In the Career Inspiration video, we hear from Mike Webb, Group Health Safety and Environment Director at Galliford Try including how his career in health and safety started and what he believes the future health and safety professional looks like.
My name's Mike Webb. I'm the Group Health Safety and Environment Director at Galliford Try. Galliford Try are one of the large construction contractors in the UK. We have divisions that cover building, infrastructure and specialist services. As a business, we employ circa four and half thousand people, obviously many more in our supply chain. And then from my own department, the HS&E department, we have 105, 110 people in that team.
What attracted you to work in health and safety?
Well, I've always worked in the construction industry. From a young teenager, I was laying bricks, I had a career as a bricklayer. That was a long time ago, and I saw perhaps maybe the uglier side of health and safety. It was always an intention to progress through the industry at some point. I studied construction management part-time, and then came to a crossroads. And to be honest, I didn't see myself moving into a health and safety career, but opportunities presented themselves, which led me to think, "I can probably make a difference in this." But such is this fantastic profession, there's so many career steps along the way and has led to today at Galliford Try.
Why would you recommend health, safety and environment as a great career choice?
So it's such a broad choice of career now. It's not really limited to just HS&E. And if I link that, if I look that up, really in construction industry, again, it can take you to so many places. And I think also with HS&E, you get in every nook and cranny of a business. I think we're one of the few professions that know everybody in our business that get in every part of it, and that's fantastic.
Why is working in construction sector an exciting role?
I've only ever worked in the construction industry. It's the only industry I know, and I'm always quick to caveat like that. But look at how broad, again, the construction industry is, as I said, just with our own business, we have our traditional building businesses where we construct schools, hotels, etc. It can take you to some of the most fantastic places on the planet building some of the most fantastic projects. And once again, perhaps people's perceptions of what a role in the construction industry looked like 15, 20 years ago is so different these days.
What tips would you give to anyone starting their career in health and safety?
Probably the biggest tip I would give to someone starting their career in health and safety is to be really inquisitive. There can be a view that the health and safety person, they know everything, they know all the answers, and of course, we never can. However, just by being inquisitive, by asking the question, "Is that meant to look like that? How are we doing that? What is the thought process behind that?" All the answers just start unlocking, and of course your knowledge is developing all the time and every day is a school day in that respect.
What will the future health and safety professional look like?
I think it's a really interesting question. I think, again, if I look back over recent years, we've seen a lot more growth in the health and the environment sections of HS&E and no doubt more to come. And of course, that creates a more rounded professional. Then I think with that, of course, we've got the whole digital world. We are exploring, as I know many people are. The role of artificial intelligence in our business and what that looks like. If I look at, again, the traditional role of a safety advisor would be to jump into a car in my industry and visit a construction site and do an inspection. You could argue that's probably the riskiest thing that person's going to do all day. Now, artificial intelligence and the like can of course eliminate that and we can look to do things differently. So I think that will have a massive role to play in the future.