Every company must have at least one safety coordinator, to support management, and stand up for the employees. Already, that tells you that there are many, many, many job opportunities for a safety coordinator. If you’ve been looking for a fulfilling career that would involve you with many people, and also offer you an important standing in a business, look no further—you may have found exactly what you’ve been searching so diligently for.
In the office setting, the safety coordinator has a surprisingly long list of things to do. While a simple business might not be as dangerous as a bustling construction site, there is still plenty to do. The safety coordinator is responsible for keeping the management apprised of any new safety laws put out by the government, and they are also responsible for looking into old safety records. A safety coordinator spends a lot of their time studying accident files—those that happened in their particular office of employ, or accident records in general. Statistics, percentages, and incident rates world wide are many of the things you would be studying, if your chose to make your career as a safety coordinator. You would also research new possible ways to accomplish business goals, featuring prominently to your manager the safety improvements, or benefits.
A safety coordinator also presides over regular safety meetings, where safety questions can be addressed, and where manager and employee can sit side by side and discuss different possible concerns. The safety coordinator would also be expected to offer general safety classes that can include: First Aid, CPR, and other programs that center on maintaining safety awareness and training. The safety coordinator would in addition to all of this be expected to annually report to the business management on multiple issues—New safety laws issued by the government over the previous year, number of company accidents for the year, how many employees were involved with safety awareness classes—Those types of things.
You would also help, or sometimes be in charge of, the company healthcare opportunities for the employees—you would help them secure a good plan with good medical coverage, and help them in that respect.
If you decided to become a safety coordinator, you would be spending large amounts of time alternating between the spotlight and private research work. You would need to be self motivated for those times when you are studying by yourself, but you would also need exceptional people skills. You communicate on many different levels, and you need good communications skills. Much of your work will be reported through the written word, yet you will be judged largely on how you conduct yourself in person and in your speech. You will also need basic computer skills, as you will be doing a lot of typing and research work.
The educational requirements are the same—a four year degree—no matter what company you decide to become employed by, although required experience will vary from company to company. Your beginning salary would be around $40,000, but that number would grow to about $50,000 after only five to six years working in the field.
If you have an interest in being largely involved in your workplace, choosing to become a safety coordinator will seem like the easiest decision you’ve ever made.
