Performance Psychology for Safety and Health Professionals Wayne Sundborg, The Safety and Training Academy Case Study

Wayne Sundborg lives in Thailand. He’s one of our delegates of the month. He studied Performance Psychology online.

"I’ve been fascinated with behavioural psychology in safety since I first got involved with it in 1994, when I worked with Intel. Since then, every health and safety course I’ve ever developed and delivered has had psychology written into it.

I even registered for a research-based PhD in Behavioural Psychology, but then I’d get a call and I’d be flying off somewhere to deliver training, so I never finalised it. Then this one came up. I read the reviews and thought this is the course for me. I thoroughly enjoyed it – especially where it delves deep into the psychology around leadership. That’s because I’m genuinely interested in trying to find out about people by speaking to them, looking at their body language, appraising their attitudes, how they speak and communicate when they’re on-site – we covered all of this.

Personally, I’d recommend that anyone who is going to study for the NEBOSH programme completes Performance Psychology first. NEBOSH focuses on regulation and legislation, whereas this one shows you how to get safety right from the perspective of people, performance and leadership. It’s important because it shows you how to become the very best version of yourself – which then helps you to get the best out of the people that you work with.

What I really liked about it, is that it looks at practical scenarios that you can immediately start using, for example, around communication – 'how would you deal with this situation', 'how would you speak to this person or group of people', 'how would you build rapport so that you’re not seen as someone who is policing them' and 'how do you write reports that engage rather than being aggressive'. The subjects are very real – coping with pressure and stress, overcoming challenging situations, goal setting, emotional intelligence which is a super critical skill, building confidence and self-belief – plus lots more. I also really enjoyed completing my journal, which is part of the programme. 

It's a fantastic course – I’ve already recommended it to others who work in safety. What it’s done for me, is bolster my thoughts and knowledge base that what we’re doing in our training is right, we’re doing it correctly. It isn’t as time consuming as I thought it would be. I completed it in 8.5 hours, including my journal. There’s no doubt whatsoever – Darren and his team absolutely know their subject and he’s made it very engaging. Even now, I refer back to the videos he’s recorded to help me with my work. 

We’ve been following each other on LinkedIn for years – Darren is a really good guy to know".

Discover More about this course HERE