Environment, Health & Safety Placement Review

This placement year is an extremely valuable experience. By giving you a combination of a carefully guided programme and your own independence, you can gain a huge variety of skills, connections and general experiences. You will learn about the details of EHS laws and legislation, training sessions and part take in a year-long overall project.

You enter the company, possibly a little intimidated, feeling immediately welcomed and part of the team. In EHS, you will find that you will need to speak to most of the people in the building as it applies to everyone and speaking to all staff has been pleasant and professional. You will get to know your manager very well as you spend almost all of your work time with them, building a strong relationship which is vital.

As I previously mentioned, you will develop a strong relationship with your manager. This is because they act as a mentor as well as your manager - any queries, issues, concerns or suggestions can be discussed at almost any time you need to talk about them. Whether this be a quick chat or a sit-down meeting, any concerns can be dealt with no problem.

When you start the placement, you are immediately given responsibilities and training. The training allows you to carry out your tasks and gain more responsibilities. Over time, with more experience, you will take on a large variety of tasks, both ongoing/regular tasks and the sporadic, unplanned tasks. The balance can be determined by yourself and your manager, by discussing things with them, you can identify if you would like more work or if you need fewer tasks.

As mentioned previously, your responsibilities will gradually increase throughout the year as your experience, confidence and training levels increase. Training courses are varied and frequent and it will be down to you to decide how many you would like to do. Continuous good work will demonstrate that you are capable of carrying out set tasks and that you can handle these tasks at the same time other staff arrive with questions, concerns and queries. However, as EHS requires qualifications such as a NIBOSH Cert/Diploma, there are some limitations as to how much of a say you can have, espcilly on the high-risk, important tasks/situations.

You will be put onto the IOSH Managing safely which will give you a good, basic understanding of how Environment, Health & Safety operates in the workplace. This will be your foundation on which you can build with further training courses and experiences. The IOSH MS is an accredited course which can be added to your CV and can also be applied to every-day life.

The atmosphere is one that is busy and interactive, yet not to the point where it becomes distracting to carry out tasks - if you need a quiet space you can book out a room. The departments are roughly separated into blocks but the whole office is open and allows you to speak to others and build relationships with people who aren't in your team. There are a number offices on two floors due to the large size of the business.

As I mentioned before, you will be given a larger piece of work that you will complete over the entire placement year, Along with this come smaller, day-to-day weekly tasks. Many of these tasks require constant maintenance over the day/week/month whilst others are very random and dynamic - this is the nature of the job and there is never a dull moment!

All training courses are paid for by the company and any training that you are eligible for, they will pay for in the future including IOSH MS, Toolbox Talks (TBTs) and some team-building activities which you will do with your other placement students. If you continue your experience with the company after university, the will invest even more and aid your development to your desired level of training (a chartered member of IOSH, etc.).

Towards the end of the placement, you will sit down with your manager and HR and discuss whether they will offer you the Graduate Scheme. This means that they would give you an offer to come back after you have graduated university to take part in a two-year programme to develop your skills in a variety of departments other than your own, as well as putting you on any training courses that you need to go on to become chartered.

The current graduates organise regular social events around once every other month. This varies from bowling, go-karting and the traditional meals and nights out in both Bath and Bristol. Along with this, there is Christmas party held by the company at a local venue with free food and complementary drinks! It is a great way to see your colleagues in a different, more relaxed manner.

Before we started the placement, myself and two other students organised a rented house to live in for a year in Melksham itself. This meant that we were a short 10 minute drive away from work and around half an hour from Bath and Bristol. The cost of living was ideal and considering you earn a decent wage, it is nothing too outrageous. The close drive to Bristol and Bath is needed however, as Melksham only has around 4 pubs and a gym! We do utilise the gym as it allows us to play badminton and football each week.

As I mentioned, there is very little to do in Melksham, with only a handful of pubs. However, a short drive/train ride away is Bath and Bristol. As you may know, these are large cities with abundant night life and are the host of many of our placement/graduate nights out both for meals and nights out (and both!)

Whilst Melksham is a quiet town, there are still numerous opportunities to get active and involved. There are plenty of great cycle routes and running/walking paths as well as a local gym and sports centre to play football, badminton, squash, bowling, etc. Also, there are other facililites available such as martial arts (I went along to some Jui-Jitsu sessions).