ProQual Level 6 NVQ Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety Practice
A positive health and safety culture is one of the most important factors influencing workplace health and safety performance. This unit of the ProQual Level 6 NVQ Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety Practice focuses on developing the practical skills required to promote health and safety awareness, influence behaviour, encourage employee engagement and support continual improvement within an organisation.
Learners completing this unit will demonstrate competence in communicating health and safety information, consulting with employees and managers, encouraging participation, promoting positive behaviours and supporting the development of a strong safety culture across the workplace.
Unlike traditional classroom-based qualifications, the ProQual Level 6 NVQ Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety Practice is a competency-based qualification assessed through workplace evidence. This means learners demonstrate their ability to apply health and safety knowledge in real workplace situations rather than sitting written examinations.
This unit is particularly relevant for:
Health and Safety Advisors
Health and Safety Officers
Health and Safety Managers
SHEQ Professionals
HSE Managers
Compliance Managers
Operations Managers with health and safety responsibilities
Individuals progressing towards Graduate Membership of IOSH (GradIOSH)
By successfully completing this unit, learners will demonstrate their ability to actively promote a positive health and safety culture, influence health and safety behaviours and support organisational health and safety objectives.
What Does This Unit Mean?
This unit is about influencing people, promoting positive attitudes towards health and safety and creating a culture where health and safety is valued, supported and integrated into everyday activities.
A positive health and safety culture exists when people at all levels of the organisation understand the importance of health and safety, take responsibility for their actions, actively participate in health and safety activities and support continual improvement.
Health and safety culture is influenced by leadership, communication, employee involvement, visible commitment, trust, competence and the behaviours demonstrated throughout the organisation.
In simple terms, this unit is asking:
“Can you influence people, gain support for health and safety, promote positive attitudes and behaviours and build relationships that help improve health and safety performance?”
What Competence Does This Unit Require?
You are expected to demonstrate that you can:
Explain the benefits of a positive health and safety culture.
Influence people to support health and safety improvement.
Gain commitment from directors, managers, employee representatives and employees.
Communicate health and safety messages effectively.
Create opportunities to promote health and safety.
Identify barriers that prevent positive cultural change.
Develop strategies to overcome resistance to change.
Build relationships with people who influence health and safety performance.
Develop links both within and outside the organisation.
Support individuals and groups involved in health and safety activities.
Create opportunities for collaboration and engagement.
Plan activities that strengthen health and safety culture and participation.
The focus is not on delivering a single presentation or health and safety campaign.
The focus is on demonstrating your ability to influence people, promote positive behaviours and develop relationships that contribute to improved health and safety performance.
Evidence Requirements: Unit 01
How do you promote the benefits of a positive health and safety culture?
Evidence Examples:
A toolbox talk, presentation, briefing, newsletter, safety alert or campaign material that you developed or delivered to promote the benefits of good health and safety.
Evidence that the communication was delivered, such as attendance records, meeting minutes, email circulation records or acknowledgement records.
How do you gain commitment from directors, managers and employee representatives?
Evidence Examples:
A letter, email, presentation or meeting minutes showing that you communicated with directors, managers or employee representatives to gain support for a health and safety initiative, improvement programme or cultural change activity.
Evidence showing that support, approval, resources or actions were agreed.
How do you communicate positive health and safety messages?
Evidence Examples:
A toolbox talk, briefing, training session, newsletter, campaign, poster or safety alert that you developed or delivered.
Evidence that the communication was delivered to the intended audience.
How do you create new opportunities to promote a positive health and safety culture?
Evidence Examples:
Evidence of a new initiative that you introduced, such as a safety campaign, safety forum, awareness event, recognition programme or improvement project.
Evidence showing that the initiative was implemented, such as meeting minutes, attendance records, photographs, emails or communication records.
How do you identify and overcome barriers to positive cultural change?
Evidence Examples:
Evidence showing that a barrier was identified, such as employee feedback, survey results, audit findings, inspection findings, incident trends or meeting minutes.
Evidence showing the action you took to address the barrier, such as an action plan, training programme, communication, meeting record or improvement initiative.
How do you identify the people and groups who can help you improve health and safety performance?
Evidence Examples:
An organisational chart, committee structure, stakeholder list, responsibility matrix or similar document identifying the people and groups who influence health and safety performance.
Evidence showing their involvement in health and safety activities, decision-making or consultation processes.
How do you develop and maintain relationships with people and groups who can influence health and safety performance?
Evidence Examples:
Meeting minutes, emails, consultation records or communication records showing that you regularly engaged with people who influence health and safety performance, such as directors, senior managers, line managers, supervisors, employee representatives, safety committee members, contractors, clients or regulators.
Evidence showing cooperation or joint working, such as agreed actions, joint inspections, safety meetings, improvement projects or consultation activities.
How do you identify and create new opportunities to strengthen health and safety engagement and collaboration?
Evidence Examples:
Evidence of a new safety committee, working group, contractor forum, employee engagement forum, safety campaign, workshop or partnership that you helped establish, organise or support.
Evidence showing participation, attendance, actions agreed or outcomes achieved.
How do you determine whether your efforts to promote a positive health and safety culture have been effective?
Evidence Examples:
Employee feedback, survey results, audit findings, inspection results, behavioural observations, participation records or culture assessment results.
Evidence showing improvements, trends, actions taken or management review of the results.
Some of your evidence against one Assessment Criterion may also be used to meet the requirements in other assessment criteria (Where applicable).
Important Note for Learners
The competence requirements outlined above describe the practical workplace activities, systems, processes and records that may be used to demonstrate competence against this unit.
As this is a competency-based qualification, learners are expected to demonstrate that they can apply their health and safety knowledge and skills within their own workplace or working environment.
In addition to the competence-based assessment criteria, this unit also contains a number of knowledge-based assessment criteria. These are typically assessed through:
Written responses
Professional discussions with the assessor
Assessor questioning
In most cases, the knowledge-based assessment criteria relate directly to the same workplace activities, systems and processes described above. Learners will therefore often find that the workplace evidence gathered to demonstrate competence also helps them prepare for and satisfy the knowledge assessment requirements.