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#19: Other kids didn't grow up around safety. We were doing fire drills in our house once a quarter.
81 Plays6 years ago
Podcast series host Jill James catches up with Chevon, a true outlier in the profession. Contrary to the theme of the show, Chevon was seemingly born to the safety occupation. That’s what happens when your mother is a professor of occupational health and safety. On a path to music scholarship, Chevon eventually stopped fighting her native interests, switched majors, and accepted her destiny: a career safety pro.
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Transcript
Introduction and Background of Siobhan
00:00:08
Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Pro brought to you by Vivid Learning Systems and HSI Company. Episode number 19. My name is Jill James, Vivid's Chief Safety Officer, and today I'm joined by Siobhan, who is a safety professional from Wisconsin, currently working in the safety and training education industry. Siobhan, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Jill. Oh, it's so great to be with
00:00:35
Speaker
with a fellow Midwesterner again, and we'll see what people think about our accents. I have a feeling that mine is already worse than yours. You must not have grown up in the Midwest, or did you? No, I did. I'm born and raised in Wisconsin, so I've been here the majority of my life.
00:00:56
Speaker
Dang, somehow you got around it. I know, I guess I lucked out. If I go to other parts of the country, they don't say that, they can still hear it. Do get asked often if you're from Canada.
00:01:09
Speaker
Um, sometimes I feel like the further south I go in the country, then the more I hear people saying that I sound like I'm from Canada and I say no, but close. Yeah, right. I say the same thing, but maybe we should just start saying yes. Cause it sounds like more exotic, you know, another country, Canada.
00:01:28
Speaker
Anyway, so Siobhan, interested to hear your story today and how you accidentally got into the safety and health industry.
Shifting Career Paths: Music to Safety
00:01:38
Speaker
How many years have you been in safety and health? Yeah, I was actually thinking about that. I guess close to 13 years now. Wow. Yeah.
00:01:49
Speaker
Well, how did it, how did you find your way into it? Well, it's funny because, you know, you say, how did you accidentally get into it? And I don't, I don't know if I did it accidentally. Oh, you might, you might be the one whoa, episode number 19, the one person who knew since she was a little girl.
00:02:07
Speaker
I don't know. I mean, well, I don't know if I knew it. I'll just so here's here's kind of the thing is my mom actually teaches at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater in the Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health Department. Whoa.
00:02:23
Speaker
Yeah, interesting. She's been teaching there since 1983. So since I was two, I guess I'll date myself. So yeah, and so I grew up around it, you know, other kids, you know, didn't grow up around safety. I grew up
00:02:40
Speaker
doing fire drills in our house once a quarter. You know, when we when we would get new, you know, just household chemicals in the in the house, she would spend time reading the labels and showing us the labels and showing us what was wrong with it and why she didn't want us to use certain things. And, you know, when we moved into
Safety at Home: Influences and Drills
00:03:03
Speaker
our new house and it had a second story. So that was when I was around nine or 10.
00:03:08
Speaker
she got us all ladders that we could use to get out of our window in case of a fire. I mean, these were all normal things and I would hear her, I remember when they were building the house and she would say, you know, it would really be cool if we put a sprinkler system in the house and I'm thinking, why would we need a sprinkler system in our house? And I remember her having conversations with my dad about her concerns with having
00:03:34
Speaker
carpeting everywhere and having an attached garage and all of these things. And it was just normal for me to hear all of that. You grew up with like a super safety mom. Yeah. That is like, somehow I'm feeling like I might have, I might be slightly inadequate as a safety mom. I haven't done the chemical training with my son. We've talked about like meeting locations and emergencies outside the house.
00:04:03
Speaker
Wow, that's fantastic. She would talk about all the stuff and she'd come home from class and talk about different things and her, so you know she talks about everything but the classes that she taught the most, back then it was called industrial accident prevention and then she also taught fire protection and prevention and that was actually the class she liked the most.
00:04:27
Speaker
everything that there is to talk about with that, we would hear commonly just day by day. But it was me and my, I have an older sister, she's seven years older than me. I don't know why this didn't get embedded in her. She went in a totally different trajectory with her career.
00:04:47
Speaker
Is she like a professional skydiver or something? You know actually it's funny she went to school her major was in theater and her minor was in art and she's now she works for a bank collecting basically in their debt collections department and she helps to collect on people who weren't paying their mortgages so she does something completely different from what she went to school for
00:05:13
Speaker
But with me, you know, I grew up with all of this. And so I was coming up on my senior year of high school and it was one of those situations where I was ahead with all of my credits and I was ahead with all of the classes that I needed to take. So I was meeting with my guidance counselor and he suggested that I look into taking a course at college.
00:05:36
Speaker
So I went home and I'm talking to my parents about it and my mom said, well, you're going to have to take intro to safety when you go to college anyway, if you decide that you're going to go to UW Whitewater, which I knew that's what I wanted to do. She said, so why don't you take that? And you know, Craig, he was the one who was teaching the class and I had known him since I was little because my mom had been working there since I was little.
00:06:02
Speaker
So I said, okay, that sounds like fun. And so I went and I took the class and learned a lot of things and I really liked it. I really enjoyed it a lot actually, and did a really good job in it.
00:06:15
Speaker
Then I got done with my high school, with my senior year of high school and graduated. And I started getting this, I don't know, almost a panic over me because I knew that I really liked safety, but something in me was saying, you can't be exactly like your mom.
00:06:32
Speaker
you gotta go and do something else like you gotta go be your yeah you gotta go be your own person be your own person and so when i went to start school the the other passion that i had was in music which my parents weren't surprised because my sister being the art major and the theater major they said well sure of course you like music so i decided i was going to be a music major and it was going to be great and maybe i was going to play in and
00:06:59
Speaker
orchestra someday I was really good at piano and clarinet and so that was my thought and I started going through the program and stayed in it for maybe a year a year and a half and really started thinking about it and I said the only way I'm really gonna make any good money this is the feedback I'm getting from professors is the only way I'm really gonna make any good money is if I go all the way up to getting my doctorate and then I teach at a university
00:07:28
Speaker
And I said, I don't want to do that. I'm like my mom anyway, then. Yeah, so I said, that's that's not going to work. And so then I realized, OK, well, instead of continuing to stumble through college,
00:07:47
Speaker
Maybe let's pump the brakes and take some time to figure out what we really want to do And so I took a semester off and while I was going to college I was also working part-time at a collections agency because my sister was working there and she said well you need money I'll get you a job, and I said alright. I guess I'll be a debt collector and
00:08:08
Speaker
which was really interesting and it actually helped with my sales skills and made me realize that if you can sell a negative product, like getting people to pay their debt, you can probably sell anything. So it was a good experience, but I started working there full time when I decided to take a semester off of college. And I remember one day just sitting there and thinking, this can't be what I do for the rest of my life.
00:08:37
Speaker
And I had a manager at the time who said, well, you know, I went to college and then I decided to quit and I started doing this full time and look at me now. And I mean, she was good as a manager, but there were so many other things that I would hear her talk about day in and day out of things that she was unhappy about.
00:08:57
Speaker
And I said, well, if that's how it's gonna be, then I need to go back to school. I don't wanna be like that. And so then I'm sitting here and I'm like, what do I wanna do? What do I wanna do?
00:09:09
Speaker
I was talking with my
Solidifying a Career in Safety
00:09:10
Speaker
dad and he said, I don't know why you're fighting it. And I said, fighting what? And he said, the only thing you've ever been interested in is safety. And he said, your mom will come home and talk about things. Your sister was never interested in it, but you always were. And he said, why are you fighting it? And I said, I don't want to be like my mom.
00:09:31
Speaker
Sounds like your mom was a great role model. She's an amazing role model. I don't know what my problem was and so I said well I'll just take a couple classes and see how it goes. So I went back part-time and you know I got through my like my chemistry classes and physics classes but I was taking a class here and there in safety as well.
00:09:54
Speaker
And then I said, what am I doing? So I went back full time, dove right into safety, and it was the best decision I ever made. I think the only regret I have now is that I didn't realize it sooner.
00:10:10
Speaker
bet you built some pretty interesting skills. Like you said, when you were doing the debt collection work, it helped you with sales skills, which we all need in safety. But I bet it also sharpened some empathy skills too. Oh, I mean, you were hearing a lot of stories every day from people about their life circumstances.
00:10:33
Speaker
And I'll tell you something. I think that I had too much empathy. It was not the job for me. You know, there were people who were hitting these crazy goals of how much money they were bringing in every month. And I was the person who, yeah, I totally get where you're coming from. Go ahead and pay $5 a month for the next 20 years. I'm totally fine with that.
00:10:56
Speaker
And so, you know, my managers weren't the happiest with that. But you're right. I mean, I would hear all these different stories. And I just I found myself having compassion for a lot of the people that we were talking to. So and rightfully so very often. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm curious backing up when you said you everyone has to take intro to safety at Whitewater.
00:11:19
Speaker
Is that like a requirement of the college or is that your mom saying you have to take intro to safety? Here's the thing is I think it was her more saying that I had to do that. Now I know that since then they've updated the program and I think now it's called personal and public safety.
00:11:40
Speaker
And now I believe I think it now is a requirement for students to take but back then I think she just told me it was a requirement and it really wasn't and she just She knew before I did That this was the field that I needed to be in and she was just trying to get me in the right direction So when that day came and I told her okay, I'm going to become a safety and health major I I just
00:12:05
Speaker
words can't describe the glow that immediately started beaming off of her and it's been a fun ride ever since so that's so great yeah but I had to have her as a teacher twice and that was a little
00:12:22
Speaker
interesting well the first time I had her I sat back in the back corner of the room I was trying not to because the other thing is if you saw me and then you saw my mom you know that I am my mother's daughter it's almost like I was cloned from her
00:12:38
Speaker
So I'm sitting in the back corner and I'm trying not to have anyone make that connection and it was the first semester that when she would do roll call, because she was all about roll call, that she used the first names instead of the last names.
00:12:53
Speaker
So we were trying really hard to hide that connection. And I think we made it about two thirds of the way through class. And then there was one day she had to step out for some reason and students finally started turning to me and said, okay, you must be her niece or something. And I remember replying with, or something. And one of the other students said, are you her daughter? And I said, maybe.
00:13:25
Speaker
by the time I had her for the second class everyone knew obviously and it was kind of a running joke but people would say so does she help you with assignments and that was the other thing when she was my teacher I didn't talk to her like I wouldn't I wouldn't talk to her in class I rarely talked to her outside of class and it was both ways she was doing it too because I didn't want people thinking that I I
00:13:48
Speaker
I wanted to earn those grades on my own and so I probably got less help from her than other students did because we just we didn't want anyone to think that or to assume that.
00:14:00
Speaker
you didn't want to play the nepotism card no not at all not at all so but you know we survived through it and it worked out great that's so cool so i'm wondering when you were when you're a little kid growing up with super safety mom and you're doing your fire drills and you're doing you know training on chemicals and and having your escape ladders which i did as well with my son in in uh in our house um i'm wondering
00:14:29
Speaker
For anyone who's raising kids who have children in their life, who are also safety professionals, growing up like you did, do you think it made you hyper-vigilant or just vigilant? You know how people say, well, if you give them too much information, it's just going to scare them. You're scaring people. They can't live. I personally don't agree with that. But I'm wondering, what was that like for you?
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah, what do you remember as a kid and how did that turn into your older life? I remember it being
00:15:07
Speaker
normal. Nothing about it seemed weird or abnormal or something that isn't supposed to be happening in a family. I mean the way that she presented the information, the way she covered it with us, to me it all made sense, which maybe it's because this was kind of embedded in me anyway.
00:15:29
Speaker
But I don't remember it being something out of the ordinary. It just seemed like it was a natural part of growing up. Now, I know that when I would talk to other friends about it as I would get older and I'd notice things and start pointing things out, they would look at me like I was weird.
00:15:49
Speaker
But then I would just look at them like, well, what do you mean? It's weird. Why wouldn't you want to know what kind of safety you need to do to protect yourself? Why wouldn't you want to know that you shouldn't plug in a lot of things into your power strip, or that chemicals are kept in this area for a certain reason, or that there should be a meeting place if there's a fight? Why wouldn't you want to know these things?
00:16:12
Speaker
I never I don't know when when friends would react that way I just I guess I would have the equal but opposite reaction back to them. What was it like when you had your first like sleepovers or you know you're going to other people's houses?
00:16:28
Speaker
I know what I did as a mom, so I'm curious to know what Super Mom did. So, I mean, Super Mom really tried her best not to impose that on my friends. And so she would try as hard as she could, but she would talk about certain things. She would say, you know,
00:16:47
Speaker
If there ends up being a tornado, we're going to hide underneath, you know, the stair at that time, she said, we're going to hide underneath the stairwell in the basement. And then I remember getting older and her saying, no, that's not a good idea. What we need to do is we need to figure out what direction the tornado is coming in so we can sit in the opposite corner. I mean, she would talk about things like that.
00:17:07
Speaker
And she would talk about where we're going to meet if there was a fire. But outside of that, she really wouldn't try to push too much on them because I think she knew that not a lot of families did what she did. And she didn't want to be that weird mom that now kids don't want to spend the night at your house because she's freaking them out.
00:17:28
Speaker
And then I would try really hard not to bring those things up when I would go to friends' houses because I guess I kind of learned from my mom that not everyone has that safety sense and you don't want to be that kid that no one wants to invite over anymore. So I would try hard not to do it, but sometimes, especially if something she talked about seemed really cool, I don't know. I would bring it up. I liked it.
00:17:55
Speaker
When my son was little he would he's I remember the first time he asked me and I don't remember what the context was he just said mom what's our safety plan for that and I'm like oh okay but I also remember like calling his friends parents houses when he would go and spend time asking about firearms oh yeah and you know were they locked up and those kind of questions and I thought well you know I have a right to ask that as a parent and and they were
00:18:23
Speaker
You know legitimate I think questions to ask and his his little his little friends now. They're not little anymore They're all teenagers and when we when we go about and do things with them. They all are like alright Jill Where when is it coming? What's the safety plan?
00:18:39
Speaker
this um this past Halloween kids always do uh we always organize for them a scavenger hunt with an app um called oh it's a really cool app i'll think of it and share it with people because you can do your own scavenger hunt through an app and you can go around to different places in a community and take photos of what you're supposed to be finding or set a
00:19:02
Speaker
Set a point on a map like I got to this place or I saw this or whatever okay goose chase That's the name of the app and so this year the kids are like, okay We're gonna do the scavenger hunt again, right? I'm like, yep, but you all have driver's licenses So do you still want the teams of parents driving you around to these places? Or are you gonna do it on your own and they're like we're gonna drive and so we're like, okay new safety plan
00:19:30
Speaker
who got drivers like the person who's driving the car is not engaged in the game you are simply the driver do you still want to play yes you know three cars of teenage boys driving around a community playing their goose chase oh my goodness I know anyway so safety mom at play there
00:19:52
Speaker
So Siobhan, you graduated with a bachelor's degree in safety? Yes, so I graduated back in 2006. And I actually, before I graduated, I did my internship at an insurance agency.
00:20:10
Speaker
So I got to learn a lot in regards to risk management and I call him my mentor, his name was Jack. One of the best lessons that I felt I could have gotten from Jack was just understanding that my list is never going to end.
Industry Exposure and Experiences
00:20:27
Speaker
I'm always going to have a list at the end of the day and if I can just come to terms with that then I should be okay.
00:20:34
Speaker
He's right, because I'll have a lot of times where I feel my list is a million miles long, and I can't tell if I've put a dent into it. Right. I mean, that is so true that it was perfect and great advice from Jack. Our work is never done. Yeah. And you have to be OK with that, because it's going to make you it's going to make you crazy if you're not.
00:20:56
Speaker
it is and there are some times where it starts to make me feel crazy but then i think about that and i say okay no this is good this is good and obviously he taught me a lot of other things you know he was teaching me about you know uh loss control and risk assessments and things like that so it was it was a great internship and it definitely guided me into into my future career path so i'm
00:21:19
Speaker
I loved working with him, and I would tell other people all the time, if you have any way to either connect with him or work with him, it's great, because he had a lot of wisdom to share. And the insurance industry allows you to see a lot of different types of workplaces, too, right? Yes. I only saw a few of them during my internship, but I saw a lot more once I graduated from college. So what happened next?
00:21:47
Speaker
After the internship, what was the first job? Yeah, so I actually did a training program with a large property and casualty insurance carrier down in Chicago And I wish I could have stayed with that company But it was one of those things where you did the training program and it was for lost control and so you finished the training program and when you actually let me back up when you start the training program and
00:22:14
Speaker
They ask, what areas do you want to work in? Or what regions of the country do you want to work in once you're done? And I told them, I said, I'd really like to stay, you know, either in Illinois or in Wisconsin. Because I really did like staying close to home. A lot of our family is in those areas and that's just where I wanted to be. I like this area.
00:22:38
Speaker
And so when I got done with the training program, they had no openings. It was for me and there was another employee who was in the program and they didn't have any openings in the area. So it was kind of a, what are we going to do with you now? And I was fortunate that when I first started the training program, the person who they basically assigned to me to be my mentor,
00:23:01
Speaker
He left a few months after I started and went to a different insurance carrier. And when he heard that this was happening to me, he told his boss about it and they reached out and said, let's have lunch. So we had lunch and they liked what I had learned and he liked the time that he spent working with me and he was advocating, she's really sharp and
00:23:27
Speaker
where comp will be her baby, but she can handle all the lines of insurance. She'll do great. And so they hired me on. So I kind of lucked out because the first carrier really didn't know what to do with me. So I was kind of nervous. I said, well, does this mean I don't have a job or what's getting ready to happen? So
00:23:47
Speaker
You had great mentors. I have. It was really, yeah, it was great. And it was a nice transition and the carrier that I went to really got me exposure to seeing a lot of different industries.
00:24:02
Speaker
So I wasn't just going to machine shops. Now I was getting to check out heat treat plants and foundries and you know different types of food manufacturing and in Illinois they have
00:24:20
Speaker
the state insurance pool for people who can't get work comp insurance through a regular carrier so i was doing a lot of investigations in there just work comp related for the state pool so then i was getting to see a lot of small contractors and those smaller businesses that maybe only have a few employees so i got exposure from that sense and then i went to my first
00:24:45
Speaker
slaughterhouse while I worked there, which was a lot of fun. And I went to my first rendering plant, which was very interesting. And you know, when they say make sure you bring a change of clothes, I definitely understood it after I visited that rendering plant that yeah, I don't want any of this touching anything in my car. And the smell infuses.
00:25:11
Speaker
I remember the first rendering plant that I went to, I thought, oh my gosh, the leather in my belt smells like you couldn't get it out. I was kind of embarrassed because I got sick. I was in there for not even 10 minutes and the gentleman who was
00:25:30
Speaker
taking me through the facility could see the color draining from my face and so he just pointed at a bucket and I said oh and so I went over and I did end up getting sick and I walked back over and he said it happens to
00:25:48
Speaker
everyone the first time. And he said, we prepare you as much as we can. You know, he said, get stuff to put under your nose, you know, like Vicks Vapor Rub or something so that you aren't smelling it. I mean, he was telling me everything to do, but he said, everyone goes through it. And he said, that's why we have the buckets.
00:26:06
Speaker
Yeah, I was gonna I was gonna say is you're telling this story. I'm like don't feel bad. It's the closest I ever got to vomiting on the job. It was in a meat packing plant and it or not meat packing plant a rendering plant and it was and I don't know where you were in the plant but where it happened to me I didn't end up vomiting but I was as close as I have ever been at work.
00:26:29
Speaker
in the loadout bay. So if you can imagine where all the trucks come in, all the big semi-trailers with all the various carcasses. And it was July when I was in one in Minnesota and it was very hot. And it's, you know, all of these trucks kind of back down into this a bit of a pit and there's a roof over it to protect from, you know, the various weather events in Minnesota.
00:26:55
Speaker
and so it was like tight and humid and hot and I was walking between all of the trailers because I was checking on like the chalking of the trailers and you know looking for hazards doing my job with OSHA and I was like very overcome with that smell of death and I thought oh my gosh I've got to get myself out of here because I'm not gonna make it.
00:27:21
Speaker
You can't see me, but I'm over here nodding my head because that was pretty much the exact same thing that happened to me. Yes, it was where everything was coming in into their big pit and he was kind of showing me the whole process and it didn't work out well. But then once I relieved myself, then I was fine for the rest of the tour. So that was good.
00:27:45
Speaker
oh man these safety jobs they have us doing the craziest things i know and i kind of felt like i was being initiated i was being sent to you know some of the and some of the neighborhoods too that i was being sent to were a little sketchy at times and that would make me nervous as well but at the same time i think i also had a little bit of naive
00:28:07
Speaker
going on so I maybe wasn't always realizing just how sketchy it was until after the fact so I felt like that was by you know getting initiated into into the group or something like that I don't know all life lessons that built one on another on another that have taken you to the next place
00:28:29
Speaker
Yeah, so what did you what did you like best about the insurance industry? I'd say honestly I think what I like the best was being able to go out and see all of the different types of businesses that they insure and being able to see the different exposures that employees have Depending on the operation I was going to Just yeah, I'd being able to experience so many different
00:28:52
Speaker
industries and operations and learning what they do. I was really thankful they had a subscription to, I believe it was called AM Best. And so I could go in there and I could pull up either their SIC code or their NAICS code and be able to pull up
00:29:10
Speaker
basically a write-up of what I was going to go see and the different exposures that I would see depending on the different lines of insurance. So it was just, for me it was just a big learning experience and getting that exposure to all the different types of jobs that are out there.
00:29:28
Speaker
And I think as, at least for me, I'm wondering if this has been for you as well, as a consumer of things, having been in so many different types of industry settings where things are made or processed, I feel like I look at my consumables just like in my house or in my grocery store and think, oh, that was made by a punch press or that was in a plating industry or the number of hands that had to touch that
00:29:58
Speaker
piece of meat that I'm now holding in my hand have been probably you know this many. Do you think that about consumer things as well having just seen all this stuff? I do and I feel that I have a lot more respect for the things that I use day in and day out in my life now or you know in my kids lives or you know things like that because just knowing all of the time and energy that was put into making
00:30:24
Speaker
one diaper or making a plate of food or things like that. It really changes your perspective on things.
00:30:32
Speaker
Yeah, it really does. Yeah, this was a plastic injected molded toy that my kids can get out. And then I'll start talking about it. My husband's like, really, you're going there again. We're okay. I tell myself that all the time.
00:30:54
Speaker
So what was the next stop on your journey? Well yeah so I started that job with the second carrier in Illinois and then they ended up moving me up to Milwaukee where I spent the rest of my time there probably a year and a half because they were starting to do layoffs down in the Chicago area and they were trying to get me to avoid it.
00:31:17
Speaker
So then I went up to Milwaukee and worked there for a while and then I started getting an itch because I'd go out and I would make these recommendations and then have no
Challenges in Corporate Safety Roles
00:31:28
Speaker
idea if they were helping because you wouldn't see them again for three years and it was it was kind of getting a little frustrating. I wanted to know if I was actually making a difference.
00:31:38
Speaker
So I decided to work with a, I changed gears and became a safety specialist with a beverage manufacturer in the Milwaukee area for about six months. And it was a great learning experience, unfortunately.
00:31:58
Speaker
So you have great bosses and you have bosses that aren't always so great. And that was an experience where the boss that I had, we didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things. And so I made the decision that I needed to leave.
00:32:18
Speaker
Congratulations, I mean and after six months that was that was good. Well and it was in but you know I decided I needed to leave but at the same time I could tell that she was feeling the same way so one way or another I think that was going to happen and I wanted to do it on my own terms so yeah so I did that the unfortunate thing was there was no plan B and
00:32:42
Speaker
I didn't really think it through, I just knew I gotta get out of this environment. It was toxic pretty quick. So I left and that was in 2010 and it was still hard to find positions at that time. So I ended up being out of work and I would pick up little consulting jobs on the side here and there, but that was about a year of what am I gonna do, what am I gonna do?
00:33:10
Speaker
and then I got lucky because then a position opened up with another food manufacturer and I threw my resume out there and met with that manager and she had looked at the place I was at prior and she said I've heard things so that's another thing I'm realizing is even though this is a large community safety and health professionals
00:33:31
Speaker
It's a large community, but it's a small community it is and so she said I've heard about your boss and she said so I'm not even gonna hold that Against you and she took a chance with me and she hired me on and it was it was a great experience and so it was it was a pet food manufacturer and there was just under 300 employees on three shifts and
00:33:56
Speaker
It was a union environment. So I got to have experience with that. And it was, it was really cool. I started out as a safety coordinator and then she ended up leaving. And so I was an interim safety manager. I really wanted the safety manager position, but with this company, they had a thing where the only way you could move up was if you moved to a different plant.
00:34:23
Speaker
Oh, interesting. Yeah. So if I wanted to stay there, I, my glass ceiling was safety coordinator. I couldn't get to safety manager without moving and I didn't want to do that. So I, I did the interim thing and then they hired a new manager. And you know, so I'll say the good thing about working there was getting to engage with the employees every day.
00:34:47
Speaker
It's true what they say. You're going to get a lot further in the program if you just take that time to actually get to know them, not have it just be all about work and really invest your time and build those relationships. And I think that's the part of the job I love the most.
00:35:04
Speaker
Then it just made it easier when we implemented new programs. We implemented a behavior-based safety program, and it was easier to get their buy-in because I had spent that time. We started doing job safety analyses, and so getting their buy-in on, I know this is going to take time, but I promise you that management is going to support it. Because at that time, we did have that support. We had a plant manager that was all about safety, my safety manager.
00:35:32
Speaker
was all about building those relationships as well. She was out on the floor just as much as I was and so we really had all of that engagement and support and everything was going well and our incident rates were really low and we were going in the right direction and everything was going really well. And then my manager left and we eventually got a new safety manager and his style was different. He felt that he should just be behind the desk
00:36:00
Speaker
And so that was a little bit of a struggle. And then we got a new plant manager and his focus was on production and we'll get to safety when we can get to safety. And talk about seeing progress just disappear in a matter of, it almost felt like minutes. I know it wasn't minutes, but
00:36:19
Speaker
Yeah, it takes so much time to build it up and then to see how quickly it can be torn down It broke my heart It is traumatic and it does break your heart. I've been on the receiving end of that as well. Yeah, and so, you know
00:36:35
Speaker
You know, you're trying your best. So you kind of disappear before your very eyes. Yeah, you know what I'm still trying to say, but I'm still here for you and I'm still, you know, trying to do my best, but they saw what upper management was doing and then it became a thing of why should we care if they don't care? So that was a bit of a, that was a harsh reality check, I guess.
00:36:59
Speaker
Yeah and you know how wonderful that you had such great mentors early in your career to kind of help set that compass if you will so that when you when you saw these things happening later you I mean did it did it did it help you like with the confidence to say this isn't right and it's time to move on it did I I think it helped a lot because once I realized that was the direction that that culture was going in
00:37:25
Speaker
and i said well if if i don't have the support there's no way i'm going to get it back where it needs to go and i didn't want to give up on them so i mean i i would i was kind of in that position where i would entertain the idea of something if it came across my lap but i didn't really want to look because i felt like i was i was going to let them down and i didn't want to do that but it turned out that
00:37:51
Speaker
a recruiter from a staffing company, you know, had seen my profile on LinkedIn and reached out and said, would you be interested in talking to us? And at the time it was really just for a safety admin role. So I was, their idea was that I do part safety admin functions and part work comp functions.
00:38:13
Speaker
And I said, well, I'll come in and talk about it. But it didn't feel like that was going to be a step up in my career. But it never hurts. And I was thinking, if anything, I'll make some connections. And so I'm fine with that. And so I met with who ended up being my future boss. And we started having a conversation. I started talking about my career thus far. And I don't know. We clicked.
00:38:38
Speaker
And she realized, you know, this was back in 2013, so this was when OSHA came out with their temporary worker initiative. And she knew that if she was going to succeed in building a good program, she was going to need some people with my skills who could be out there working with the different staffing offices and working with the temps out in the field and working with the customers that they actually provide temporary employees
Innovations in Safety Programs
00:39:05
Speaker
to.
00:39:05
Speaker
So she ended up making an argument to the owners of the company stating, I need a safety team. I don't need just me and an admin. I need a team and I want to hire Siobhan and oh, by the way, I want to hire two more people just like her. And she was lucky enough that she had the owners of the company
00:39:27
Speaker
said, okay, if this is what you believe and you think that this is going to turn things around for us, then go for it. So then one day I got a call from her and she said, I know you interviewed for this admin job, but I want something more. And this is what I want. And what do you think? And I said, that sounds amazing.
00:39:49
Speaker
That is so great. So I felt like I got lucky again, and I was able to switch and it was a great job I was there for for five years and we got to build I think what I liked the most was we built a lot of things from scratch They didn't really have a safety program for their internal employees So we had to work on that and then they didn't really have a safety program for their temporary employees so we got to develop the different programs and the training and and
00:40:15
Speaker
They didn't really have a process in place to assess the environments or assess the companies that they'd be sending temporary employees to. So we got to build that whole process from scratch and it was just, it was such a fun learning experience.
00:40:32
Speaker
And then I also had a team of other people just like me that I could work with. So I wasn't all alone trying to do something, which I did have my manager. So I have to take that back. I did have my manager at the pet food manufacturer. So that was nice. But now I had a group of, it was four of us. And then we eventually got a fifth person to work on our team. And that was amazing. And we were all female. I just feel the need to throw that in. So.
00:40:58
Speaker
It was a team of five of us that were all females. Yes. And then we're, you know, doing all these great things. And after a couple of years, when it got to the point where they wanted to see how the results were with their work. You know, we had done such a great job with.
00:41:16
Speaker
work comp management and then all these proactive things that we were doing to help decrease the amount of injuries we were seeing and decrease the severity of the injuries we were seeing. We ended up saving that company. I think they said it was somewhere around three or four million dollars. It was the first year that they actually got money back.
00:41:38
Speaker
from what they had paid on their policy. And for me, I think that was one of the biggest accomplishments was knowing that all the hard work that we did and all the hard work we did out in the field and training the branches and getting them to understand things that they should look for when they see the customers in terms of hazards.
00:41:58
Speaker
Discussions they can have on ways that we could help them or you know other resources they could use to develop controls that could help with those hazards it just it to know that that all actually translated to Something tangible that we could see we helped them save three million dollars. It was it was really it was really awesome
00:42:20
Speaker
You know, everything you did up to that point really was setting you up for success in a staffing agency. You know, your eyes had seen so many work environments. When you're doing these, you know, risk assessments for these different places, the temporary workers are going into, you could build on all of that history that you had to be able to make it meaningful.
00:42:42
Speaker
Yeah, and I never would have thought, one of the things when I interviewed with my manager at the staffing company, I said, how does safety fit in with this? I had done some contractor safety at the pet food manufacturer, but I never really dealt with temporary employees. So this was all new to me. And then as we started formulating what our program looked like and started realizing we need to go out and see these industries,
00:43:09
Speaker
All of a sudden I said, oh wait, I did this before. And I've seen a lot of these places before. And so seeing that time that I never thought would happen was really cool. I just, I feel like the work that the five of you did is likely on the leading edge for staffing agencies.
00:43:33
Speaker
I feel I have to agree with that because other staffing companies that our customers would be working with, we would often get feedback, well, my other staffing companies don't do that. We don't even see anyone come out and take a look at
00:43:49
Speaker
the work environment or ask us for job descriptions or offer us safety services or safety training. And they, you know, they don't train their temporary employees on safety before they get out here. We were hearing all of those gaps. So it was, it was good knowing that. And I mean, and we use those recommendations, if you will, from the temporary worker initiative to help build our program. We wanted to make sure all of those gaps were being addressed.
00:44:16
Speaker
yeah yeah and for people who are listening to this you know statistically what what you did is very is is very different it is on the leading edge and if people want to listen to the other side of the story episode number 13 of the accidental safety pro
00:44:33
Speaker
with a filmmaker named David DeSario shines a light on really the crisis in the country of temporary workers and the lack of safety that they have. So Siobhan, you really are on the cutting edge of this. So if people are listening and want to compare and contrast two sides of a story, knowing that you did it and with great success, I think is just something to be celebrated. So well done.
00:45:00
Speaker
And I know that there's a lot of people out there who look at staffing agencies and think they don't really care about temporary employees and they're not concerned with their safety and things like that. I get it because I know there are a lot of agencies out there that are like that, but there are some that are trying to make a change. And I think that for companies who are looking for temporary employees,
00:45:23
Speaker
they need to be just as proactive as we were trying to be proactive you know take the time to get to learn about the agencies that you're going to be working with and what practices and policies do they have in place to protect the workers and are they on the same page as you in terms of temporary employee safety you know those are great questions to ask and to find out so that you can work with those agencies who really do care about their employees
00:45:49
Speaker
Yeah, Siobhan, next step. You're back in grad school now, right? I am, yes. I stayed with the staffing company for five years and then came into this training and education role a year ago now, just a little over a year ago.
00:46:07
Speaker
And I love it. I love all aspects of it. I love everything that I'm teaching. But I know that I have more that I could learn. And so I came to the conclusion that I think that getting a master's in environmental safety and health is going to help me to
00:46:29
Speaker
expand my knowledge and to be able to provide more information to the students that I teach. So I started the master's program in environmental health and safety with UW-Whitewater last fall. So I'm in my second semester right now.
00:46:44
Speaker
Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, that's awesome. And I'm interested for you to share, you know, drum roll, a research project that you're thinking about doing or have committed
Research and Future Initiatives in Worker Safety
00:46:57
Speaker
to doing. Yes, no, I know I'm definitely I know I definitely want to propose it. And I've been told that my proposal should be accepted. But I just love
00:47:06
Speaker
so much the work that I did with the staffing company and so much that I learned in regards to temporary employee safety and I want to continue on that so my my research project is going to be around temporary employees and temporary safety and the first angle I want to look at is with the employers so just kind of taking a look at
00:47:27
Speaker
you know when we're looking at the temporary worker initiative how much of this are you following how much above and beyond are you doing you know what's your engagement like with temporary employees things around that nature i really that's that's continued to be a passion of mine so i i want to do more research into it and see what i can come up with and there isn't a lot of research that's been done yet so the initiative came out in 2013 but you know how successful has it been i don't know so i guess that's what i want to find out
00:47:56
Speaker
Exactly. Well, on behalf of a grateful industry, thank you for doing that. Absolutely. People are going to want to read this research. This is wonderful. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm not going to lie. Yeah. So Siobhan, it didn't turn out so bad following in your mom's footsteps, has it? No, it hasn't at all. And it's funny, you know, she, her and I actually were just talking the other day and she says, you know, it's even funny the way your career
00:48:25
Speaker
because she did a little bit of a stint with OSHA, but then she went and worked for an insurance agency before she became a professor at the university. So she's like, you even did some of the jobs that I did, and I didn't even tell you about it. So it's just... That's cool. Yeah, yeah. Siobhan, what's your mom's first name? Deborah.
00:48:46
Speaker
So, Deborah, thank you for bringing us Siobhan. What a gift to the industry. Thank you. I know. And she's done amazing things too. I always say, you know, Mom, you have a pretty cool career yourself. And she's like, I'm just the one teaching our future. And I said, Mom, that's a pretty important thing.
00:49:06
Speaker
It is a pretty important thing. Sounds like maybe your mom needs to be on the accidental safety parole. Actually, I think that would be really neat because I love hearing her story, so I'll listen. You work on that. I will. Let's get Deborah on the podcast. We can have a mother-daughter team. That would be so cool. Absolutely. I will work on that. I think that would be really cool.
00:49:30
Speaker
Thank you. So Siobhan, advice for anyone in the profession or even maybe grad school in general as we close out our time together today? You know, I guess a couple of things. You bring up the grad school. If there's one thing I would have done differently, I probably would have went back to grad school a good five years earlier than I am. So if you think that's something you're going to want to do, jump on that bandwagon sooner than later if you can.
00:49:57
Speaker
But my other thing is don't be afraid to try new opportunities. I started out in the insurance industry and then I went into beverage manufacturing and then pet food manufacturing and then staffing and now I'm doing training and education.
00:50:13
Speaker
You know, the different industries, they bring you a different perspective on the safety and health profession and it really helps to expand your skills. So, you know, I feel I've talked about a lot of different jobs. It probably sounds like I jab hopped a little bit.
00:50:30
Speaker
It sounds a lot like my resume, actually. Yeah, but I think that it was worth it, and it's kind of made me well-rounded, and I think that it allows me different experiences that I can draw from when I'm teaching the students that I teach now.
00:50:49
Speaker
Don't be afraid of those new opportunities and if it's in an industry different from what you're used to, that's okay. It's just going to broaden your experience and broaden your knowledge and make you a more well-rounded safety and health professional. Perfect. Thank you, Siobhan. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Thank you so much for having me.
00:51:08
Speaker
And thank you all so much for joining in and listening today. And thank you for the work that you all do to make sure your workers, including your temporary workers, make it home safe every day. You can listen to all of our episodes at vividlearningsystems.com or subscribe in the podcast player of your choosing. If you have a suggestion for a guest, including if it's you, please contact me at social at vividlearningsystems.com. Until next time, thanks for listening.