Health and Safety language

DSE, HVAC, HSE, WRLUD, COSHH the list goes on and a lot of you may know a bit of H&S jargon or a lot. One thing I do know for a fact is that too many of us Safety bods use it far too freely without thinking. Guilty as charged!

The reason we talk like this is purely the regulations we work with everyday, this is the language of our tools and like any acronym or industry language it is easier to use it and to forget that it can be excluding. You might think well I use my own profession related language or everyone does it but for Safety bods communication is key to everything we do. If we can't make our case for improvements, or explain the new procedure clearly enough or even write it up in a user friendly way - then our entire job ends with us knowing what we mean, and this is not good to anyone.

I am going to be harsh on my fellow practitioners here but we need to do better. This is an area where we should be the shining example, so readers I ask of you this - if you don't understand something your safety bod says, go boldly forward with the knowledge that there is in fact no such thing as a stupid or pointless question and that if someone can not explain something clearly enough to you then this is their fault not yours. Ask your safety professional to cut the jargon and tell you what it means.

If you want/need to get in the good books of any safety practitioner there is a jargon buster available for free on my website, works like a charm guaranteed. Talk nerdy to me!

https://www.safetying.co.uk/jargonbuster