Meet Safety Services' new Safety Training Manager – Simon Ross

Safety Services is thrilled to announce the appointment of Simon Ross as Safety Training Manager. As Safety Training Manager, Simon will work with Safety Services designing and delivering training programmes to support the broad range of safety and compliance requirements.

Q. What led you to UCL Safety Services?

I’ve come from 15 years working in Learning & Development in a number of industries, involved with the planning, designing and delivery of training workshops in both a face-to-face environment as well as virtual during and after lockdown. My passion in Training is to inspire success for anyone wanting to learn something in both a professional and personal capacity, be this in the form of supporting someone with a professional development plan and/or coaching them to achieve success in and outside of work.

I am also a major advocate for feedback. Why…..because feedback is truly a gift. So much can be learnt from this, and in my role it will allow me to identify where we are successful as a Learning & Development provider as well as seeing how anything can be changed or improved.

My request is this: when anyone is asked to provide feedback on a learning intervention they have recently completed, please do provide it as so much can come from it to make things the best way possible for you, your colleagues and the organisation as a whole. My line of communication is always open too, be it by email or Teams, or even by phone if you would prefer (you’ll have to contact me first on one of the two options to get it), and I cannot wait to continue on this journey with UCL and the people I work with, and yet to work with. 

Q. Tell us about a project you are working on now which is top of your to-do list?

In July we hosted a Safety Services forum for DSOs to attend. The very first thing we did on the day was introduce that we are going to be running some Lunch & Learn sessions and asked the participants for suggestions. Unsurprisingly the most popular was T100, however this is a great opportunity to explore the topic and showcase its benefits and how it works to those who are still a bit unfamiliar with it all. We will be hosting the first of what (hopefully) will be many Lunch & Learn sessions from mid-September, so keep an eye out for invitations to this event.

Q. What have you enjoyed since starting your new role?

I have had the fortunate pleasure of attending and observing several courses, most recently the three Risk Assessment modules and I must say that it is brilliant and I highly recommend it.

Why am I recommending this….it provides an eye-opening perspective on things we take for granted which may not be considered a risk, and yet when you look at it from another point of view, it makes us sit up and realise just how we can all consider things differently and learn to prevent any hazards from happening, as well as knowing the correct process in carrying out a thorough and successful Risk Assessment.

Here is some of the feedback around recent courses:

• “Really helpful and informative in the process of writing risk assessment from start to finish.”
• “I valued how interactive activities were used to put the principles and methods for conducting risk assessments into practice.”
• “This session was really good. A good level of detail, interesting discussions and helpful information. It helped me look at certain risks in a new way, and informed me of the importance of being objective. I found I would previously perhaps perceive risks as a higher severity than they perhaps were, due to creating scenarios in my head about things that "May" happen, without looking only at the facts and information available.” 
• “Really interactive, I knew a lot already but it was good to see what UCL Safety expected from us on their riskNET forms specifically. Engaging and didn't even realise an hour had gone by when we were done.”

If (and I hope) you are interested in looking further into this course, find more details and the enrolment process. 

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