ENSHPO is glad to announce that, following an ENSHPO proposal, the HSE Manager has been recently approved and adopted as new “occupation” (i.e. “job title” according to the ESCO glossary or, in more familiar words, new professional profile), in the e ESCO Service Platform (https://ec.europa.eu/esco/portal/home).
ESCO is the multilingual classification of European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations developed by the EU Commission (https://ec.europa.eu/esco/portal/home ). The ESCO classification identifies and categorises skills, competences, qualifications and occupations relevant for the European labour market and education and training in the 26 languages used in Europe. ESCO is a “common classification language designed to connect people to jobs”.
Before reporting the full content of the HSE Manager professional profile (we will use preferably such terminology) it is worth to summarize briefly the story of such achievement and provide some key information to use and navigate in the portal.

1. BACKGROUND

ENSHPO has always been having a clear focus on Professional Qualification, driven since its foundation by the objectives of achieving, on the basis of harmonized European criteria, a higher recognition of the OHS professional in the market and in the organizations and an easier mobility from country to country.
This vision resulted in developing close contacts with the ESCO portal Team since 2016 that consolidated through years. ENSHPO is a recognized Stakeholder of the ESCO Team.
More recently the analysis of the existing profiles and the evolution of both the market expectations and the role of the original OHS professional, brought to the conclusion that a bridge and an integration of OHS and Environment, in a sustainability perspective, was absolutely necessary. It is consistent with the medium/long tern scenario described by the EU Commission (Ursula von der Leyen’s statements).

2. THE POST ON THE ESCO FORUM

Based on above considerations ENSHPO surveyed its members and posted the following statements on the ESCO Forum.
<< Occupational Health, Safety and Environmental protection at workplace are growing in importance and combining more and more managerial role and competence in addition to technical knowledge and skills. This managerial role seems consistent with the strategic expectation of a sustainable and socially responsible industry. The H, S, E occupations in the portal do not reflect enough such role evolution and do not address the need of a combination of the three disciplines in an integrated HSE management system. We (ENSHPO) envisage the need of a clearly defined HSE Manager in addition to the traditional occupations of H, S, E specialists. The integrated role should benefit both large and articulated corporations and medium/small size industries where an integrated strategic HSE vision is also deemed important and could provide competitive advantage. >>

3. THE “HSE MANAGER”: PROPOSAL, APPROVAL AND PUBLICATION

Following a suggestion from the ESCO Team ENSHPO developed a proposal that Claudio Munforti, ENSHPO deputy chair and key contact with the ESCO Team submitted in October 2020 for its inclusion in the rev.1 of the portal. The proposal was also inspired by the local Italian Standard UNI 11720:2018 (Non-regulated professions – HSE Manager – Knowledge, skill and competence requirements).
The proposal was quickly approved by the central ESCO Committee ad followed the routine process of review and approval by the Member State representatives and of translation in all the languages of the portal. In January 2022 it has been finally published. According to the Portal template the EQF qualification descriptors are listed and grouped as “essential” and “optional”(i.e. desirable but not mandatory). Each descriptor (Skill/Competence and Knowledge) in the portal can be exploded in a short explanation.

FIG 1- HSE MANAGER “OCCUPATION”

4. BENEFITS

The inclusion in the rev.1 of the portal has some valuable benefits for the professionals working in the HSE sectors:

1. The recognition of the role and market value of the HSE Manager within the organizations.
2. The endorsement by the EU Commission, through ESCO, of the HSE qualification.
3. A consistent basis to develop training programs and certification schemes.

Any comments or feedback is welcome, please contact Claudio Munforti (claudio.munforti.it@gmail.com) .