WHAT WE ARE ABOUT AND HOW I FITTED IN – STEPHEN LAWS

I haven’t always done operational safety, my background is in quarrying, process operation and heavy plant starting as a Labourer, so as you could imagine I was the young lad who used to hide when I saw the health and safety manager or indeed my manager.

As I grew older and progressed in my career I decided to carry out my NEBOSH course 8 years ago and I learnt not only what, but why health and safety is in place, and this changed my thought process completely.

Shortly after successful completion of my NEBOSH course I was lucky enough to be offered an opportunity into this world we call health and safety by Lighthouse Safety Training a small company that were running just 1 course at a time and dealing with a handful of clients. Throughout my time at Lighthouse I have developed immensely as a person and a professional. At the beginning of my career I started off looking at PQQ’s and policies moving quickly to site inspections, DSE assessments and before I knew it I really had gained what we all strive for when starting out – “experience”.

I think it’s safe to say that because we were good at what we did, we received great feedback which resulted in repeat work and word of mouth about the quality of our service spreading.

One of my biggest experiences was my secondment to Willmott Dixon. 6 weeks that turned into 3 years as Health, Safety & Environmental manager where I looked after between 3 and 9 construction sites ranging from 3 to 40 million in value and covering everything from demolition to build to finishing.

It was my role to develop sites not just criticise them, ensuring they were compliant by carrying out audits, completing paperwork, managing the safety of subcontractors and delivering required training. My focus during this time was health (noise, dust, vibration) and overseeing all high risk activities like tower crane assembly and dismantle and then finally attending a monthly directors meeting to feedback on progress with the safety team.

Following my return to Lighthouse full time I started teaching more delivering CITB, IOSH and bespoke courses before becoming a Director and starting to manage the consultancy team, which to this day I learn from daily.

One thing I ensure is that we instil my / our ethos into all of our employees. I started to understand the health and safety persons side of the story (its not easy) and early on I realised that I knew what it was that I wanted to achieve and that was to “change the minds” of those who we engage with so that they don’t see us as someone who tells them that they are wrong but a team who are trying and are available to help by providing realtime realistic and practical information.

So what is it we do that you wouldn’t expect?

We aim to build relationships – build relationships with those who we engage with whether its directors, managers, supervisors or indeed employees.

To develop our clients and their company culture.

Inform – the key to this development we feel is “information” we don’t just tell you to do it and we don’t just stick it in a report. There is always an explanation and or advice for why something is in place as you are more likely to “change your mind” if you understand the risks involved (teach a man to fish and all that!) and we know we are achieving this. Last year we achieved the highest scoring NEBOSH candidate in the UK and our regular pass rates are very high.

We have a different approach to how we go about our business. We are based in the south east but regularly work all over the UK delivering courses and carrying out audits & inspections.

Our team who are all directly employed are selected based on our core values – honesty, professional, enthusiastic and go through our set development plan which includes certain training courses, NVQ level 6, teaching qualifications and gain practical experience, all with the backing and ability to work towards Chartered status with IOSH, just as we did, so why not get in touch and speak to the team. See if we can change your mind and shape your future!