Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
#6: Turning a really great story into some story about death in like 5 seconds.
119 Plays7 years ago
Over the course of this conversation between two of Minnesota’s finest, Michelle shares her experiences managing safety across multiple facilities, talks about the importance of building relationships with the workforce to resolve real safety issues, starting over in the wake of the recession and working her way back to the top of the profession.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:10
Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Pro, brought to you by Vivid Learning Systems and the Health and Safety Institute. Episode number six. My name is Jill James, Vivid's Chief Safety Officer, and today I'm joined by Michelle, who's the Director of Environmental Safety and Security with VISTA Outdoor. Thanks for being here, Michelle.
00:00:29
Speaker
Thanks for having me.
Perceptions of Safety Professionals
00:00:31
Speaker
Michelle, before we get into your story about how you accidentally got into this career like so many of us, I've been thinking this week about what it's like to be a safety professional outside of our jobs. How do our family, our friends, the people that we associate with view us? The word I'm settling on this week is nerd.
00:00:54
Speaker
I often get that from my own son who calls me like worst case scenario mom. Mom you always think of the worst things that could happen and then just you know with like friends in the community they're like oh maybe we shouldn't tell Jill that or what would she think about that or hey safety lady could you look the other way. What's your experience outside of your work life with people around you? Like do you feel like you're a nerd sometimes too?
00:01:21
Speaker
Oh, totally. And like you said, my kids constantly are like, you're so overprotective. You're so worried about all this stuff happening. You know, we don't use a box cutter to open boxes at my house. You know, we've got the safety supplies. And so, yeah, totally a nerd. And I'm fine with that. You know, the way that I look at it is if I'm at work keeping people safe and having them go home the right way, why wouldn't I want to bring that home to my family and make sure that we're doing everything the same exact way?
00:01:49
Speaker
Yeah. What's it, what's it like, um, with friends or even at parties?
Career Path in Safety
00:01:56
Speaker
Oh, there's times where it, like you said, they'll be like, Oh, don't let her see us do this. Or, um, you know, can you walk away for a second? We need to string this, um, thing of Christmas lights up here. And we don't have the right ladder, but we're, we're going to get this done. Just take a quick walk.
00:02:12
Speaker
Right. That happens to me too. Last week someone told me, Jill, you have a way of like turning a really great story into some story about death in like five seconds. And I'm like, oh God, I'm so sorry. But you've been in the job long enough. You've experienced enough things. You see enough things. And then it sort of just spills over into every aspect of your life. For sure.
00:02:40
Speaker
So I guess we need to just wear that nerd moniker proudly, right? Absolutely. Yeah. So when did you start getting into workplace safety? Like what was your journey like? When did it, when did it all start for you?
00:02:56
Speaker
You know, it didn't start for me until after I had graduated from college and actually started working as a consultant. So I actually went to college for engineering, chemical engineering to be exact. Did my four year degree in chemical engineering and then just decided that, you know what, I don't really like this, but I have my four year degree. So I probably should figure out what I can do to build on it. So at that point
Building Relationships and Solving Problems
00:03:21
Speaker
I looked into environmental engineering and I went and got my master's degree in environmental engineering.
00:03:25
Speaker
So my dream job was to design and build landfills around the United States. So I actually went and worked for a consulting company and starting at the bottom you got to learn the ropes of everything and started off doing phase one, phase two site assessments and some of the
00:03:45
Speaker
more the grunt work at the consulting firm and didn't really get into any of the engineering stuff, but then kind of got a taste of compliance and going out to different facilities and doing compliance audits and looking at what they were doing. So that was my real first exposure to safety and workplace in general.
00:04:04
Speaker
I had taken some safety classes in college, and I was aware what OSHA was and what their type of regulations were, but never really had applied it until I was going out and telling companies, this is what you need to do to comply with these regulations.
00:04:22
Speaker
So it was kind of a quick learn while I was out there and I realized that this was my niche. This is what I really like to do was to make sure. Yeah. What do you think was, what do you think it was that sort of turned in you that said, I really want to focus on the safety piece when you were doing that? Did something happen or was it just that you were really jiving on the regulatory thing?
00:04:43
Speaker
Well, it is the regulatory thing. Like I was that dork in college too, that for my electives, I would take like environmental law while everyone else is taking, you know, softball. A lot of it was just being out there in the factories and talking to the people and building those relationships and hearing the problems that they have out there and their ideas towards solutions and
00:05:09
Speaker
just being able to work with them and make things better. The big thing for me was being out in the factory with the people and listening to their stories and hearing where they have issues and problems and what their ideas are and building those relationships and just coming to develop the solutions to different problems out there.
00:05:30
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, what kind of stories were you hearing from people in those workplace settings? I've myself not been in many of them. I've been in some, but not very many in that particular environment.
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah, you know, as a consultant, I was in, you know, numerous different areas. So I could be in a woodworking plant one day and then the next day I could be over, you know, in an automotive plant and then in a chemical plant. So it was a lot of different stories, but a lot of just ideas of how to make things better, like dealing with chemicals.
00:06:02
Speaker
If you did it this way, it'd be better. Or dealing with the equipment, like this guard is really hard for us to work around. It makes our job really difficult. What if we changed it to be more like this? Right. So just working with them one-on-one with stuff like that was very gratifying. And at the end of the day, you go home and you're like, I helped somebody and I made things better.
00:06:24
Speaker
Yeah, right, right. I thought you were talking about the landfill industry specifically, but I get what you're saying in all these different industries. I felt the same way, particularly with OSHA, you know, had the opportunity to be in 500 different work environments, you know, just in that phase of my career.
00:06:41
Speaker
And
Transition from Consulting to Industry
00:06:42
Speaker
I would get in my car sometimes after an inspection and I would either feel so sad, like, man, those are harsh work environments, or knowing that I was going to be able to affect change somehow. And that someone's story they had told me, just like you, I'd be able to make a change for their work environment for the better. And it is so gratifying. It is so gratifying. That's awesome.
00:07:07
Speaker
So how long did you do that and when did you decide to take the next step? So I was a consultant for probably four years right out of college there and then decided that, you know, I was going to all these facilities and I was giving them ideas of how to fix these problems, but I was never really part of the solution unless they wanted to pay me to be part of the solution. Right. So it was like, you know, I want to see this stuff from beginning to end now. I want to go into industry so that I can
00:07:37
Speaker
identify the problems, come up with the solutions and implement them to see how this actually works for people. So at that point. Yeah. When you were doing that consulting job, was that like on your own? Were you trying to drum up your own business or were you working for a consulting company? I was working for a consulting company. Oh, thank goodness. Right. It's so hard to drum up your own work. Yeah. Yeah. So then you decided to move on. Yep. So then I went and worked in industry for a metal workings company.
00:08:06
Speaker
Um,
Starting a Safety Program from Scratch
00:08:07
Speaker
where they, they had never really had a, um, safety and environmental person specifically at their location. So I pretty much walked into nothing being developed. So it was like a clean slate for me to start and say, okay, this is how I think we should do this. Put these programs in place, train the people, get their buy in on all these programs, roll it out. And then I have this nice program.
00:08:30
Speaker
and everyone's on board because they helped. You had been a consultant for a while and then you moved into this next area in the metalworking industry. How many years was it before you got into that job? I'd been a consultant for about four years and then went into industry. Yeah, great. Was that overwhelming for you or was it more exciting at that time? They didn't have anything when you walked in the door and you were going to have to build it. Was that energizing or were you like, oh my gosh, where am I going to start?
00:09:00
Speaker
To me it was very exciting because then I got to customize it to how I thought it was gonna work best for the facility. And I get to put my stamp on everything and work with the people and build those relationships a lot easier than if there was already a system in place and I'm just trying to dredge it up and keep it going. So yeah, it was great, I loved it.
00:09:21
Speaker
How long were you there? Um, I stayed there in that role. I think I only stayed two years because I actually got promoted into a regional supervisor for environmental and safety for that company. So then I had nine plants under me. Wow. In that part of Michigan. Yeah. So at that point, you know, they were impressed with my program, so they wanted me to take my programs and help these other nine facilities to get to where I was at. That's a, that's a big honor and a big undertaking.
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah, it was great. I loved it. And did you have other people working under you at that point when you got to that position? Each of the locations had their own environmental and safety person, so I was working with them on a day-to-day basis just to help them build their programs. Sure, sure. They didn't directly report to me. Got you, got you. But we worked together very closely.
00:10:13
Speaker
Yeah, that's also sort of rare in our industry, you know, oftentimes people in safety are sort of an island, and they don't always have other other counterparts, particularly in their same field, you know, maybe it's somebody else that has that as an additional job that you get to work with. Well, and that's pretty much how it was at all these other locations is that this was safety was
00:10:34
Speaker
a part-time job for them and then they were still doing quality or they were still doing maintenance. They wear very many hats and I was the only actual full-time person doing just environmental and safety. Yeah, so
Career Growth and Navigating Changes
00:10:47
Speaker
similar experiences to many people listening. So where did your journey take you after that?
00:10:52
Speaker
So that was probably back in 2009 when the auto industry kind of hit rock bottom. And at that point, just in evaluating positions and stuff, my job was eliminated. And I had to figure out, okay, now what do I want to do?
00:11:10
Speaker
Where do I want to go? What type of job do I want to work in? And at that point I decided I still wanted to stay in industry. I didn't want to go back to consulting. So I ended up actually getting a job here in Minnesota at Federal Cartridge Company as a safety and environmental engineer there.
00:11:28
Speaker
And pretty much got to go through the ropes again of learning all the processes and how the programs apply there and getting to know the people and building those relationships. So it's just been a continual journey for me. And I stayed at Federal in that capacity and actually have been working my way up through the ranks, became a safety supervisor. And then just as of about just over a year ago now is when I became the director for the parent company.
00:11:58
Speaker
Wonderful. Congratulations. Thank you. That's a big deal. So as you're building relationships at these subsequent jobs, how did you do it? You know, in terms of building relationships, and it's often, you know, in safety about building rapport, not only with the, with the people you're serving, but also your leadership. Is there a style that you've developed over time to do that?
00:12:21
Speaker
You know, to me, it's talking just frank with people, telling them what your thoughts are, listening to what their thoughts are and just being genuine. You can't go out there and be the safety cop and just be on them that you can't do this, you can't do that. You need to be able to work with them. I mean, they're out there to do a job and there are going to be hurdles and you need to have discussions and understandings.
00:12:46
Speaker
about how we can compromise but still be meeting the regulatory requirements of things and keeping people safe.
00:12:52
Speaker
Right. Right. I love that
Common Challenges and Innovative Solutions
00:12:54
Speaker
you said safety cop. It's a term that I've used as well. It's, you know, and for anyone listening, it's sort of the safety persona you really want to stay away from, you know, because it doesn't, it, you know, being someone who's either black or white, um, doesn't, doesn't build consensus and it doesn't show that you're flexible to, you know, work in business gray, which we're essentially challenged to do as safety professionals all the time.
00:13:21
Speaker
Yeah, every day. When you do the black and white, people don't feel comfortable coming to you and bringing you a problem. Whereas if you'll sit and listen to them and work with them, it makes it so much easier and they're comfortable doing that. Yeah, right, right.
00:13:36
Speaker
And so you moved from industry to industry. Are you finding that, you know, when you're trying to understand just the hazards of an industry, that they're essentially similar or very different every time you walk into a new door? I would say the struggles that each industry has are very similar.
00:13:57
Speaker
They all struggle with, I would say, the same programs, and I think it's just because they're not black and white at all. It's kind of left up to the discretion of the employees and the employer of, how are we going to make this work for our company? It's a little more difficult. Take ergonomics, for example. Ergonomics is, it's not, this is what you have to do. It's, how can you design this to make it better? Where a lockout-tagout procedure is very specific.
00:14:25
Speaker
These are the steps that you take and this is how you keep your people safe. So to me, the focus is more on these programs that aren't so black and white that we need to work through. And that's where I see the struggles at most industries.
00:14:40
Speaker
Right.
Pursuing Professional Certifications
00:14:41
Speaker
And so do you, um, which, which of those sort of things do you prefer tackling? Like what's your favorite? Is it sort of the, the ones that you have to figure out? How's it going to work here or the black and white ones? I am always up for a good challenge. So I always like the ones that we have no idea how we're going to do this. Where do we start and make it work?
00:15:01
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, right. That's cool. So I'm wondering where do you go for help? You know, like when you're stuck professionally, what are your resources for reaching out? We are members of a couple of different groups where there's other technical people that we can reach out to. And then also I've built my own personal network of
00:15:24
Speaker
other safety people in different industries that I've met throughout the years. So if I have a question, I can just contact one of them and bounce an idea off of them and get some feedback.
00:15:34
Speaker
I do the same. I do the same. I sent a text message yesterday to a safety professional friend of mine that I've known for 20 years. I'm like, I'm reading the law. I'm interpreting it this way. Is this how you would see it? You know, it's just a way to bounce things off of one another. And the great news is that we like to help each other in this profession.
00:15:55
Speaker
Oh yeah, you learn so much just by talking through different things. So Michelle, it sounds like you really take joy in challenging yourself. And I'm noticing that maybe that next challenge is reaching your certified safety professional or your CSP. I see that you have your ASP now. Tell people about what that pursuit has been like. Why did you decide to do it? And what's the time commitment been like for you?
00:16:22
Speaker
Well, you know, I'd been thinking about doing this for years and I just never actually stopped and did it. So back when I was working in industry the first time I was going to attempt to get my CSP at that point, but there was just so much going on and I just didn't feel like I had the time to devote to it that I needed to and I needed just a little more experience.
00:16:44
Speaker
So recently I decided, okay, I've been working now for 15 years. It's time. This is crazy. You need to just set a goal to get it done and get it done. So that's pretty much what I did last year with getting my ASP first.
00:17:00
Speaker
And those tests are no joke. And the studying is no joke. I spent numerous hours just going through books and doing sample tests and questions and just making sure that I could understand everything and answer the questions as best I could to pass the exam. So I did take the ASP and pass that one. I was very nervous. Yay. Congratulations. Did you take a prep class to do that as well? I did not.
00:17:27
Speaker
I had thought about it and I thought back to college and stuff and I was never really good at going to class and listening. I was better with give me a book and leave me alone. So that's kind of the approach that I did take with this one.
00:17:42
Speaker
The CSP now I've been looking over some of the materials already and I plan to take the CSP exam within the next year. Wow. This one looks daunting. Right? It's going to be a lot more studying for sure. But I find that I just I just have to set that date and sit down and do it.
00:18:00
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Good luck to you. Good luck to you. To that end, with regard to safety and health, and particularly because you have this environmental background as well, do you think you're more of a generalist or a specialist? Do you
Continuous Safety Improvement Efforts
00:18:17
Speaker
feel like you're specialized in certain areas or kind of more of a generalist across the health and safety spectrum?
00:18:23
Speaker
I would say pretty generalist, except for the area of explosive safety. So that was one area that I really focused in at Federal when I was working there. And that one is pretty specialized and has a whole lot of nuances and differences to it. So I would say I did specialize in that explosives area.
00:18:45
Speaker
Yeah, I'd say the same about myself. You know, I've sometimes over the years I've beaten myself up for not going very deep in some subjects. And then I just decided, you know what? This is such a broad professional practice. It's nearly impossible to specialize unless you're in the same place.
00:19:05
Speaker
for, you know, many, many years. And it's sort of important to know a lot of general things and then take that deep dive when you need to, like with regard to explosives. I did the same thing with chemotherapy drugs, I was working in a healthcare setting for a while.
00:19:20
Speaker
and compounding medications and the people that did the compounding. I didn't know anything about that and I needed to teach myself quickly what the hazards and risks were with that as well. How did you teach yourself about explosives? What was your approach?
00:19:36
Speaker
You pull out the regulations and you start learning and then you talk to people that have worked with the explosives for years and you find out, you know, how do you keep yourself safe? What are the lessons that have been learned in the past? That was the best way. Yeah, that's tricky. And that's not one you can, uh, there's not a lot of margin for error when you're dealing with explosives. No, no, there is not. So with, with regard to that, what keeps you up at night with, uh, with your, with your practice or your job now, even?
00:20:05
Speaker
Oh, for me, it's, it's feeling like I never got enough done. Like I could always be doing more. Yeah. I would say that that's the one thing that I just, I want everything perfect and I want everybody safe and I want there to be no more accidents and no more injuries.
00:20:20
Speaker
I know I can't, will never get to that state because it's an accident. I mean, it's going to happen, but I just wish. Oh, I wish. Yeah. You never do feel like you're finished with this job. I completely agree. Completely
Reflecting on Best and Worst Days
00:20:34
Speaker
agree with that. Can you describe your best and worst day in safety and maybe what happened? Well, I guess I would say one of the best days that I have had in safety
00:20:43
Speaker
would have to be back when I was working in the automotive industry in Michigan, working with a stamping plant that had gone numerous years without a recordable injury and had developed their programs to the point where they were able to achieve the VPP award in Michigan. Wow.
00:21:01
Speaker
Yes. For stamping, that's huge. It is. It totally is. And just to achieve that and, you know, to be able to get through the inspections and stuff and pass with flying colors and have everyone at that facility so on board and so engaged in the process.
00:21:19
Speaker
To me, that was probably the best safety experience ever. That just sounds like professional fun all the way around. That's really cool. So you've got that as well. Well, look at you. You're making yourself famous in safety. That's pretty cool. Congratulations. Congratulations. How about worst day? What does a worst day look like or what was or has been?
00:21:42
Speaker
You know, thinking back to the worst day, it always has to do with somebody not being able to go home at the end of the day. So I can think back to when there was an incident down at one of the army ammunition plants where they were dealing with explosives and somebody lost their lives. Even though I wasn't directly working for that facility, knowing that our processes are similar and
00:22:10
Speaker
the chance of it happening at your own facility is, you know, right there. That's hard. Very hard. Yeah, agreed. I think those were have been and continue to be my hardest days at work too. Of course,
00:22:25
Speaker
course
Effective Safety Communication Strategies
00:22:26
Speaker
it was part of my every day when I was with OSHA was to investigate death and I did it often and today it continues that employers will reach out to me because they know about my background and they'll want help you know walking through
00:22:41
Speaker
what to do, you know, like, what do I do from how do I contact OSHA? Do I contact OSHA? What's going to happen? How do I do this? And, um, and, you know, they, they, just the technical part of those sorts of incidents is, you know, I'm happy to coach people on that. Um, but moreover, it's really talking with people and meeting them where they are emotionally, you know, and how do we support our company? How do we support other companies emotionally when, um, when that happens to us?
00:23:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's hard stuff.
00:23:12
Speaker
All right. So Michelle, one of the, one of the things that I've developed, I guess in this profession, I'm wondering how you approach it as well is writing. When it comes to writing about safety, whether it's, whether it's like setting a, set a safety program or policy aside, not that kind of writing, but when you need to make an appeal, maybe to management and you need to write something, how have you like approach that through your career and has it changed?
00:23:40
Speaker
I would say, yeah, it's changed just with experience. In the beginning, you go to the management team with all this technical information to explain to them, why do we have to do this and what will it mean for the company? And you dig in so deep and it goes right over their heads like, all right.
00:23:59
Speaker
That's just too much. So now when I have to approach something like that, it's much more simplistic. It's, okay, how is this affecting the company without all the technical information? So what's the bottom line for the company here?
00:24:15
Speaker
How will this change make things better? Yeah. And what does it just mean for the company overall? Right. And so what sort of data do you usually share for something like that? And where do you, where do you get the data? I think people listening, you know, as we're trying to, particularly when so many of us don't have budgets and safety, um, and you're trying
Building Relationships for Safety Practice
00:24:34
Speaker
to make that appeal for change. And often that requires monetary funding. Like what sort of evidence do you use and gather?
00:24:43
Speaker
It's always hard because you want to go back and say, okay, we've had these safety incidents and this is what they've cost us. So going forward, we want to make sure to eliminate that and it's going to save the company money, but you can't really put the price tag on an injury because everything is so different depending on the type of injury that it is. And we don't plan for those costs every year because we don't know what's going to happen.
00:25:06
Speaker
So it's hard to tie it to that. You want to look at your recordable rate and say, we're going to be able to decrease our recordable rate if we do this. Well, we don't know that. So it's hard to say that as well. So it's a challenge. It really is. Yeah, proving ROI is pretty difficult on the front end. It's easier to show it after.
00:25:29
Speaker
Yes, for sure. Yeah. And so do you prefer when you're having to go to the well to either ask for money or ask for permission? Do you find yourself doing it in writing more often? Or do you like to get face to face with whoever the decision maker is, whoever the gatekeeper might be in your facility?
00:25:48
Speaker
I find it more effective to get face to face rather than a written. I think just having that discussion with them and for them to see the passion that comes from you doing your job and enjoying your job and wanting to make things better for people, I think that really makes a difference versus just getting this written proposal on, this is what I want.
00:26:12
Speaker
So how have you worked over your career to get access to that power? Has that been difficult or how have you built those relationships to be able to either request a meeting or walk in someone's office? No, I've never really had a hard time with that.
00:26:27
Speaker
I think because I try to build the relationships with everybody right off the bat. It doesn't matter to me if you're working on the floor or if you're the vice president of the company, I still try to build those relationships with everybody and keep everything genuine so they know where I stand on issues and how I want to make improvements.
00:26:47
Speaker
Yeah. And to do that, to do that right away and not waiting to tell something is going on where you need to ask for help or permission and then go, Oh, darn, I don't have a relationship. Yeah. Yeah. You always got to be proactive with everything. I mean, it's not just relationships. It's the problems and the solutions. Yeah.
Safety Teams vs Committees
00:27:06
Speaker
Michelle, what's your opinion of safety committees and do you have one now?
00:27:09
Speaker
I think they can be good and they can be bad because sometimes I'm concerned that safety committees are just checking the box in certain companies. They're not used for what the actual purpose is. It's more, we said we were going to do this, so let's just check the box, get it done, and move on. Whereas other companies can take it and use it for its intended purpose.
00:27:35
Speaker
When I hear the word committee, to me, it's more of a, this is what you need to do. This is the check the box exercise. So to me, it's more of a safety team that comes together and just everybody gets their ideas out there and works together. So to me, that's where you start building that culture that you really need within an organization is when everybody is comfortable just coming together and working. So by just singling certain people out, I'm not sure that that's effective.
00:28:03
Speaker
Yeah, right. And so what do you think, what's your opinion of what you think a high functioning safety team as you put it? What do you think that looks like? Or what do they do for people who maybe are either struggling with the committee or team they have now or thinking, do I need this? Like what would I have them do? Well, it really all goes back to that culture and you know, the people that are involved knowing and understanding why this is important and wanting to make the difference.
00:28:32
Speaker
Yeah, what kind of tasks does your safety team do? Like what do you work on? It's hard to say because we don't have a designated safety team. Okay, okay. If that makes sense. Yeah, sure, sure, exactly. Because we're trying to get everyone encompassed into safety. Got it. Not just the safety people.
00:28:52
Speaker
Right, right, right. Understood, understood. Yeah, I was thinking about my experience with safety committees or safety teams. I kind of like that term better, safety team. And you know, I wanted representatives from each location once where I was working, so that everybody had, you know, I had somebody that we could go to with safety. And I thought I had these grandiose ideas, like we're gonna
00:29:16
Speaker
Get all of our safety programs written and we were going to sort of distribute that workload among this team and we get all that stuff done and it just really fell flat because they didn't have the, you know, like the background or talent to do that kind of thing. But then when I gave them tasks, like we need the fire extinguishers inspected. We need the iWash stations inspected. You know, we need to do an audit to look for all of, you know, X, Y and Z sort of hazard. They were all over it and did a great job.
00:29:40
Speaker
with that and, you know, identifying hazards and risks where they worked. And that was effective. And I know that people use these sort of teams for all different sorts of things. And I was just wondering, you know, how how you've seen it operate where you've been over the years.
00:29:55
Speaker
Yeah, and different places will do it different ways. It's been beneficial in some places doing it one way and not so beneficial in others. To me, like I said, the biggest thing is safety is everybody's job. And people have to know and understand that. And if they want to work someplace safe and have things safe around them, they have to be part of that. They have to be looking out for each other.
00:30:23
Speaker
So when
Addressing Safety Cliches with Collaboration
00:30:24
Speaker
you run into safety cliches, you know, such as we've been doing it this way for 30 years and nothing happened. What do you do? What advice do you have for people of how do you buck up against those safety cliches when they're meeting you in the face?
00:30:40
Speaker
It's hard. It's really hard. A lot of it, I hate to keep saying this, but it goes back to that relationship. So when people start telling you that, you know, you've got to be able to call them out on it and say, you know, well horse and buggy work too, but we got cars. Why would we want to make that change? You know? So, and it's more of that. Okay. I understand that we've been doing it that way and it's been working fine.
00:31:06
Speaker
But can we try it this way just to see if maybe it makes it easier? Or makes a difference? So it's kind of the trying to get them to work with you and understand it and not mandating. You have to make this change
Role of Technology in Safety
00:31:20
Speaker
because I said so.
00:31:22
Speaker
Right. Not being the safety cop. Exactly. Yeah. So speaking of horse and buggy days, how has technology entered into your professional practice over the years? And what are you seeing that's like, that's good about technology that's helpful to our work right now?
00:31:42
Speaker
Technology has come in in so many different places. You can look at it from the administrative side where it's easier to identify the hazards and get the information out there to supervisors or anyone to get hazards fixed just through email and different systems of notification.
00:32:00
Speaker
The technology that's been developed for different types of equipment when you're looking at guarding and light curtains and different types of interlocks that are placed on equipment to keep people safe, to shut down the machines if doors are open. I mean, those have been great advancements in technology when it comes to the safety world.
00:32:19
Speaker
Yeah, you certainly learned a lot about that and that stamping company. And those are complex solutions too. So what do you think, what about technology that's missing from our profession right now? Do you think there's something that
00:32:34
Speaker
you wish that you had to maybe level the playing field compared to other counterparts in other parts of organizations, whether it's solutions that operations has that you wish you had or HR or accounting or purchasing, stuff like that. Do you think there's technology improvements to be made for our practice? There's definitely advances that can be made to come up with anything specific. Off the top of my head, I don't think I could. If I could, I could make a lot of money.
00:33:07
Speaker
I guess I was just thinking about, you know, some other departments across industries have access to a lot of data that they can use to analyze the way that they're doing their work or even, you know, purchasing programs or HRIS systems that are tracking things about employees and safety professionals don't always have that, you know, sometimes we're sort of cobbling things together.
00:33:32
Speaker
Oh, without a doubt, yeah. And just being able to have everything electronic makes a huge difference, rather than having to, you know, shuffle through all these paper systems to try to find this information and pull it together. So yeah, definitely, you know, management systems in environmental health and safety to me are extremely important. And I know a lot of companies haven't made that transition yet to those electronic systems.
00:33:56
Speaker
One of my locations right now is in the process of doing that and to see the benefits that are going to come out of that is just amazing. Right. Why do you think that's so slow with our professional practice compared to other departments in industry? I think because of it not affecting the bottom line as much. It doesn't help us get products out the door.
00:34:18
Speaker
Right as quickly. Yeah. Well, as we talked about before, the return on investment for, you know, safety improvements isn't always as easy to identify as it is for things in other areas, such as quality or some of the purchasing stuff. So to get facilities to move and spend this money on these management systems is sometimes difficult.
00:34:43
Speaker
Yeah, and wouldn't it be awesome if we could all have that in our safety lives to be able to sort of just level that playing field compared to other departments, you know? So when we come to the table, we're... We have equal information compared to our counterparts. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah.
Influence of Family on Safety Career
00:34:58
Speaker
So technology advancements, we talked about that. I'm wondering if we're going in the way back machine in a different direction. Is there a part of your life growing up that you think maybe set you up for a career or want to help people or in safety? Was safety or some aspect of it part of your life growing up? Maybe based on your family's occupations or kind of what you learned from them in your formative years.
00:35:28
Speaker
So my dad was a cop while I was growing up and I got to see the different things that he dealt with as a police officer and helping people and doing investigations and figuring out
00:35:41
Speaker
accidents and things of that nature. So I think that may have led to it because I was always extremely interested in that. And I had actually taken criminal justice classes while I was in high school thinking that maybe that was an avenue I wanted to go down, but then ultimately decided to go with engineering.
00:36:00
Speaker
Mm-hmm. But you certainly had a role model when you were growing up on someone whose job was legal and kind of winding through how do you apply these legal aspects to work. And I bet he
Future of the Safety Profession
00:36:16
Speaker
brought home some stories about the human impact too. Oh, without a doubt, yep. It's funny because even my brother has ended up in, he's a paramedic, so he's kind of taking that same focus as well.
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, my brother's a paramedic too. That's funny. And you know, our dad growing up wasn't in a safety profession, but his life was greatly impacted by an accident. And I often think that like, is that what made me into this?
00:36:50
Speaker
Way before I was born, my father was in a farm accident and he had a traumatic brain injury and part of his skull, believe it or not, was missing. There was a silver dollar size hole in his frontal bone.
00:37:07
Speaker
That couldn't be closed and it was only closed by a flap of skin. I know if anybody's sort of like grimacing right now, I apologize for that. And so when I was a kid, everything was about my dad's head and protecting his head. Like, you know, the cabinet above the refrigerator where maybe you stuff the cereal boxes and you're kind of going to push them shut. You didn't do that in my house because if the cabinet popped open and hit dad in the head, it was curtains, you know.
00:37:34
Speaker
Yeah. And so, you know, it took me years to think about was that impactful on how I chose what I did or that I just sort of easily slid into it because I was wired to look for hazards since I was a kid. Yeah, for sure.
00:37:51
Speaker
You know, isn't that weird? And then my brother becomes a paramedic. So, you know, maybe there's something to, we learned things from our parents, right? Oh yeah. We want to believe that we did and we do. I certainly know that I did. So whether or not that shifted my reality and career choice, I guess I'll never know for sure.
00:38:13
Speaker
But interesting that your dad was
Conclusion and Encouragement
00:38:15
Speaker
a cop and you certainly don't want to be the safety cop. Right. Yeah, that's cool. So what do you think about the future of our occupation? You know, safety in the 21st century, where do you see us going or what do you wish for for us? Well, it's definitely always going to be a need in all industries.
00:38:37
Speaker
So it's definitely to me a necessary evil of doing this job and working with people. Would you encourage young people just starting out or maybe they're trying to decide what they want to do to get into it? I would. I definitely would encourage young people to do this. You learn so much about so many different things. Even if you learn it at work, the way that you'll take it and you'll use it in other parts of your life is it's amazing.
00:39:06
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, whether it's raising your own kids or being active in your community, right? Mm-hmm. For sure. I would agree with that. So you started out thinking you were going to work in landfills and you're taking a deep dive some days in explosives, you know, who would have thought, right? Yeah, for sure. What a great career and an unexpected one for you as well.
00:39:30
Speaker
So I think, Michelle, I'd like to end our time here together and I really want to thank you for the time that you took with us today and appreciate your insights and hopefully other safety professionals listening picked up some advice from you today.
00:39:49
Speaker
Perfect. So thank you all so much for joining in and listening today and thank you for the work that you all do to make sure that your workers go home safe at the end of 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 maybe it's yourself, please contact me at social at vividlearningsystems.com. Until next time, thanks for listening.