’ll finish the course ready to meet the challenges posed by your current role, and be prepared to take the next step in your health and safety career.
If you take the NEBOSH GC, you’re committing to a cause and career. From here on in, you’ll:
- Reduce workplace injuries and illness, and improve well being
- Proactively make your workplace safer because NEBOSH principles make up your basic approach and methodology to health and safety
- Comply with health and safety legislation, so every action you take in the name of safety is compliant with the law
- Consistently demonstrate health and safety management techniques
- Spot, control and limit workplace hazards, which lead to accidents and incidents
- Measure health and safety improvements and make recommendations to make the workplace safer
All attributes which give you the authority and confidence to progress in a health and safety role at any organisation, in any sector.
#3. Gain practical, transferable skills
NEBOSH gives you the tools to apply its principles in your organisation at every level. You’ll learn how to:
a) Conduct risk assessments
Using a five-step approach, you’ll discover how to complete a general risk assessment:
- Profile and prioritise risks
- Inspect the workplace
- Identify a number of hazards
- Evaluate risks and describe current controls
- Recommend further control measures
- Plan actions to control the hazard
The five-step approach is a step-by-step method recommended by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) so you comply with the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999:
- Identify the hazard
- Who could be harmed
- Assess the risk and recommend action
- Make a record
- Review the risk assessment
b) Reduce risks and control hazards
There are endless variables for how you, or your colleagues, could be become unwell or get injured at work.
Although your health and safety challenges are specific to your workplace and sector, the NEBOSH General Certificate is applicable to any organisation.
It shows you how to look pragmatically at existing controls and make a decision about how well they’re working. If your organisation could do more to control the hazard, NEBOSH gives you the authority to recommend how to reasonably strengthen the control and keep everyone safer.
The steps you take to reduce risk and control hazards minimises the chance of accidents, limiting sick and injury-related leave.
c) Support an active and aware health and safety culture
As a NEBOSH graduate, you positively influence the health and safety culture at work.
If you have an active health and safety culture, everyone on staff is working together to make the working environment free from harm. It has fewer accidents because everyone on staff follows a health and safety process.
NEBOSH equips you to describe an ideal health and safety culture and demonstrate how it improves performance – something every manager wants to hear.
#4. Broaden your job opportunities
Employers often mark up NEBOSH qualifications (or equivalent) as a desirable attribute in their health and safety job roles.
In fact, in 2017, NEBOSH found that 50% of health and safety roles asked for a degree-equivalent NEBOSH Diploma.
A NEBOSH qualification on your CV could accelerate your career progression because it assures would-be employers of your practical and quick approach to health and safety, and shows you have the professional characteristics to safeguard their organisations.
Start looking up the career ladder and see how many of the health and safety manager, assessor, controller or co-coordinator roles ask for NEBOSH or equivalent training.
#5. Add value to your organisation in one year
After the training, you’ll probably have a list of things you want to change at work.
In the first year after NEBOSH training you could:
- Review your organisation’s commitments, policies and procedures and advise how they could be improved
- Advise how the business could save money
- Take an overview of the accident stats and make small changes to reduce injuries
- Look at the bigger picture of the business
NEBOSH gives you a safer perspective of your organisation at every level and you’ll see health and safety in everything you do. As much as NEBOSH makes a cultural change at work, it’ll impact your outlook for the better.
“Reduce the little accidents that so often cause issues, by looking at your accident stats. The changes you see in yourself start with seeing health and safety in everything you do, and that’s what the General Certificate gives you.
You become more aware of the fragility of business and start to look at the bigger picture, not just the immediate job to hand. Perception is quite a thing – the NEBOSH General Certificate gives you a new, safer point of view.” – Luke Pitt, Head of Health and Safety.
#6. Leverage to re-negotiate your salary
According to PayScale.com, the average salary for a health and safety manager is £35,704, but that could go up to £51,000 depending on your experience, location in the UK, sector, and the demands of the job.
There is no data to support the idea that having the NEBOSH General Certificate qualification will guarantee you a pay rise.
- However, the training will give you more autonomy to make decisions that benefit the business, so you’ll demonstrate leadership qualities your HR team might be keen to develop.
- You’re also better equipped to track how your controls are adjusting the workplace safety culture and financially benefiting the organisation.
- If you can assign a monetary value to the controls you’ve put in place since the training, it’ll help you to build a case for a raise or promotion, but you may need to work with other team leaders and your financial director to get the information.
- Keep a record of all the ways you’ve used NEBOSH to create a safer working culture and frequently present to your managers so you’re demonstrating your expertise regularly.
When the time comes to ask for raise, recall those moments of success – if they don’t reflect your contribution to the organisation in your pay, you can always take your success stories elsewhere.
Finally – How to ask your boss for NEBOSH General Certificate training
If you think the NEBOSH NGC is the right course for you, the next hurdle is getting your boss to see things from your point of view.
You can’t storm in there boasting about how the course will benefit your career and broaden your horizons.
Your manager has their own targets and objectives to meet – they’re focusing on how to solve pressures and problems in various forms around their department. They might also be bound by budget red tape if you’re at a small business.
If you can translate the NEBOSH General Certificate into their language and boast about the business benefits, you’re likely to have a bit more success securing the training for you (and maybe your team as well).
Think about:
- The facts – why and how would your team/department/wider business benefit from NEBOSH?
- The budget – cast your mind back to one-to-ones and look over your PDP. See what budget you’ve been allocated for health and safety training
- The return on investment – what outcomes would your manager and the senior leadership team want from NEBOSH training?
Get started by downloading your free guide to the NEBOSH General Certificate today
Any further questions?
If you’d like to know more about the NEBOSH courses we offer and whether they’re the right course for you and your organisation, take a look at our NEBOSH FAQ page, or get in touch with our team of NEBOSH experts.
