Health and Safety Manager
Spicers

Hamish B

00:00:02 My name is Hamish B, job title is health and safety manager. Still establishing what I have to do in the job because I’ve only been here for about five or six weeks but it will be generally to develop a strategy for health and safety management to allow the satellite depots and distribution centres to be operating in a compliant fashion.

00:00:23 What I enjoy about the job is every day is different. There’s a lot of variety. You’re dealing with different people all the time so you get a good at, you know, very broad sort of exposure and experience across the full range of the business. It’s great from a learning and development standpoint as well. Health and safety management has perhaps got a little bit of a stigma of not being a particularly sexy sort of a, sexy sort of a role but that, that is changing. I mean, it’s becoming more and more professional by the year, more and more highly respected by the year.

00:00:57 Initially I started off from an environmental angle. I did environmental engineering at university. I did several years in environmental and safety management in New Zealand and then I decided I wanted to do a backpacking holiday. Ideally I got myself a six month contract doing some health and safety management covering a maternity leave contract, right place, right time, more opportunities came up and some five years later two kids and a house. It’s, we’re pretty settled now, we enjoy living here. If you’d asked me if I ever thought that it would, that we would end up living here and settling here, I would have said, you know, “Unlikely or highly unlikely” when we’re on the plane flying over here. It’s just worked out like that.

00:01:37 Favourite place backpacking would be Greek Islands. Did two weeks just jumping on ferries, a couple of days here, a couple of days there. Loved Italy, Italy, yeah, would definitely be one of my favourite countries, you know, the people are great, the food’s great, the architecture is fantastic.

00:01:54 Because I moved to the UK about five years ago that was a big change for me. I’ve worked in the food industry, I’ve worked in the chemical industry, I’m now working in the logistics industry so there’s been big changes in every job I’ve sort of taken. I do like to be exposed to new things so I didn’t go looking for the same sort of industries. High school for me I guess I would say was a pretty standard sort of high school experience. Pretty sort of geeky selection of subjects in terms of three sciences and two maths for my A level equivalents. I didn’t establish what university course I wanted to do until probably a few days or a week before applications closed. I’d picked up a pamphlet sitting on a coffee table in the common room and thought, “That’s the best one I’ve read so far. That’s what I’ll do at university.”

00:02:44 Going away to university would be the turning point in my life. You know, they give you the work, they set the targets, you have to achieve it. There’s no one carrying through. You actually establish what your own capabilities are. My university experience was hugely social. I loved it. If I could have a groundhog day it would be when I was at university.

00:03:04 I’m a pretty shallow sort of an individual. I don’t have much in the way of hobbies. If I was to write them down there’s little I can come up with. If I could I would like to win the Rugby World Cup for the All Blacks but I’ve broken a couple of ribs and dislocated one shoulder twice so I don’t play anymore because it’s just simply, simply too painful.

00:03:28 In five or 10 years I’d like to be a director of environmental and health and safety management within a large organisation. I’m a fairly ambitious sort of a person and that’s sort of where I’d like to see myself. I don’t have too many regrets. I’ve been happy with all the jobs that I’ve had, I’ve been happy with how I’ve performed in all of my jobs. So, for me, you know, I am, you know, reasonably happy with how things have panned out.

ENDS