What is ENSHPO?
ENSHPO is a European network, registered as an association, whose members are national professional occupational safety and health organizations, not individual professionals. It was established in 2001 and is headquartered in Lübeck, Germany.
It’s important to clarify the acronym and domain, as there’s room for confusion: the correct name is ENSHPO, and at the time of the inquiry, the organization’s operational domain was enshpo.eu, while enshpo.org was unresponsive. It should also not be confused with ENETOSH, another European network in the same field but focused on education and training in occupational safety and health, rather than representing professional organizations.
Purpose and scope of action
ENSHPO’s stated aim is to promote cooperation between national professional associations for occupational safety and health in European countries, to foster dialogue with European Union institutions on preventive policy, and to work towards the mutual recognition of the professional qualifications of those who practice prevention in different countries.
Its scope is European and its internal structure is organized into regional networks, which group the members of the organization by geographical areas within Europe.
Functions and main lines of work
ENSHPO’s activity is based on three main lines.
- Cooperation between professional associations. It serves as a meeting platform between national professional organizations for occupational safety and health from different European countries.
- Institutional dialogue. It represents its member organizations before European institutions and forums on issues related to the prevention profession.
- EurOSHM certification standard. It supports the European Occupational Safety and Health Manager (EurOSHM), a European certification standard aimed at occupational safety and health professionals.
This activity is structured through regional networks that group the members of the organization by geographical areas, and which serve as an intermediate level between national organizations and the European network as a whole.
Contribution to safety and health at work
The problem ENSHPO addresses is real and not readily apparent from outside the profession: the qualifications of occupational risk prevention technicians, with their various levels and specializations, are not automatically recognized across European countries. Each member state defines its own training requirements and, where applicable, its own professional accreditation or registration systems, without a single European qualification equivalent to those of other regulated professions.
The EurOSHM standard is ENSHPO’s response to this problem: a European certification framework that seeks to establish a common level of competence, recognizable by professional organizations in different countries, to facilitate the recognition of a certified occupational health and safety professional in one country, at least as a benchmark of competence, in another. It does not replace the legal licensing requirements that each country imposes for practicing, which remain those established by the corresponding national regulations.
Relationship with the ORP International Foundation
ENSHPO shares with ENETOSH the status of a European network within the institutional advisory committee of the ORP International Foundation, although with a different objective: it brings together national professional organizations for occupational safety and health and maintains the EurOSHM certification standard. Its headquarters in Lübeck, Germany, and its establishment in 2001 position it as one of the professional certification networks represented on that committee.
Practical application
For a prevention technician considering working in another European country, or for a company that hires prevention professionals of different nationalities, knowing the EurOSHM standard and the existence of ENSHPO helps to understand why the qualification of a professional trained in one country may need an additional step of recognition or certification to be fully valid in another.
For a national professional association for occupational safety and health, membership in ENSHPO is a way to connect with its European counterparts and with European Union institutions on issues that directly affect the practice of the profession.
