Occupational Health and Safety Leadership for HSE Managers Training Course

Course overview

HSE managers are expected to turn legal duties, incident data and operational risks into controls that work on the shop floor, in projects and across contractor interfaces. The challenge is not simply knowing occupational health and safety requirements; it is leading a management system that identifies weak signals early, assigns accountable actions, verifies control effectiveness and gives senior leaders reliable assurance. This course addresses the practical leadership gap between compliance administration and measurable risk reduction.

Participants work through the core leadership practices of an ISO 45001-aligned occupational health and safety management system. They learn to set risk-based objectives, lead hazard identification and risk assessment, apply the hierarchy of controls, assess critical control performance, investigate incidents using causal analysis, manage contractor safety and build meaningful leading and lagging indicators. The course also covers assurance planning, management review inputs, worker consultation and methods for presenting HSE risk decisions to executives.

Delivery combines instructor-led technical sessions with case-based workshops drawn from high-risk operations, construction, manufacturing and maintenance environments. Participants use tools including BowTie analysis, 5 Whys, ICAM-style causal mapping, action tracking and KPI dashboards to make decisions from realistic evidence. Each participant leaves with a practical Occupational Health and Safety Leadership Action Plan: a 90-day, site- or business-specific plan containing priority risks, critical controls, assurance activities, KPI measures, accountable owners and escalation points.

The programme is designed for experienced HSE practitioners moving into leadership responsibility, as well as operational leaders who own significant health and safety risks. It is particularly valuable where organisations need to strengthen ISO 45001 implementation, improve incident learning, control contractor risk or provide more credible HSE reporting to leadership teams.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Design an ISO 45001-aligned occupational health and safety leadership framework with defined accountabilities and consultation routes
• Conduct a risk-based hazard identification and assessment using the hierarchy of controls and residual-risk evaluation
• Build a BowTie model that identifies preventive barriers, recovery controls, control owners and verification activities
• Investigate incidents using evidence collection, 5 Whys and causal-factor mapping to produce corrective actions
• Develop leading and lagging HSE indicators that measure critical-control performance rather than activity volume
• Plan a risk-based internal assurance programme using inspections, audits, control verification and action follow-up
• Evaluate contractor health and safety arrangements through prequalification, interface-risk and performance-review criteria
• Produce a 90-day Occupational Health and Safety Leadership Action Plan for a defined workplace or operational area

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• HSE Managers — who lead occupational health and safety systems and need stronger assurance and risk-control practices
• Health and Safety Managers — who must convert legal and ISO 45001 requirements into operational controls
• HSE Advisors and Senior Safety Officers — who are progressing into management roles with wider accountability
• Operations Managers — who own frontline risk controls and need to lead safety performance through supervisors
• Project HSE Managers — who manage contractor interfaces, temporary works and changing project risk profiles
• Internal Auditors and Management System Leads — who assess occupational health and safety arrangements and report findings to leadership

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience in an HSE, safety, operations or project-management role and be familiar with workplace hazard identification, risk assessments, incident reporting and basic legal-duty concepts. Prior exposure to ISO 45001, permit-to-work systems, inspections or contractor management will help, although formal auditor certification is not required. Participants should be able to interpret simple risk matrices and operational performance data. No prior use of BowTieXP, Power BI or formal incident-investigation methodology is required; these tools and methods are introduced through guided exercises.

Training methodology

The course uses instructor-led briefings to establish the management-system and leadership concepts, followed by structured application to a continuing operational case. Participants analyse risk registers, incident evidence, contractor documents and sample HSE dashboards; build BowTie diagrams; test control-verification questions; and present recommendations in small groups. Facilitated peer challenge focuses on the decisions an HSE manager must make when evidence is incomplete or operational pressure is high. On the final day, each participant converts the course tools into a site-specific 90-day Occupational Health and Safety Leadership Action Plan.

Course outline

Day 1: HSE leadership, governance and ISO 45001 alignment

• HSE manager accountabilities, authority and escalation boundaries
• ISO 45001 leadership, worker participation and planning clauses
• Legal compliance obligations versus operational risk ownership
• Safety culture indicators and the limits of behavioural observation
• Risk appetite, tolerability criteria and risk-based objectives
• Roles of executives, line managers, supervisors and safety representatives
• Management review inputs, decisions and evidence requirements

Workshop: Participants map the HSE governance and escalation routes for a case-study organisation and produce a RACI matrix for its highest-risk activities.

Day 2: Hazard identification and critical risk control

• Task-based hazard identification and operational risk-register design
• Risk matrix calibration, likelihood bias and residual-risk decisions
• Hierarchy of controls applied to elimination, engineering and administrative measures
• Critical control identification and minimum performance requirements
• BowTie threat, top-event, consequence and barrier modelling
• Barrier degradation factors and control-owner assignments
• Verification questions for life-saving rules and critical controls

Workshop: Participants build a BowTie model for a high-consequence work activity and produce a critical-control verification checklist.

Day 3: Incident learning and corrective action leadership

• Incident classification, notification thresholds and evidence preservation
• Witness interviewing techniques and chronology construction
• 5 Whys analysis and the distinction between causes and corrective actions
• ICAM-style causal-factor mapping for organisational and task-level failures
• Human factors, procedural drift and normalisation of deviance
• Corrective-action quality criteria, ownership and due-date control
• Learning reviews, safety alerts and verification of action effectiveness

Workshop: Participants investigate a simulated serious incident from evidence packs and produce a causal map, corrective-action register and leadership briefing.

Day 4: Assurance, contractor control and performance intelligence

• Risk-based inspection, audit and assurance programme design
• Field verification methods for checking work as done
• Contractor prequalification and competence-assessment criteria
• SIMOPS and contractor-interface risk management
• Leading indicators for control health, action closure and workforce engagement
• Lagging indicators, trend analysis and rate calculation limitations
• Power BI dashboard design principles for HSE management reporting

Workshop: Participants review a contractor performance pack and HSE dashboard, then produce an assurance plan and executive reporting recommendations.

Day 5: Strategic influence and HSE improvement execution

• Translating HSE risk evidence into executive decision papers
• Cost-of-risk reasoning and prioritisation of safety investments
• Consultation with workers, safety committees and union representatives
• Leading difficult conversations after incidents and control failures
• Change management for new controls, procedures and technology
• Ninety-day action planning with milestones, owners and measures
• Personal leadership commitments and peer review of implementation risks

Workshop: Participants present and refine their own 90-day Occupational Health and Safety Leadership Action Plan, including risks, controls, KPIs, owners and escalation triggers.

Tools & standards covered

ISO 45001:2018, ISO 31000:2018, BowTieXP, Microsoft Power BI

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions