What is the average wages for a Workplace Safety & Health Officer?

A junior came to me today... asking on the salary 1st thing before asking me on the degree of responsibility as a Safety Officer. Yakking that a lot of friends are earning screaming high salary & he envy them... and here's the reason for the beginning of today's blog...

I guess after reading so much on Safety regulations, job descriptions & other information, the ultimate questions everyone should be concerned now is, how much am I being paid for taking up heavy responsibilities & putting my neck on the chopping board? Well, I seriously can't give you a definite answer now. Why? First of all, the salary scale can behave very erratically, very much depend on which industry you plan to work for. For example, if you prefer to work at a regular fixed time-in time-out work patterns, work 5 days a week, you gotta lower your scale in your expectation. I know, your peers would be telling you that they earn $XXXX amount, excluding OT, transport allowance & other incentives. Yes, they are earning big bucks but do you see the other side? Most top earners are usually from high risk industry like construction & shipyard. Of course their wages are very high because their risk is very high as well. You can't be expecting a very safe industry to pay you rocket high rite? Notwithstanding, you also need to consider the years of experience in Safety that you earned as well. Simply said, the longer your experiences, the more you get paid. Savvy? You will also need to take into consideration on the additional roles (e.g. FSM, ECO,...) as taking up additional roles do help in giving you more bucks.

I fully understand each and everyone feelings when the HR is hagging on your wages & you are lost. My advice to you is this, if they are paying you an unbelievable amount, sometimes it may not be that attractive as seems to be. Do not expect an easy job from a high paying job. You need to weigh the risk & wages & decide if it's worth it. There are many WSHOs who start off their career in a construction site today & tendered their resignation just 3 days later...

Work safe Be safe