This week, we chat about the experience of the 2023 TN Safety Conference.
This week, we chat about the experience of the 2023 TN Safety Conference.
Welcome to the leading and learning through safety podcast where we discuss the technical and people side of safety. Safety should be your primary leadership tool for discovering more about your people and culture. Your host is Dr. Mark French also known as the safety dude. Mark is a credentialed, experienced and passionate professional with experience in automotive, food, chemical, nuclear, e commerce and energy sectors. He is going to share information and anecdotes from years of experience in the people side of safety based on industrial and organizational psychological theories. Safety is so much more than a technical skill. It is a motivational need that defines the culture of your organization. employee safety is a meaningful business practice that makes a direct impact on everyone through direct behavioral engagement. That is why your organization should be using safety as a key method to learn about your culture and lead your teams. Thanks for joining this episode as we talk through current issues and people management and how they impact our everyday workplace.
Mark French:And welcome to this episode of the leading and learning through safety podcast. Hi, there. I am your host, Dr. Mark French. And I am always happy to have you along for this journey of whatever we want to talk about today. So earlier this week, I was at the Tennessee safety conference. And for me in the southeast, that is one of the better state conferences that I attend. One is close to home for me nationals not far away. But it's just a really good one. It's been around for a long time they attract some really good speakers. And usually their exhibit hall is pristine it they do a great job of bringing in some amazing vendors, in places I just can't say enough nice things about that conference, I think they do it right. And they've been doing it right for a long time. And it was a lot of fun to be there. But most importantly, it was a lot of learning. And a lot of story sharing back and forth of learning what others are going through out in the safety world, what are they looking for? How are they adapting to the changing landscape that is safety. And as we return to whatever normal is post COVID in looking at that, because for a while these conferences couldn't happen. And they looked at virtual than ultimately we as safety people, it feels like, it's good to be back together to realize you're not alone and to see each other and to talk about things that we're going through together. I think I heard an estimate that was over 600 people, maybe more, it was just a rough estimate that I heard, there were a number of vendors, it's growing again, just growing and growing. So we're getting that steam back up for people showing back up for things in the world of safety. So I am I was so excited to be there. So excited to be a part of it. And after the Kentucky safety conference, I talked a little bit about the expo hall because in my opinion, and here's, again, take it or leave it. Whenever there is a need in the safety world. The first innovators get out there and they find something and they market it as they should, hey, you found a great new product, you have found something that fixes a problem either we knew we had or we didn't know we had. And you're able to market that. So I think some of the cutting edge things that we see come from those expos, they come from people who are showing the newest and greatest in weighers. And that's kind of the future of what we see sometimes in the safety world. So I was really impressed with seeing some of the new designs. Going one of the more interesting items that I can was able to watch some demonstrations of was the new guardrails that kind of pop in and out of place, they can handle a ton of pain and they just kind of bounce back. So in warehouses where you have to worry about the metal being like you have to completely replace it and worry about it. It was very modular, it was very strong and in some cases, you just pop it back into place very good protection. I'm amazed to see how these plastics are playing into getting better and better protection, lighter weight easier to assemble. was very interesting to see that those items, and then really great innovations with LED lighting, either on hats, vests, or even like at night for night work and modular domes and lighting that you can put up and see. Another really interesting item that I came across are safety accredited safety colleges. More and more, we're seeing some, some established universities, putting their hand out and reaching into safety a little bit in offering like a GSP certified. So if you're familiar with the safety world, to get your certified safety professional standard, you have two ways of going about that. And I'm going to digress and give the story real quick. So the board of certified safety professionals still feels like it's the one of the standards, there's a new one out there also that starting to compete a little bit, but the CSP is still very well recognized as is that tied that top tier designation. And it's not just because I have one, but pay that helps. So there's two paths to that. The first one is called the associate safety professional. And that requires a test. So you can take a big test. And if you pass it, you get that. The other is that if you complete a a credential coursework, to obtain a degree from a college, you can get this temporary designation called a GSP, or graduate safety professional. And then you just have to take the CSP exam. So it's just one exam rather than two, because you've done the required coursework. So it was really neat to see how many colleges were at the conference saying, Hey, we have programs that are fully prepared that when you finish it, you have a degree, and you have your professional designation of GSP ready to move into your CSP, once you have your years of experience that you need to get it both online and in person. So were the need for the safety profession is growing, as certainly we've seen every every week, every so often, I definitely every week, I see more and more postings for safety people across the nation. And so it's a growing profession. And with any growing profession, there has to be a backlog of people getting educated to do that work, or to be the best in their field or to want to gain that knowledge. Or even as they get into the position. They go, Hey, look, let me use that tuition reimbursement program. And let me go back and get that degree. Let me go back and do that now that there's these online and accredited colleges that we can do that through. I think that's really cool. That the need is still out there that demanding. And what that tells me is not that not Oh, great job secure. What it means is that more and more businesses are seeing the value in the profession of someone helping them prevent people from getting hurt. And that's what it's all about. It's about us doing hard work, helping others, and helping organizations helping companies helping individuals, find a method find a path find a way not to get hurt. And it does take it's it's not just common sense. When I first entered the profession, that's what I heard, well, you just need someone who has good common sense and that safety, not anymore. Because common sense is not common. Because it depends on what you come from. It depends on where you have been. It depends on what you have learned and where you grew up, and all of those factors. So we need people who are trained and understand how to find the regulations, how to apply the regulations, and how to do some analysis to understand how we protect people better. And that's what these programs should do. They give us the tools to do those things. And so it's really interesting to see that appearing out more so that that demand that need is being met. And I'm really excited to think of just that more and more companies are getting it in, they're finally going hey, we need one of those people. We need someone who understands that and can be that leader. And again, that's why I like the the leadership part of it because leadership is influence and a safety people as people, people that we are protecting out there. It's about influence, how do we influence the organization better, to better protect, to better prevent harm, and to better just be good stewards of our people and our communities. Let's come back after the break. I'll talk a little bit more about the Tennessee safety conference in my experience there. Lots to talk about a lot of fun. We'll be back right after this break. With the leading and learning through safety podcast,
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Mark French:And welcome back to the second half of the leading and learning through safety podcast. So at the Tennessee safety conference, I was one of the speakers one of the breakout sessions really appreciate everyone who came to that it was a it was a full room, I was really impressed. I was humbled to see how many people came in, I hope that it was worth their time. If it was if you came, I hope, I hope it was worth your time to be there. But my topic was safety, the gateway to engagement, that when we are engaging with our team, if we don't start with safety, I think we're missing out, I think we're missing the big picture. I think we're missing a core behavioral component of our team. I think we're we're just we missed it. If we're not using safety as that, that methodology to start engagement. Now engagement has to be bigger than safety eventually. But I think safety is that way in. So the good news is, is my new equipment worked. And I put a mic on myself and try and recorded the talk. So I'm I actually have it. And I'm really excited that it turned out, okay. Even despite my best efforts, it turned out, okay. I am going to post that as a podcast. So I'm going to drop it in the podcasting. So if you subscribe to my podcast, or if you happen to be at my site, you will see that pop up as a podcast, it's about 40 minutes, it's the entire talk from start to finish. Some of it may not because of the graphics not being there, but at least you'll be able to hear it. So I'm going to post that out there. I may even try to figure out how to post the slides to the my web page. I'll figure that out later. But nonetheless, you'll see after this podcast, I'm gonna get that one ready, put it out there. Feel free to listen, I think it's a great talk. It was a great time, there's a lot of great engagement throughout the process of people understanding and asking good question, especially afterward. I mean, I think that's where I want to go next. So I started talking about getting engagement, and how do we engage? How do we lead? How do we create a better process for that two way feedback? Because to me, engagement, is actionable empathy. Empathy is where we put ourselves in someone's shoes. And then do we act on it? And do we listen, and it's a two way street. It's a two way listening Street, that you come to me and say something, I acknowledge I understand it, you say, yep, you understand it correctly. And then there's an action that comes from it. Not that we always get what we want, because we don't. But we get feedback. Regardless, the cycle doesn't end until there is feedback. And that's where engagement dies a lot of times is that feedback loop, we receive the information, but we don't get back into communicate how that communication will be addressed, or what will change or what may not change because of that communication. And so we have to prepare ourselves for that process. And for that entire, I guess, methodology that we go about doing things is what was great is I got some really interesting comments and questions after the talk as I was hanging around talking to people and went back and just met up with others as we were chatting. One of the most intimate one of the more interesting, there's a lot of great comments, but one of the more interesting comments came from someone talking about their newest safety process of being always in the moment of always being 100% engaged in the work and trying to train people to be more engaged in the work. I found that interesting, because I'm I don't think that's possible. And I had a little bit of a debate with that person, as they said, Yeah, this is the thing our company is doing. We're we're preparing this program that to be in the moment all the time to always be focused on the task and I'm not sure that he fully believed in it, either that it was going to be 100% effective or how effective it was going to be. In my biggest concern there As we know, psychologically, your willpower is limited. That's been well studied. i There citations in the APA that talk about what is willpower, your willpower and your ability to focus, your ability to keep doing things can be trained, just like any muscle, just like any thought process, you can train it. But it's never going to be perfect, it's never going to be into the point where you're always able to have that willpower to focus on what you're doing. So think about the idea of an 810 12 hour shift, whatever your team is working, and they're doing their work. And the expectation is they're always on there. 100% always focused on doing their job right, doing it safely doing it by the standard and doing all the other stuff around it. along with everything else that's going on, whether it be the weather outside, the temperature at the side, the equipment that may not always function exactly the way it should. Everything we bring in from the outside, everything we know is going to happen when we leave work, because we'll come into work. And we know maybe it's been a rough morning and we come in, maybe we know after work, we've still got to settle up whatever started the morning, we've got to go home and finish it. It's what weighs on us. It's it's the total human being. And the expectation of being in the moment. 100% of the time is a logical fallacy. It can't be done. The only 100% way of protection is the elimination or substitution or engineering, that we have to protect our team to the greatest degree possible. So that when our momentary lapses in thought, or as our minds drift, or as the west of the world gets involved in our minds, that the worst case scenario is very, very low, that the chances of something bad happening become exceptionally low, or that there's a reminder to come back into the moment. It can't be put on the human itself to be in the moment 100% of the time. And that's important for us to remember because how many times do we use the idea? Well just retrain them, put them back to work, because they just need to focus more that person needs to focus on what they're doing. Maybe not, maybe there's something more that can be engineered, that can be done that can be put into place to assist that person rather than just retraining them and telling them to focus on their work. Because something happened, that loss of mind that loss of focus, that loss of willpower to be in the moment can happen to anyone. And I mean, if you listen to this podcast, it happens to me all the time. I'll take a tangent as quick as anyone else. And I'm only going to be talking for 20 minutes. It happens in it's so real. And it's so pertinent that we can't confuse ourselves to think that it's ultimately up to the worker to protect themselves. It's not we have that focus and that process that we have to be a part of that assures that we have a good practice in place to protect them. Our team, our people, I say them but they're our people, our team, our friends, our co workers to protect them, even when they have those momentary lapses. You know what I'm probably going to talk more about the conference when we come back next week is I still got a lot of want to talk about of interesting things that happened. And so I hope you'll join me then and be on the lookout for my talk. And until next time we chat stay safe.
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