ISPON HSE Level 2 common mistakes
ISPON HSE Level 2 · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Quoting OSHA, ISO or NEBOSH requirements as if they were Nigerian law, or naming the wrong regulator for a duty (e.g. saying NESREA registers factories, or that Nigeria has an enacted 'NOSH Act').
Most study material available to candidates is imported, so memorised PELs and acronyms feel authoritative; under time pressure the familiar foreign name replaces the correct Nigerian instrument.
What to do instead
Build and rehearse a one-page legal map before the exam: Factories Act (Cap F1, LFN 2004) covers factory registration, general duties and inspection under the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment; Employees' Compensation Act 2010 creates NSITF duties for injury reporting and compensation; NESREA Act 2007 covers environmental standards, permits and enforcement; NUPRC regulates upstream petroleum operations; NIMASA covers maritime. In every answer, label international instruments (ILO C155, ISO 45001, ACGIH TLVs) as guidance/voluntary unless a Nigerian instrument adopts them.
Writing hazard and risk as the same thing - e.g. 'Hazard: slippery floor. Risk: slippery floor' - and listing only the obvious physical hazards on a walkthrough.
The two words are used interchangeably in everyday site speech, and walkthroughs are drawn to what is visible (spills, cables) while chemical, biological, ergonomic and psychosocial exposures have no visual cue.
What to do instead
Practise the two-column drill: hazard (source) → hazardous event → consequence → risk statement with likelihood and severity, e.g. 'wet floor near entry → slip → fractured wrist, L3 x S4'. Then sweep every scene against fixed families: physical, chemical, biological, ergonomic, psychosocial, electrical/mechanical, fire and explosion, and note which are health hazards with delayed effects.
Jumping straight to PPE or a toolbox talk as the first control line, and never re-scoring the risk after controls are applied.
PPE is visible, cheap to mandate and easy to write; the hierarchy of control is memorised as a list but not as an obligation to work down it, and the residual-risk step is often skipped in practice.
What to do instead
Draft every control set in hierarchy order - eliminate, substitute, engineer, administrative, then PPE - and justify in one line why higher-order options are not reasonably practicable. Finish each risk line with a re-scored residual risk, a named owner and a review date, so the answer shows a closed loop rather than a single action.
Treating an occupational exposure limit or TLV as a sharp safe/unsafe boundary, or comparing a short peak exposure straight against an 8-hour TWA value; also judging chronic disease risk from a single day's exposure.
OELs are published as single numbers, which reads like a pass mark, and the averaging period, margin of safety and target-population assumptions are rarely stated in summaries.
What to do instead
State the definition explicitly: an OEL/TLV is a reference for airborne exposure of healthy adult workers averaged over a stated period (usually 8 hours), not a dividing line between safe and unsafe. Check the averaging time and use STEL/ceiling values for peaks. Then link diseases with long latency - silicosis, noise-induced hearing loss, occupational asthma, contact dermatitis - to years of cumulative dose, not to one incident.
Selecting PPE by habit ('everyone on site wears a helmet and boots') instead of from the task risk assessment, and ignoring PPE limits - wrong respirator cartridge for the vapour, no face-fit test, reusing a glove the chemical permeates.
PPE is the most visible control and the easiest to standardise across a whole site; selection criteria, compatibility, permeation and donning/doffing sequence are seldom practised in training.
What to do instead
Derive a PPE matrix from the risk assessment task by task, naming the hazard each item controls. For RPE specify the hazard, assigned protection factor, fit-test requirement and cartridge change schedule. For chemical gloves state the permeation data and breakthrough time. Always include inspection, cleaning, storage, replacement triggers, correct donning/doffing order, and a close with the reminder that PPE is the last line of defence.
Applying water to a burning liquid or live electrical equipment, choosing CO2 for a deep-seated Class A fire, or reciting 'PASS' without ever matching the extinguisher to the fire class.
Extinguisher classes and media are memorised as two separate lists rather than one matching rule, and 'PASS' is the only technique that gets rehearsed.
What to do instead
Learn one matching table and state it in answers: solids (Class A) - water, foam; flammable liquids (Class B) - foam, CO2, dry powder, never a water jet; flammable gases - isolate the supply, dry powder/CO2; combustible metals (Class D) - special dry powder only; cooking oils and fats (Class F) - wet chemical; live electrical - de-energise first, then CO2 or dry powder. Note that class letters differ between US and EN systems and say which one you are using, then apply PASS on a fire you can back away from.
Closing the investigation at 'the worker failed to follow procedure', listing only the immediate cause, and leaving near misses out of the reporting system entirely.
Blaming the last person in the chain is fast and comfortable; formal causal taxonomies take practice, and a near miss feels like 'no harm, nothing to report'.
What to do instead
Write the chain explicitly: immediate cause → contributing factors (task, equipment, environment, person) → root causes in the management system, testing each with 'why' until a system-level fix emerges (design, supervision, training, procurement, permit quality). Record near misses in the same register and classification scheme as injuries, and show a corrective action with owner and due date.
Putting all site waste into one skip, or answering 'the contractor will handle disposal' with no segregation, no licensed carrier and no paperwork trail.
Waste handling is treated as housekeeping admin rather than exam content, and duty-of-care documentation never appears on the toolbox talk the candidate learned from.
What to do instead
Answer in a chain: classify at the point of generation (hazardous, non-hazardous, recyclable, e-waste, medical, oily), use colour-coded labelled containers and compatible storage, keep hazardous waste in bunded areas, then transfer only through a licensed carrier with a waste manifest and the NESREA permit/standard cited. Close with the duty-of-care principle: the generator remains responsible for the waste after it leaves site.
Describing permit-to-work as 'a form the supervisor signs before work starts', with no isolation, no gas test, no validity or handover, and no close-out.
PTW is experienced on site as paperwork and signatures, so the control content - energy isolation, atmosphere verification, authorisation limits - is invisible to the candidate.
What to do instead
Structure the answer around the permit's elements: scope and task description; attached risk assessment and method statement; isolation with lock-out/tag-out and zero-energy verification; gas test with instrument, readings, time-stamp and retest frequency; competence and authorisation levels; permit displayed at the worksite; shift handover and revalidation; suspension and close-out with the register updated. Mention monitoring for simultaneous operations and the hand-back of the plant.
Describing behaviour-based safety as observing workers and disciplining unsafe acts, or measuring the programme by the number of observation cards submitted.
BBS is easily conflated with enforcement, and card-count targets are the most visible metric on many sites.
What to do instead
Define BBS as observation → non-punitive feedback conversation → analysis of the antecedent and consequence driving the behaviour → barrier or design fix → re-observation. State that behaviour is often a symptom of the system, measure the quality of feedback and the closure rate of at-risk conditions rather than card volume, and note that discipline for deliberate violations belongs to the disciplinary process, not the BBS programme.