• Peter Bateman
    270
    In the Sept/Oct edition of Safeguard magazine we pose three questions based on stories in the magazine. One of them is this:

    The median base income reported in this year’s survey is $104,000. How well does this compare with incomes available in comparable careers? And how do you feel about that?

    Feel free to respond here on the Forum, or privately here via a Survey Monkey form.

    An edited selection of responses will be published in the Nov/Dec edition, but with no names attached. One randomly selected person will receive a prize, namely a copy of the new book The Practice of Learning Teams.
  • Robyn Bennett
    6
    Although we have come a long way, the median income isn’t yet reflective of the experience and qualifications needed in comparison with other industries.
  • Peter Bateman
    270
    Perhaps a better question to ask would be: what other types of job or role are comparable to H&S roles?
  • Selena Armstrong
    9
    I think most will agree that this is lower than comparable professions. The difficulty lies in the “emerging” status of the H&S profession. Until there are industry wide requirements and employer expectations for H&S practitioners and professionals to be experienced and qualified we will remain on lower salary bandwidths.
  • Mandy Gudgeon
    18
    Is it possible to tease the survey results out a little more? Does this median base income include professional working in the health/disability/not-for-profit/charity sectors? My feeling is this is very much biased towards corporate/private businesses.
  • Peter Bateman
    270
    The published survey results are here.
    Only 12 respondents indicated they worked in the not-for-profit sector. Going back over the years we have run this survey, we have always set a limit of at least 20 responses in any given group to justify publishing a median figure for that group.
    (We acknowledge that, statistically, calculating a median from as few as 20 data points isn't optimal. But we set that limit in an effort to balance statistical validity with readers' need-to-know.)
  • Tracy Richardson
    10
    Worrying trend I am starting to see is hiring a health and safety professional with the expectation of being an administrator, trainer, advisor, incident investigator, auditor and business partner all wrapped up in one and not pay market related salary for the skills and experience
  • Jono Johnson
    54
    Base income of $104,000 for an H&S professional? Not in Palmy, I guarantee that!
  • Don Ramsay
    147
    Not sure about the 104k, generally I have found most are at the 87k mark
  • Tania Curtin
    112
    'H&S Professionals' are a pretty broad group and I imagine this figure includes a wide range of H&S roles (and experience and qualification levels), from entry-level advisors, right up to multi-national H&S Managers. Without narrowing down the roles a bit more, I don't know how much we can read into this figure.

    Having said that, in my experience, it is highly uncommon for a H&S role to be paid as well as a role in other business functions (e.g. HR, production/operations, finance etc) requiring similar levels of qualification and experience.
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to the Safeguard forum!

If you are interested in workplace health & safety in New Zealand, then this is the discussion forum for you.