8 Key Attributes Occupational Health And Safety Specialists Need To Succeed In Their Career

by Noah Smith

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Occupational health and safety specialists review, evaluate, and analyze work environments and design programs and procedures to control, eliminate, and prevent disease or injury caused by chemical, physical, and biological agents or ergonomic factors. They may also conduct inspections and enforce adherence to laws and regulations governing the health and safety of individuals. They may also be employed in the public or private sector. Includes environmental protection officers. In order to successfully forge ahead with their careers, analysts in a survey carried out by U.S. Department of Labor (via O*NET) have marked out the following as important attributes that occupational health and safety specialists would need. These attributes have been selected from characteristics and requirements strongly associated with the occupation. They are

Abilities: Enduring attributes of the individual that influence performance
Interests: Preferences for work environments. Occupational Interest Profiles (OIPs) are compatible with Holland's (1985, 1997) model of personality types and work environments. Six interest categories are used to describe the work environment of occupations: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. An OIP consists of six numerical scores indicating how descriptive and characteristic each work environment (or interest area) is for an occupation
Knowledge: Organized sets of principles and facts applying in general domains
Skills: These include basic skills, which are developed capacities that facilitate learning or the more rapid acquisition of knowledge. Plus cross-functional skills, which are developed capacities that facilitate performance of activities that occur across jobs
Style: Personal characteristics that can affect how well someone performs a job

We have listed out attributes which were scored 80% or more in terms of importance by the analysts.

Having a strong preference for investigative work environments. Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.
Attribute Type: Interests Score: 95.29%

The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 85%

Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
Attribute Type: Knowledge Score: 80.6%

Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.
Attribute Type: Knowledge Score: 80%

Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 80%

Talking to others to convey information effectively.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 80%

The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%

The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%