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I’m passionate about protecting people in the workplace, so when I finished my Engineering degree, I decided I wanted to pursue a career in Health and Safety. After securing a position as a HSE Engineer I chose to improve my Health and Safety management knowledge by completing the NEBOSH International General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety. My mentor, Mr. Alexander Oommummen, a Senior Health and Safety Advisor at Petrofac, recommended NEBOSH to me because of its strong reputation; particularly in the Middle East. I’ve now been working in occupational health and safety for nine years – seven in India and the last two in England.

My NEBOSH studies gave me a great grounding in health and safety and helped me secure my current role as Safety, Health and Wellbeing Manager for One Holding Limited in the UK. It is a large business with two manufacturing sites and two warehouses in Bristol and Newport. My appointment reflected the company’s desire to build in-house Health and Safety expertise instead of relying on third-party assistance.

One Holding has significantly improved its Health and Safety performance in the last two years and this is no stroke of luck. It’s the result of the combined efforts of employees and managers to implement a variety of initiatives including weekly safety sampling, incident and near-miss reporting, monthly health and safety audits and behavioural safety training. As a company, we’re really passionate about protecting our people. It’s not just about checklists, it’s about embedding a safe working culture and considering everyone’s health, safety and wellbeing in everything we do. Recording zero lost time injuries over the space of 12 months is a major achievement that my NEBOSH studies definitely helped me to achieve – we’re making safety a daily habit across the organisation.

Employees can often feel that Health, Safety and Wellbeing are things that someone is imposing on them but I aim to promote understanding – I want to counsel and advise, not impose. In that way, you improve people’s opinion of Health and Safety, and create a much more positive Health and Safety culture within the company. Knowing I’m making a difference to front-line safety is really satisfying. I absolutely love this job and am still excited to go to work every day. It’s great when you share a little nugget of safety advice with someone and see the penny drop.

In 2017, in part thanks to having the NEBOSH International General Certificate, I was accepted on to the MSc course in Occupational Safety, Health and Wellbeing at Cardiff Metropolitan University. My NEBOSH qualification and the Master’s degree complement each other well. The NEBOSH International General Certificate gave me a strong understanding of the fundamentals of Health and Safety management whilst my Masters is focused on Wellbeing and Engagement. Juggling full-time work and study is a real balancing act but I’m driven to keep learning new ways to protect people and improve their wellbeing. I’m at the final stage of my research to develop and adopt a strong disaster emergency preparedness plan. Last year Kerala, my home state Kerala in Southern India, experienced its worst floods in 100 years. 5.4 million people were affected and 433 people lost their lives. I’m hope my research will result in an effective preparedness plan that that can play a crucial role in responding to public health emergencies in future.

In 2019, I was delighted to hear the news that I had been shortlisted for H&S Manager of the Year at the Safety & Health Excellence Awards! It was such an honour to be the first Indian to be nominated for this accolade. My appreciation goes to my dad, our family, my mentor Mr Alexander and One Holding Ltd for believing in me and supporting me.

In my opinion, NEBOSH offers the best safety qualifications in the world, recognised for teaching you about management systems and control measures. With a NEBOSH qualification as my springboard, I’m now looking at employee engagement and why people do what they do. For the future, I want to develop wellbeing strategies and interventions and hope my passion will lead to a high-level Safety, Health, Wellbeing and Environmental leadership role.