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With a Massey Graduate Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety, you can improve the working lives of New Zealanders while boosting your career.
Find out more about entry requirements, fees and courses in the planning section.
Occupational health and safety (OHS) has become an integral part of business in New Zealand. With a Grad Dip (OHS) you can help improve the effects of the working environment on the health and wellbeing of workers.
We spend a third of our lives at work, so workplaces contribute significantly to our health. Injuries and ill-health are two problems all workers potentially face. If you want a career helping to reduce that burden on individuals and the nation, then this is the qualification for you.
You will learn how to create healthy workplaces, including improving the interrelationship of people at work, the work they do, and their working environment.
At Massey, you can choose from a wide range of courses that reflect the multidisciplinary nature of OHS. You’ll learn about hazards and risks in the workplace, how to assess and manage those risks and create healthy workplaces.
Our distance learning option lets you study when and where is most convenient for you. You can fit study around your work and family commitments.
The Graduate Diploma in OHS is internationally accredited by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (UK). You will be eligible for graduate membership of IOSH, which is the largest OHS practitioner professional association outside the USA. Membership leads to registration as an OHS practitioner.
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“Working in health and safety provides a hugely diverse experience where you find yourself working with many different people addressing many different aspects of work …”
My health and safety journey began in 2000 when I secured a role within a New Zealand Corporate. I didn’t have a health and safety qualification and my employer sponsored me into the Massey programme. This was my first experience of University-level education and studying while in full-time employment was tough. This was before the online environment was the norm for extramural study.
As someone new to health and safety, the content of the course was entirely relevant to the role I had. It provided in-depth detail of the approaches in health and safety that was prevalent at the time and enabled me to not only introduce these concepts with confidence into an organisation who was looking to enhance its performance in this area but also to challenge them to make improvements in the way work was done.
The grounding and experience of working in a high-risk environment over a dozen years with the professional development afforded to me through the Massey programme enabled me to make a move into self-employment. Working in health and safety provides a hugely diverse experience where you find yourself working with many different people addressing many different aspects of work. The combination of my work experience and health and safety qualification has enabled me to really engage with people across the hierarchy of organisations I have been associated with. This has included being around the board table to working alongside workers at the sharp end in various environments where risk is present.
There are many pathways that can be taken as you advance your career in health and safety. Personally, I have chosen to focus my efforts in providing guidance for those in leadership roles. This has required me to become more familiar with the language of business and my education in this area has continued through various Massey offerings, having just completed a Master’s in Advanced Leadership Practice. Sitting alongside this I have also pursued a career path in giving back to the health and safety industry through my voluntary work with the industry association.
Having a combination of worked experience and an appropriate tertiary qualification has been of huge benefit in terms of career development and acceptance in workplaces.
The Graduate Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety can lead to or enhance many careers. Our graduates are working as:
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