COVID Changes to Occupational Health & Safety = Your Career Opportunity

COVID has turned our world upside down, and the shifts and changes that have occurred with lockdowns, economic shutdowns, and complete social upheaval, we never could have imagined before this time. The focus of occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals has always been on the necessity for protocols and compliance to ensure the well-being of employees in the workplace. With some companies, this job was easy, with others it could be difficult to implement a policy for risk management when leaders within the organization couldn’t imagine a need for it.

COVID changed all that.

Companies, owners and senior management, were catapulted into change and charged with doing everything in their power to ensure the health and wellness of every employee and customer, or risk themselves being complicit in not doing their part to stop the spread of infection. The rules and laws changed, and with that a major shift in the need, and respect, for those professionals who would help inform and support, to ensure occupational safety.

How has COVID Changed Occupational Health & Safety (OHS)

and What Does This Mean for You?

• • Shift in Understanding – A direct and immediate understanding of the risks associated with the spread of illness and the development of protocols based on up-to-the-minute reporting of cases of COVID. And adapting to the rules and regulations of the regions in which those professionals live and work. Company leaders and management look to those ‘in the know’ to help navigate the challenges and support them to put systems in place in keeping with ever-evolving guidelines and mandates.
  • Shift in the Work Environment – Although for years OHS professionals may have been suggesting a more flexible work environment for employees to support their physical and mental wellness, employers saw this as a challenge and difficult to implement – overnight this changed. Employees working remotely has meant a shift in how employers identify and monitor a ‘workday’, from punching a timeclock to trust. Employers have suddenly had to work more diligently to support the mental wellness of their team, ensure those isolated feel included, valued, and that the team still feels connected as a whole.
  • Shift in Safety Practices – The basic safety standards OHS professionals have always worked to implement, have become commonplace – keep people away from the hazard and the hazard away from people. And the ABCs in response to a hazard, are now listened to, as they’ve been upheld by the World Health Organization and many healthcare leaders. A = Activate, B= Behaviour, C=Consequence. Activate a safety protocol by informing people and giving them guidelines (washing hands, wearing masks, social distancing). Monitor Behaviour to ensure there is compliance. And implement a Consequence if the protocol to ensure safety isn’t followed. (To learn more, listen to this Safe Zone Podcast with OHS professional Alan D. Quilley.)
  • Shift in Preventative Measures – Even as the world opens up little-by-little, we are now proactively focused on preventing illness and the spread of disease, through vaccinations, and health and temperature check-ins before attending work and engaging in life events. All this has also led to improving how we prevent, not only contracting COVID, but the spread of polarizing misinformation that meets us on media channels, on and offline.

Every aspect of our lives has been challenged with this pandemic, but in its wake, we have learned so much – about the tenacity of the human spirit, how we can support each other, our employees and teams as they work from home, and how technology can connect us across the city, the country and the world.

The opportunity for you, if you have a passion to oversee the health and well-being of others in the workplace and support leaders as they rebuild their businesses, is that in training to become an Occupational Health and Safety professional, you can help create a new world – one that is safer and healthier for us all.

Take the “Medical Professional Career Discovery Quiz”

To find out more about how you can engage in safety courses, and pursue your occupational health and safety certificate, contact one of our Admissions Advisors today.

Quick Links to Fuel Your Success!

We want to make sure you have what you need to succeed! Check out these reference links:
• Occupational Health and Safety Diploma, OHS Diploma Course at Anderson College
• PODCAST: How COVID-19 has changed safety – OHS Canada MagazineOHS Canada Magazine
• Changes to COVID-19 workplace health and safety guidance | Workplace Safety North
• How COVID-19 Has Changed the Standards of Worker Safety and Health — and How Organizations Can Adapt | Executive and Continuing Professional Education | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health