Are you a safety professional? Are you looking for better ways to supplement your income? Do you want to grow a health and safety business and become your own boss?  In this post, I share with you 40 health and safety business ideas to start as an entrepreneur this 2024.

But before I dive into that, let’s look at the challenges a lot of safety professionals face in their HSE career and why they need to change their mindset to “safety entrepreneurship”.

The status quo

A lot of safety professionals perceive jobs as the only safety opportunity – this has become the status quo. Majority of safety professionals are fixated on jobs alone to the extent that, they forget about the many opportunities that abound within the health and safety value chain. To a lot of safety professionals, getting a high paying job is the only symbol of success, and so, they focus all their energy and resources on trying to get the best safety qualifications in anticipation for the high paying jobs at the neglect of the many business opportunities available to explore in the health and safety value chain. Imagine a CSP, CMIOSH or CRSP who is all about looking for a job and even have to drop these designations for fear of over qualifying for certain jobs.

The reality of the safety job market

The safety job market is gradually getting saturated and like a pyramid, there are only a few professionals at the top with the high paying jobs while the majority remain stratified at the bottom with one disappointment or the other; disappointments ranging from years of unemployment, lack of job interviews, failed job interviews, meagre job salaries, poor conditions of service, fear of retrenchment and lack of motivation are commonplace. So, the sad reality is that, not all safety professionals will be so lucky to get the high paying jobs. But unfortunately, not many realize this. They spend years of their lives complaining about career stagnation or lack of job opportunities, and hope against hope that the better jobs will come one day.

Why is the safety job market getting saturated?

The answer is simple! A lot of safety professionals are afraid of entrepreneurship. They see jobs as the easiest way to making a living while entrepreneurship is seen as a very difficult lonely journey. This mindset increases the number of job seekers on the market rather than creating more safety entrepreneurs who will become self-employed.

And what is more, those with over 20 years of working experience are not taking any chance on entrepreneurship, and this therefore clogs the path of career growth for many young folks and aspiring entrants.

The mindset on jobs alone doesn’t fit in today’s world economy. We are in difficult times, distressed business environment, COVID-19 induced recession with high unemployment rate and a very keen monopolistic job market, where only a few highly connected safety professionals are the ones who are able to grab the high paying jobs.

Defying the status quo

The challenges of today’s traditional job market call for a paradigm shift in thought and the need to defy the status quo by reducing the high concentration on jobs as the only means of livelihood to a more voracious appetite for safety entrepreneurship as the new normal in the new emerging markets to gaining financial freedom.

We are in the 4th industrial revolution, the age of digitization and the internet of things (IoTs) in a fast changing world of technology, where online platforms are springing up to redefine new economic systems and marketplaces. So why focus on getting a safety job in the old conventional job market that is saturated, when there are lots of opportunities emerging everyday in new markets driven by technology to take advantage of right from the comfort of your home and laptop.

So therefore, defying the status quo means that;

1. We should not be fixated on jobs in the old traditional job market
2. We should explore other niches and marketplaces to supplement our income
3. We should take advantage of this current age of internet opportunities
4. We should grow a side business even if we are happily employed
5. We should embrace safety entrepreneurship as the mark of true excellence
6. We should encourage people to develop entrepreneurial skills to take advantage of opportunities
7. And we should appreciate those who are safety entrepreneurs and take inspiration from them.

Safety entrepreneurship is definitely the new cool

Entrepreneurship is a craft, not a gamble – Antoine Duboscq, CEO of adVentures Startup Studio

It involves a lot of self-learning, practicing, testing, making mistakes, learning from them, challenging the odds, keeping an unwavering passion and discovering your sweet spot where you can carve your own niche with flare and no hustle.

Why is health and safety a better niche?

First of all, let’s acknowledge the fact that health and safety is a very specific niche because of the barriers to entry. Within this niche are a lot of other specific niches. This makes it very exciting for safety entrepreneurs. So, in short, there is opportunity for everyone as long as they are able to break the barrier to entry. If you can call yourself a safety professional, then you are already a step ahead to carving your own niche – all you need to do is to learn the unique skills relevant to a specific niche. Unfortunately, not many people go beyond this point. After breaking the barrier to entry, they choose to remain at the bottom of the pyramid with several perceived barriers that limit them from moving up the ladder or discovering their full potential.

Health and safety is a knowledge industry, only the learned succeeds. So keep learning, especially the new things others aren’t learning – Selorm Ametewee, IDipNEBOSH, CEO of SHEQXEL

In the knowledge industry, the more you learn, the more you earn. But you really have to learn the right skill relevant to your chosen niche. The more you learn, the more you become enlightened of the opportunities within the value chain and the more likely you will be able to take advantage to create value within your chosen niche.

So, learning to acquire a skill nobody has is key in the success game. That is the exact same model being used by the few safety professionals at the top of the pyramid to get the best jobs on the market. If you are ready to succeed, then seek knowledge, develop additional skills, identify a niche or create a new one, and learn how to create value within that niche and make sure to monetize it.

List of 40 health and safety business ideas

From my experience, these are the ideas that come to mind when I look at the entire health and safety value chain which I am happy to share with you to jump-start your entrepreneurial journey. To succeed in any niche, you need focus and specialization – don’t be jack of all trade.

Health and safety training

Career related training courses

This niche relates to creating value for people who want to develop a career in health and safety.

1. NEBOSH Courses
2. IOSH Courses
3. OSHAcademy Courses
4. ISO Courses
5. HACCP- Food Safety Courses
6. CPD Courses

In-house health and safety training courses

This niche relates to creating value for organizations by helping them to fulfill their in-house training needs as per their training matrix to improve the health and safety competence of their employees. This list is not exhaustive.

7. Work at Height Training
8. Confined Space Entry Training
9. Fire Safety Training
10. Accident Investigation Training
11. Manual Handling Training
12. Dropped Object Awareness Training
13. Defensive Driving Training
14. First Aid Training
15. Emergency Response Training
16. Crisis Management Training

The health and safety training niche is for those who have attained the relevant training certifications and have developed teaching skills for specific courses e.g. Train the Trainer Certificates. Depending on the type of course, players can leverage a popular tuition platform like Udemy, or their own website, adopting an eLearning system or using the traditional classroom mode of tuition.

Health and safety consultancy

17. Developing health and safety management system
18. Facilitating ISO certification of management system
19. Becoming a 3rd party certification body for ISO
20. Consulting for companies as an outsourced HSE function

This niche is for those who have in-depth industry experience and practical know-how of health and safety management system implementation in accordance with ISO and the process of ISO certification. This is a great area as every organization needs a management system in place and most want their system to be internationally recognized as meeting the ISO standard in order to compete globally.

General health and safety merchandise

This niche is about buying and selling health and safety products. This can be physical products or digital products

Physical products

21. Wholesaling or retailing of safety equipment like (placeholder for backlink). This involves holding an inventory as a wholesaler or retailer.
22. Fabricating and selling safety signages and signposts like (placeholder for backlink)
23. Starting your own drop-shipping business in safety equipment like (placeholder for backlink). This is simply selling a product at a premium price for the supplier to deliver directly to the buyer. You hold no inventory, you only use your platform to make the sale.
24. Starting an affiliate marketing business in safety equipment to earn commission like (placeholder for backlink). This is more like promoting a supplier’s product as an affiliate/partner and convincing buyers to purchase the product in order to earn affiliate commission from every sale.
25. Starting your own online marketplace for health and safety physical products like hsemarketgh.com. This is currently focused on Ghana market. You can set up one for your country or even target a bigger geographical area like a continent or the globe.

Digital products

26. Creating and selling safety posters and stock images on shutterstock.com or adobestock.com
27. Creating and selling 4K HD safety stock videos on shuttertock.com or adobestock.com
28. Creating and selling online safety courses on udemy.com
29. Creating and selling health and safety templates like safeti.com
30. Creating and selling health and safety spreadsheet software like sheqxel.com
31. Creating and selling health and safety best practices or technical know-hows like sheqxel.com
32. Creating and selling health and safety training materials like hseretailshop.com
33. Creating and selling health and safety skills-on-demand on freelance platforms like fiverr.com or upwork.com
34. Creating and selling safety business websites like alidropship.com
35. Starting a safety blog to deliver valuable safety related content to create audience and run google ads or negotiated ads like hseblog.com
36. Writing and selling articles to businesses for content marketing on iwriters.com
37. Creating a safety channel on YouTube to deliver specific safety related content to create audience and promote ads like Ally Safety
38. Creating and publishing health and safety best practices on digital online marketplaces like eloquens.com
39. Starting an affiliate marketing business focused on health and safety digital products like Mina Safeti to earn commission by signing up on Eloquens Affiliate Program or SHEQXEL Affiliate Program
40. Starting your own online marketplace for health and safety digital products like (we need one, it’ urgent 🙂) We are currently utilizing Etsy and Eloquens. It would be great to have one dedicated to health and safety alone.

How can you take advantage?

Career related training courses

To play a role in the training space, you need to become a certified trainer in order to deliver those courses either as a freelancer to various safety training institutions or establish your own training institution to deliver very targeted courses which are in good demand in your community. This requires partnership and accreditation with certification bodies who own the courses.

In-house health and safety training courses

You can get accreditation from some institutions like IOSH to add weight to some of these courses to run as a business or you can use your own institution as an authority to deliver and issue certificates or use the company which you are doing the in-house training for to issue certificates, thus if they have considered you as their freelance safety trainer to help them comply with their training matrix.

Health and safety consultancy.

To play a role in this niche, you need to have practical experience in the implementation of health and safety management system. This also requires partnership with 3rd party certification bodies.

Physical products

To buy and sell physical products, you need to do your market research and know what brands of items organizations want, identify a manufacturer and trade as either a wholesaler or a retailer. This also requires thorough understanding of the product supply chain and how you can get your products to the door step of your customers. Players may need to either stock products for supply to customers or drop-ship when customers make an order. Players can display their products on online marketplaces to gain online presence and reach a wider audience for potential customers. Players can choose to create multi-vendor marketplaces to host vendors who need specific targeted audience for their businesses. The important elements of dealing in physical products are shipping and product delivery. Players can do that themselves or adopt drop-shipping business model, where customers make the order on their website for the manufacturer to remotely take charge of shipping and delivery to customer or promote the manufacturers’ products on their own website through affiliate links to earn affiliate commission. In the affiliate business model, the manufacturers’ products are displayed on your website and clicks are tracked by a unique code or cookies, so that customers can be tracked when they are redirected to the manufacturers’ website and if an order is made, you get to earn a commission. The manufacturers take care of shipping and products delivery.

Digital products

Digital products is the biggest part of the value chain that leverages on knowledge and skills to create valuable content that users can patronize right at the comfort of their home or office.

Digital products can be sold at scale to a wide audience across the globe due to no shipping required. As a result, it offers a great advantage for growing wealth through passive income and maintaining a good work life balance. Players in this space are able to live a more fulfilling life where they can travel around the world and work right from their laptops at any location. .

Players can also work full time for their employers, while they maintain a viable eCommerce business with order fulfillment fully automated as it is easy to automate business functions e.g. using various plugins and SaaS platforms such as easy digital downloads, email marketing automations and social media postings.

Players require a website, good understanding of the backend, especially things like creating products, creating blog posts, creating landing pages, designing web pages and optimizing them for search engines.

Players also need a good understanding of the entire spectrum of digital marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing and the like to generate traffic to their websites.

Players must also understand how to create a sales funnel that engages with their audience throughout their customer journey and create a value ladder that meets the needs of all income groups.

Players may also skip all of the above and just focus on creating valuable content on online marketplaces that already have the best resources and good amount of traffic like Eloquens to leverage.

Conclusion

Ideas are worth nothing unless executed. So now that you know what niches there are in the health and safety value chain, muster the courage now and start your entrepreneurial journey today. Entrepreneurship may initially start as a difficult lonely journey but surely with hard work, passion and perseverance, you will succeed.

Also read: 12 Ways to Make Money from Health and Safety – Why I Quit My Job

Sel 💫 at SHEQXEL. Connect with Sel 💫 on LinkedIn

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