Welcome to Georgia’s Journey!
Some of you will have met SHEQ Trainee Georgia already, as she has been out and about recently, meeting customers and attending audits. And for those of you that haven’t had the pleasure yet, you may have seen she’s already gotten stuck in with producing informative blogs for our website.
Georgia has been a great addition to the WA team, and now that she’s had a couple of months to settle in we wanted to document her professional growth throughout her time as a SHEQ Trainee! We will be checking in with Georgia periodically, to see how she’s getting on and how her answers have changed over time – we hope through this to give you all an insight into the development of a H&S Consultant, while also celebrating Georgia’s progress.
Over to her!
You’ve been at WA Management for three months now – what drew you to the role and what interests you the most now that you’re familiar with it?
I initially studied Sociology and Quantitative Data Methods at University. As a sociology student some of my favourite topics were surrounding mental wellbeing, job inequality and corporate crimes – all being a roundabout introduction into the world of business health and safety.
Additionally, having combined my degree to with data methods I developed the skills needed to be able to break down facts and statistics and create accessible comprehensive knowledge on any topic I chose to research.
While at university I also undertook a placement year with a charity, whereby conducting wellbeing checks and risk assessments was common practice. Naturally, the next step upon graduating was to find a job that would help in my path to gain more qualifications and grow my knowledge and interest on the world of health and safety.
Now I am more familiar with the role what I enjoy most is the seeing other work environments such as building sites, factories, warehouses, etc. I enjoy meeting and talking to all the different people from different fields as no two days are the same which is definitely something I am looking to get out of my job.
I’ve also found that I am an active learner, and love being out and about and learning on the go!
What have you enjoyed learning the most so far?
I have most enjoyed learning about the PPE side of health and safety. I was really shocked while completing my Face Fit course to see the number of requirements and testing PPE has to go through. I have definitely grown my knowledge on PPE massively since starting.
PPE is something that almost everyone needs to some extent – so I’ve had plenty of exposure to it already, which is helping it stick!
What has been the most challenging part of the role so far?
I think the most challenging part of the job so far has been taking in a lot of information all at once. There are so many regulations and guidelines to remember, most of which I had never heard of before this job, so it has been a lot of revising to understand the details of all the jobs and reports I am completing.
However, I am definitely becoming more confident in knowing where to look when I need to check something, and developing some muscle memory of what documents and templates can help me!
How do you feel your skillset has grown since joining the team?
One of the skills I’ve improved since working here is my report writing – at University I created data reports and wrote up case studies, experience which I have built on to specify my report writing skills into a practical health and safety setting.
Writing audit reports has helped me to work on my investigation skills and qualitative writing.
What are you working on at the moment?
At the moment I am working towards my NEBOSH General Certificate. Alongside this I am undergoing any training sessions WA has available to me.
I also attended my first networking event with the Coventry & Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce recently, Women in Business – I got to meet a lot of really interesting business owners!
To keep up to date with Georgia’s progress, along with the latest health & safety news and advice, follow us on social media: