Senior Health and Safety Officer

LIKELY QUESTIONS

- How has your education and six-plus years of experience prepared you to serve as a Senior Health and Safety Officer in a public health research and laboratory environment?
- Describe your approach to developing and implementing environmental health policies, guidelines, strategies and standards.
- What key health and safety risks would you assess first in a national quality control laboratory, and how would you prioritize corrective actions?
- Tell us about a screening tool, inspection checklist, laboratory record or data-collection tool you have designed or improved.
- How would you identify environmental health issues at community level and convert findings into practical public health interventions?
- Describe your experience mobilizing and sensitizing communities on environmental health matters, particularly where there was resistance or low participation.
- How do you ensure that public health research records, incident reports and environmental health data are accurate, confidential, complete and usable?
- How would you communicate a significant laboratory or community environmental health risk to technical staff, management, county officials and community members?

BEHAVIOURAL QUESTIONS

- Tell us about a time you identified a serious health, safety or environmental risk before it resulted in harm.
Model approach: Situation: Briefly describe the workplace or community setting and the risk identified. Task: Explain your responsibility for assessment and prevention. Action: Describe your inspection, evidence gathering, risk assessment, stakeholder engagement, controls implemented and follow-up. Result: Quantify the reduction in incidents, improved compliance, training completion or corrective-action closure.

- Describe a time you had to gain community support for an environmental health intervention.
Model approach: Situation: Explain the environmental health issue and the reason community uptake was initially difficult. Task: State your role in mobilization and sensitization. Action: Describe how you engaged local leaders, used clear health messaging, listened to concerns and adapted the intervention. Result: Show participation levels, adoption of safer practices, improved sanitation indicators or stronger community ownership.

- Give an example of a time you used data or inspection findings to influence management action.
Model approach: Situation: Identify the safety, laboratory or environmental health concern. Task: Explain the decision or resources you needed management to approve. Action: Describe how you analyzed records, presented risks, linked recommendations to regulations and proposed practical options. Result: State the approved action, resources secured, compliance improvement and measurable risk reduction.

- Tell us about a time you worked with multiple stakeholders to deliver a public health activity under tight deadlines.
Model approach: Situation: Describe the intervention, campaign, inspection programme or investigation and the deadline. Task: Clarify your coordination responsibility. Action: Explain how you assigned responsibilities, communicated progress, managed constraints and resolved disagreements. Result: Highlight timely delivery, stakeholder satisfaction, quality of outputs and lessons applied to later work.

SMART QUESTIONS TO ASK

- What are the laboratory's most significant current occupational health, safety and environmental health priorities for the next two years?
- How is the Senior Health and Safety Officer expected to work with laboratory scientists, quality assurance teams, public health researchers and county-level stakeholders?
- What existing health and safety management systems, incident-reporting processes and environmental health data tools are currently in place?
- What would success look like for the person in this role after the first six months and at the end of the contract?
- What types of community environmental health interventions or research programmes will this role support most directly in Nairobi and other locations?

RED FLAGS TO WATCH FOR

- Unclear reporting lines or conflicting expectations between laboratory management, research teams, quality assurance personnel and community health stakeholders.
- No clear budget, authority or management support for corrective actions, training, protective equipment, inspections or community interventions.
- Weak systems for incident reporting, laboratory records, risk assessments, data confidentiality or follow-up on identified hazards.