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Name: John McDermott
Job title: Senior Health and Safety Consultant at Connaught Training
Location: Based across the UK, as well as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), India, Dubai and Germany
Length of service: 3½ years
Team members: 16 consultants in the Diploma team
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Skills needed for the job:
"You must be a good communicator, as you are always interacting with people›› Because all our trainers have completed the courses themselves, they can relate to the delegates, as they realise that the course is hard work
You must be flexible and be able to adapt to different situations, such as a foreign country where English isn’t the delegates’ first language."
The positives:
“I really enjoy my job because I meet new people every day and get the chance to go to different countries to
teach,” says John. “I’m getting used to living out of a suitcase too!”
The negatives:
“Although working at international sites is exciting, we are trying to teach them our way of working so it can be quite demanding. “Working a long way from home comforts has its challenges too. Once, I was teaching in India and the electricity went off, so we had to adapt to the situation!”
John spends a lot of his time training delegates in the NEBOSH Diploma. This 6-week course is spread over 11 months. John comments, "delegates will have homework assignments to complete each night. The course is very difficult. However, if delegates pass, their salaries could be in the region of £40k plus. It’s not just the delegates that put in the long hours." Before every week of lessons, John will do 2 days’ preparation, which involves looking at past exam papers for test questions, keeping himself up to date with the syllabus and changes in industry legislations, as well as marking delegates’ homework. “It‘s said that a diploma takes a year out of your life and I believe that is true. It’s hard work, but worth it in the end,” concludes John.
Any interesting stories from your job?
Training on the NEBOSH Diploma and I had just started on the construction element when part of the ceiling fell down onto some delegates. Fortunately injuries were minor ones. A leaking water pipe was to blame which over a period of time had unknowlingly saturated the ceiling. After clearing the area and moving the tables we proceeded with the lesson after a short break. We do not normally build in first hand practical experience of accidents, although for this subject some delegates thought that we had.
If you were prime minister what would be the first thing you’d change?
Firstly I would dramatically increase investment in manufacturing, engineering and craft skills as once lost these are difficult to retrieve.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
To always try to understand and read people.
How did you get into health & safety?
I got into safety in local authority when in 1992 it was becoming necessary for someone to deal with a lot of the new safety legislation and apply it to the various workplaces. I'd had quite a number of years in manufacturing and so it was thought that with the practical workplace knowledge I could then apply it in relevant parts of the Authority. From then on I got involved deeper and deeper as I took the NEBOSH Certificate and then the NEBOSH Diploma. | 
