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134: SIF Prevention and High Energy Control Assessments
238 Plays12 days ago
SIFs, HECA, and ROI, oh my! In this episode, we welcome Dr. Elif Erkal, the Associate Director of Research and Strategy at the Construction Safety Research Alliance (CSRA) at the University of Colorado Boulder. With an extensive background in civil engineering, consulting, construction management, and academic research, Dr. Erkal specializes in safety, performance measurement, predictive analytics, and project risk management. She shares insights into CSRA's unique collaborative efforts between academia and industry to advance serious injury and fatality (SIF) prevention, and explains the development of High Energy Control Assessments (HECA). She details how HECA approaches safety performance measurement, which identifies high energy hazards and assesses direct controls, offering a more actionable safety performance assessment than traditional metrics. Dr. Erkal also touches on CSRA's other research initiatives, including decluttering safety management systems and demonstrating the ROI of safety programs, emphasizing the need for data-driven solutions in safety management.
Knowledge Center | Construction Safety Research Alliance
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Transcript
Introduction to Dr. Elif Erkal
00:00:08
Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Pro brought to you by HSI. This episode was recorded November 19th, 2025. My name is Jill James, HSI's Chief Safety Officer.
00:00:19
Speaker
And my guest today is Dr. Elif Erkal. She is the Associate Director of Research and Strategy at the Construction Safety alliance Research Alliance at the University of Colorado Boulder.
00:00:32
Speaker
She leads content collaborative multidisciplinary research and drives the dissemination of knowledge to advance serious injury and fatality, or CIFs, as we call them, prevention. With a background in civil engineering, consulting, construction management, and academic research, Dr. Elif
Dr. Elif's Presentation at National Safety Congress
00:00:50
Speaker
specializes in safety two performance measurement, predictive analytics, and project risk management.
00:00:55
Speaker
Her work centers on translating research into practical strategies that strengthen safety performance, particularly within the construction and utility sectors. I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Elif present some of her work at the 2025 National Safety Congress and Expo in Colorado, which is where I learned about her work.
00:01:16
Speaker
Dr.
Dr. Elif's Journey to Safety Research
00:01:17
Speaker
Elif joins us today from Colorado. Welcome and thank you for taking the time to be here. Of course. Thank you. So, ah you know, you're a civil engineer. i think, do you have two PhDs?
00:01:32
Speaker
Oh, I only have one. Oh, gee. Oh, gee. Okay. That would be way too much. Okay. All right. Civil engineer. And somehow you found your way into safety. What is your origin story? How did you make your way here?
00:01:52
Speaker
um It has been has been a weird, i think, journey that is not very typical. um I'm actually coming from construction industry and from site, basically. I was trained as a civil engineer, started as a structural engineer all the way back in Turkey.
00:02:10
Speaker
My entire family is construction people, so i'm I'm no stranger to heavy civil work. You grew up in it. Yeah, I basically grew up in it. um My first big job was as a contracts manager in an oil and gas refinery. that was a really large project. I stayed there for about three years. And then at the end, um i was i was a little bit...
00:02:41
Speaker
worried about construction because we were doing the same things over and over again, expecting different results. um And especially safety, everybody talked about it whenever, you know, um there was a problem. So nobody really liked safety because their existence meant there's a problem. And then they weren't there when everything is going well and everybody's getting paid and great bonuses and stuff. So um really didn't think about safety much then.
00:03:11
Speaker
But i wanted to improve construction systems, right? We had all of this technology. There's Toyotas of the world. There's Tesla's of the world. like There's so much going on. And then i was thinking construction is kind of archaic. Like we've been doing things the same way for forever.
00:03:31
Speaker
So I figured um I'd go and do something more analytical, more systems risk-based research. So I went to Carnegie Mellon, actually, originally.
00:03:42
Speaker
um Did a lot with organizational learning, network analytics, really getting to the... to the core of how we do business in
The Collaborative Approach of CSRA
00:03:53
Speaker
construction, like how do we organize ourselves? um And then in the meantime, they kind of poached me into University of Colorado Boulder.
00:04:02
Speaker
um Keith Molinar, I've had a call with him in like a construction container one day, and then he mainly specializes in risk. And right now he's the dean of our school, so he's amazing.
00:04:14
Speaker
And he introduced me to Matthew Hallowell, who was my research advisor, PhD advisor, um and then kind of got me into this safety world and really gave me the opportunity to did some do something related to both risk data and really will have an impact on people's lives because we focus on serious injury and fatality elimination so um i think he did change my life there he he taught me that safety professionals don't only come in when there's something wrong And he he told me, like, you're a civil engineer. If you cannot prevent this before it happens, you failed. This is not a, like, there's a lot of luck-based thinking. There's a lot of culture. But that's not what I focused on, right? I was a through and through civil engineer. I believed in risk and that we cannot, can control risk. So that's kind of the opportunity I got.
00:05:17
Speaker
with my PhD and continued work. So that's my origin story. That's good. That's good. um For anyone who's listening, who's maybe not familiar with the construction safety, safety research Alliance at Boulder, what can you give kind of a, like a big picture of what you all do there?
00:05:38
Speaker
Oh my, yes, absolutely. How did I miss that in my origin story? um That's why I'm here. Constructural Safety Research Alliance, CSRA, is such a unique organization that I have the opportunity and privilege to be a part of still.
00:05:59
Speaker
um We are housed in the University of Colorado Boulder, but we do research that is very much embedded in practice. So we perform like a research lab.
00:06:13
Speaker
We do have PhDs who lead research projects, but for every single research project we do that lasts about two years, we build a team of 30 industry professionals. Wow.
00:06:27
Speaker
wow and then these industry professionals come to boulder four times a year to do the research side by side with the academics. So it's a true collaboration between academia and industry. Industry brings in the, like, how are we going to use it? Is it going to have an impact on serious injury and fatality prevention part? And then academics bring that rigor of data collection and empirical data design so that whatever we're saying, it is grounded in peer reviewed research.
00:06:59
Speaker
And right now we have about 120 members over there um that they are sending their volunteering actually their time to be able to do this very impactful work.
00:07:12
Speaker
um Yeah, so we're quite unique as an organization, i would say. yeah you you really are. And and you have um a reoccurring um group that gets together. Is
Translating Research into Practice
00:07:24
Speaker
it is it monthly?
00:07:25
Speaker
um i know there's an online setting. that Oh, yes. i Yeah, can you talk about that? Yeah, talk about that too. Oh, I'm glad that you know about it. I'm signed up for it.
00:07:38
Speaker
That's amazing. Yeah. So we have an open free to attend call like a webinar every month. It lasts about an hour.
00:07:49
Speaker
And every year we change our theme. um This year, but always about research, of course. So like the main purpose is research communication to the broader audience of the world. So we have a lot of international listeners as well. But this year we brought practitioners that are like three or four and built some panels. And then for every research topic we discussed, we discussed about how it can be implemented, um what are the challenges and what are the next steps and for people who
00:08:26
Speaker
you know, didn't know about this research, how can they get up to speed um just, you know, by examples from practice, from practitioner to practitioner, and then researchers behave as more like facilitators.
00:08:41
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Wonderful. Very interesting. You can sign up on our website, actually. Shameless plug here. No, you absolutely... I was just going to ask that, and we'll have um Emily, our producer, put a link.
00:08:54
Speaker
um I mean, you have a really beautiful landing page that has so much of the research with all of the different topics that you're researching on it. And so we'll make sure we get that that landing page in the show notes. Yeah. And then from the landing page, you can sign up for the monthly webinars. Is that, I think that's how I found Yeah. There's a community of practices tab. um And the other thing, actually, recently we had our safety summit in Boulder, and I really hope, Jill, that you can come. Maybe one of these times. Oh, I'd love it. But every year in November, we have this really big report out that is also virtually shared, but in-person event.
00:09:36
Speaker
And in that
Mental Health Focus in Construction
00:09:37
Speaker
event, we recently announced that our well our new initiatives for research to practice efforts. So now we have an associate director, Luke Bolley, if he's around listening, he's shout out. He has this honours job of turning our research into digestible bits and a flow that will make sense for the practitioner so that we can communicate and disseminate knowledge better. So we we recognize that our research had a lot of impact and we keep producing it, but the industry is not able to digest it as fast as we can produce. So we're now really focusing on, okay, how do we dig deeper and how do we actually make it easier, more relevant for the practitioner?
00:10:27
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. I believe i first learned about the the alliance the research alliance at and NSC conference a couple of I think it was a couple of years ago. And one of the focus areas that I heard from one of your colleagues I believe was on suicide prevention in the construction trades. Yeah, probably Sid Mandari.
00:10:52
Speaker
Yes, it was. It your star it was Sid. Yeah, it was. And so for those of you who are listening, know that this that the Alliance is doing research on so many different topics that impact the construction and the utilities industries. It's just really beautiful work that you're doing there.
00:11:11
Speaker
Yeah, and honestly, we're not that big of a team. There's Matt Hallowell, there's Sid Bandaari, there's Luke Bolley, and there's our beautiful operations manager, Eileen, and that's about it. Like, we're a small team. Wow, wow. But you have all of these people that are that are, as you said, volunteering their time to to contribute. Yes, and more importantly, we have our graduate students. Graduate students
Rethinking Safety Metrics: From TRIR to HECA
00:11:34
Speaker
are the main engine behind our research because they do the research. They're the ones who collect the data, write the papers, right? We're acting as advisors, yeah but they they i mean they deserve all the credit. And of course, our collaborators, both in the United States and over there in Australia, we have RMIT as a collaborator, for example. And bunch of very established academics who also contribute to our research. So it is truly a team effort, I would say.
00:12:05
Speaker
Wonderful, wonderful. Well, I know one of the things that you wanted to talk about today and focus on is risk prevention and hazard identification and kind of um what neat you know what your beliefs are around that, what the what the research is telling you, what can be done, what needs to change. I don't know where to start with that, but I'm just setting that i'm setting that on the table for you to run with as the as the expert in the room.
00:12:36
Speaker
Of course. um So as you know, CSRA does a lot of different kinds of research. We have research on mental health, culture, change. um And honestly, as a civil engineer, I don't know much about culture. I'm one of those analytical minds.
00:12:52
Speaker
You know, if it's not in numbers, I'm a little confused. it's Fair. Most of my research is based in hazard recognition. how do we measure safety.
00:13:06
Speaker
yeah And when I started working with Mahaloel, he was already doing this research related to invalidity of TRIR. And then that was kind of life-changing for me because you see, I'm coming from a cost construction management background. yeah And then my schedule is in numbers. My budget is in numbers. my Even my quality is in numbers. And safety is kind of there.
00:13:32
Speaker
also there's a number and i i mean i was one of those people who thought okay like injury rates are the safety numbers you know like they are they show us how safe we are nobody i didn't think about it twice yeah and i just want to back up for a second to repeat what you said it was that you had learned someone was working on the um the non validity of T a are I R I Yeah, yeah, I know. i' I'm having a hard time with my words and battling the stuff he knows today. um Yes. So, okay. Yes. Continue in case anyone did hear that piece like what?
00:14:15
Speaker
Invalid? Yes. Okay, please keep going. Yes. I cannot say it and anymore. I'll say one more, you know? Yeah. so Invalidity of TRR. Go to Google, write it down. There is a paper, free to access, peer-reviewed on ASSP Journal, I believe, PSJ. And it is truly...
00:14:36
Speaker
You got to stop and think about this. So there's a lot of like, you see, you may be a CEO, board member, safety director, safety manager, safety person, practitioner, whoever you are.
00:14:48
Speaker
The metrics you were using for the past 50 years from boardroom to lunchroom. Yeah. Total recordable injury rates are invalid. Mm-hmm. more. Mm-hmm. Like, they analyzed 3.2 trillion data points. It's, like, 3.2 trillion man-hours of data. Mm-hmm.
00:15:11
Speaker
And then they looked at the statistical relationships, and they they've seen that past TRIR doesn't predict future TRIR. Most importantly, they saw TRIR doesn't predict fatalities, which is our purpose, right? Eliminating CIFs.
00:15:28
Speaker
And it is almost completely random. Mm-hmm. So this statistical randomness issue is big, big problem. like My PhD is in predictive analytics. And the first task I was given is that, OK, build a predictive analytics framework. So then my question was, what am I going to predict?
00:15:49
Speaker
And the answer from the general environment was TRIR. And then Matt Hallowell comes with this paper saying that, nope, nope, it actually does not predict future performance.
00:16:00
Speaker
dang So as you can imagine, Alif is pretty pretty sad this point. Right. ah What am I doing here? But it does make sense because ti is very um limited.
00:16:14
Speaker
yeah And not only because it's statistically unstable over short periods of time, but it is also not very contextual. like you You can imagine two-inch cut to the finger is weighted equally as a fatality.
00:16:30
Speaker
Yeah. So you're looking at a TRR of 0.5, but you don't know if they are all medical cases or they're all serious injuries, you know? Right. So no contextuality captured, not very useful for SIF prevention.
00:16:44
Speaker
And of course, very like reactive. But whatever you captured last month stayed in last month. you This month is a whole new month. And safety these systems don't change that fast. I understand that.
00:16:59
Speaker
But it's really not related to the present. Like, how are we? What is our safety performance today? That that question was not answered. Mm-hmm. So going yeah back to... yeah oh yeah Yes, please. No, no, I was just going to... I'm probably jumping ahead. so you right like So how do you bring it to the future? And I have a feeling that's what you're going to talk about. Yeah, that's what I was going for. We need to bring it back to the present tense. And how do we do it? Well, the one idea was leading indicators.
00:17:29
Speaker
But leading indicators, as you know, there are things like safety practices. How many pre-job meetings did you have? How many drug tests you had? right like Metrics that are related to the safety performance, the things that you do in the name of safety.
00:17:44
Speaker
But I was thinking... It's a little bit too too much into the future, you know, because they are the things that you do, but they they don't have that sense of urgency.
00:17:56
Speaker
right Right. It doesn't really tell you what your safety performance is today is. It's just telling you
High Energy Control Assessments (HECA)
00:18:01
Speaker
what you do for safety. And the assumption is that if you do these things well, you're going to improve your safety performance.
00:18:09
Speaker
It is indirectly related, but it's not exactly what I was looking for. Right. Right. So then the idea come um about this new definition of safety, right?
00:18:23
Speaker
we We thought, okay, safety was defined as absence of injuries. So we designed these injury metrics and we counted the injuries. And that's kind of how we thought about safety before. Now, safety to Holnego will tell you that safety is presence of safeguards. Now, if safety is presence of safeguards,
00:18:44
Speaker
we can actually measure the presence of safeguards. And we don't. Okay. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. And then this idea of high energy control assessments came up, HECA, as it is um being told these days. It caught like wildfire.
00:19:07
Speaker
And the reason being is it is a systematic observation program, not like a a hundred page observation program, but a simple task. of going out there and looking at what is going to kill me, right stuff that kills me, high energy hazards, as we call them, and looking for controls that will counter those hazards if something were to go wrong.
00:19:31
Speaker
yeah And a systematic review of this in real time gave us tons of data about the safety system and the operational interface itself.
00:19:43
Speaker
It included hazard recognition. It included risk identification. It included aggregate results of what direct controls are good and what direct controls are missing and why. Well, the why part is still in in in work. But the the monitoring capacity and the answer we can get to, OK, how much risk are we accepting on a daily basis was there.
00:20:09
Speaker
okay And I would tell you that like direct control is very high bar control. It's a control that will counter a high energy hazard, a life-threatening hazard. And I don't want to go too much into literature. Describe what?
00:20:25
Speaker
Describe what high control means. Oh, direct control. Direct control. I'm sorry. Direct control. yeah Yeah. A direct control is a control that will counter a life-threatening hazard if it's installed, verified, and used properly. Mm-hmm.
00:20:42
Speaker
And it is not vulnerable to human error. So things like supervision, um cones, alerts, they will not be direct control simply because people make mistakes. Like human, a hop, like human performance tells us that people make mistakes.
00:21:00
Speaker
So any control that is dependent on human intervention is also vulnerable to this. yeah So a direct control is a type of engineering control that will stop the release of the life-threatening hazard onto a worker. that That is what a direct control is. And so would ah would a really so would a really simple example be like a GFCI? i No, tell more.
00:21:29
Speaker
um but so Oh, sorry, sorry. Ground fault circuit interrupter in in an outlet. So it's been engineered to trip out and cut off the electricity when a particular fault occurs so that people can't be electrocuted. Yes. Would that be like in ah a direct control type of engineering control? That would be a direct control that will counter an electrical hazard if it's automated. No human...
00:21:53
Speaker
needed Yeah, absolutely. Okay, such a good example. The classic example we give is like, for example, a fall from height hazard, the fall arrest systems or for restraint systems would be a direct control because if it's worn properly, and it's there, even though there's a mistake, or someone passes out, it will protect the workers life.
00:22:17
Speaker
Got it. Okay, good. and And I'll like, I don't want to get too much into it, but we have this whole literature that backs this up that starts from energy-based safety, right? Energy, contact with energy, like the physical high school energy, genetic energy, potential energy, hurts people.
00:22:40
Speaker
More energy means more hurt. Right. So that's why we call these things high energy. And direct controls are the controls that will counter these high energies.
00:22:53
Speaker
um And the literature includes, for example, incident investigations right from the lagging side. um Safety classification learning model from Edison Electric Institute. Recommend taking a look at it. It's very strong model. okay okay um And then this is kind of the next step of that.
00:23:12
Speaker
Pekka. Yeah, and say again what HECA stands for. a high energy gun control assessment. It's a systematic present tense review of high energy hazards and direct controls as they existed. It's more of an observation program.
00:23:27
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, and how do you how are people being taught... you know, for anyone who's listening, was like, hmm, this is a new, you know, I mean, this is fantastic, Dr. Ali.
00:23:43
Speaker
When people are thinking like, well, how do I teach people to ah observe? This feels like it's more it's more than observations. This feels like okay a new way to identify and think about risks and hazards. How do you teach people or more people to be able to identify risks and hazards in this using this method?
00:24:08
Speaker
That is such a good question.
Tools for Hazard Recognition
00:24:10
Speaker
And i this is not a sprint by any means. Yeah. there's ah like For a safety management system to be ready to ingest HECA, they unfortunately would need to build a lot of groundwork.
00:24:28
Speaker
Yeah. And I would start simply with an energy wheel. You you know the energy wheel, right, Jill? It's pretty popular. Yeah, and i saw you present it at NSC.
00:24:39
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it's super popular. It has been there for before I was born, probably. um I think it started in Chevron. um But it is simply hazard recognition tool that...
00:24:53
Speaker
encourages people to look for energy that they wouldn't normally see. And honestly, its performance in improving the hazard recognition is quite impressive. So I would start there if I'm brand new to to all of this, right? And it's it's really impactful, gets implemented on site quite easily. People put it on their trucks, on their hard hats. And it is a reminder for us humans that some of those energy hazards are very easy to see, right? Like fall from height, like the monkey brain, the amygdala is like, oh, I'm going to die. This is dangerous. We know those intrinsically, but some of them are not as easy to see, such as electrical hazards, yeah radiation, biological temperature, anything you cannot see or feel is going to be harder to remember. So that's kind of where I would start.
00:25:49
Speaker
The next step is the prioritization, right? Like our priority is serious injury and fatality prevention. So what are those life-threatening hazards across all of these hazards that we paid attention forever, right? So energy wheel includes everything.
00:26:09
Speaker
yeah like High energy hazards, those icons, the 13 icons, right? that I talked about earlier are the hazards that will kill you.
00:26:19
Speaker
so file I'll start with that. What is sticky? They call it, can we swear on this podcast? Be my guest. All right. I'm going be nice. You guys fill in the blanks. They call it sticky hazards. So they are stuff that kills you.
00:26:37
Speaker
o um And the site likes it because it also could be said in other ways. Okay. Got it. Okay. And then um I would start there. Like a sticky program is really impactful because it changes the conversation, right? The conversations used to be like, hello, good morning, everybody. Like while we're drinking our energy drinks in the morning, um wear your sunscreen, drink water, um watch for slip trips and falls and, you know, enjoy your day. Uh-huh.
00:27:13
Speaker
the conversation with sticky changes the prioritization, right? They start with what is sticky today. And that that means on this site, while we're doing this work, what is what can kill you today?
00:27:26
Speaker
Yeah. And that is arguably way more important than a simple slip, trip, and fall. Now, I do not ever say that like a slip, trip, and fall is a not important. We shouldn't pay attention to them. Mm-hmm.
00:27:40
Speaker
But we ask executives, right, like how many slip, trip and fall events you're willing to record in your TRIR in exchange for one life saved. Mm-hmm.
00:27:51
Speaker
And the answer to that question is all of them. Like if there is, there is no comparison between a life versus a, like a rolled ankle or something. Yep. Yep.
00:28:01
Speaker
Yeah. I really, I really love that framing. I mean, huh It may be morose for some, it, this is also how my mind works as a health and safety professional and always has like, what can kill you?
00:28:14
Speaker
What can kill you? Or as my, as my son used to say, when I was raising him, mom, You know, like all you talk about is the way that you can get killed doing any job. I'm like, uh-huh.
00:28:25
Speaker
Right. Absolutely. And that's such a fun land to walk because... When you get creative, literally anything can kill you. Right. You can die from a slip, trip, and fall.
00:28:38
Speaker
Sure. Sure. Sure. Yes. Yes. but But those icons are showing you the most likely ones that are statistically may kill you. Like the most likely scenario is a serious injury and fatality. Yeah.
00:28:52
Speaker
So there is research behind this one. And the the paper Hallowell wrote with his collaborators where they found a threshold at 1,500 joules.
00:29:06
Speaker
So anything more than that threshold, but the most likely result is a SIF. So that is kind of how the distinction is made. It's not an arbitrary distinction when I say high energy hazards.
00:29:19
Speaker
Makes sense. So it definitely helps there. So that would be the second step. Okay. In the meantime, the safety experts in your organization will need to get used to using sticky...
00:29:33
Speaker
and direct controls right so you can start with incident investigations that would be a very good start looking back like what kinds of high energy hazards you've seen what kind of direct control you've seen and then once this terminology is there and you know it your people knows it then maybe it's a good time to start introducing high energy control assessments hecka um I would say this is like a five-year journey.
00:30:01
Speaker
So um it it will take time and it is a whole different risk-based program that requires some prep work.
00:30:12
Speaker
It is easy, but it takes time to learn and digest. And this is also knowledge and systems that I'm just making an assumption here, gets into the minds and hands and hearts of every single worker. This isn't
Challenges in Safety Metrics
00:30:30
Speaker
just something for leaders, yes?
00:30:34
Speaker
um Correct. But within with a with a twist. yeah Okay, yeah, explain, please. yeah So, hacker, the hacker as a metric, is not really useful for workers.
00:30:49
Speaker
Because it it only makes sense at mass scale. right It's an aggregate observation that you do over and over and over so that the safety management can get an understanding of their risk profile.
00:31:03
Speaker
okay So it is more for the safety management there. However, the sticky and the conversations on direct controls are for the workers, also with the energy wheel. They're for the workers as well.
00:31:18
Speaker
And now the the big question out there is that what is for executives? Because executives in ESG, environmental, social um reporting, governance reporting, um they have been looking at TRIR forever.
00:31:36
Speaker
okay And now they're asking the question, okay, you said TRIR is invalid. Cool. here What are we going to look at? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And that is kind of the question that's out there. So I think we're pretty set on workers. So like for whatever we design for workers, they are focused, sticky focused, control focused, and that's kind of it, right? That is where hazard recognition is really important. Yeah.
00:32:08
Speaker
For safety management, there is HECAs, there is other metrics, there's severity-based lagging indicators, for example. I'll just throw it out there. If you're interested, go look it up. But there are all kinds of different metrics.
00:32:21
Speaker
But right now, I think the the real question that we're facing in our research is, okay, what is up there for executives? Because they demand a replacement for TRAR.
00:32:35
Speaker
Right. I mean, this is the age this is the age-old question, especially when the comfortable old shoe has always been that metric. Yeah. And honestly, they ask me, like, is Heka going to be the next TRIR?
00:32:48
Speaker
huh And what's your answer? Yeah. My answer is be careful. yeah Because HECA is an observation-based metric.
00:32:59
Speaker
Your people are going to go look at high energy hazards, look at direct controls, and they will report back um which ones are there, which ones are not there.
00:33:10
Speaker
And on average, when we do this analysis, we find that 40% of the direct controls are not there. So we every day, we kind of accept this 40% exposure and we depend on our training, we depend on our alternative controls. But I mean, if there's a minor mistake, somebody could actually get hurt significantly. So we know our risk portfolio.
00:33:36
Speaker
Imagine that turning into a benchmarking metric. your people will not report back anything. You'll get 100%
Ongoing Strategies and Innovations in Safety
00:33:46
Speaker
Heka's every day.
00:33:48
Speaker
So you'll not learn anything. yeah It's just, it will become it it will become um irrelevant, honestly, very, very quickly. So that's why we're trying to protect Heka and how it is defined and how it is reported and how it is used. um And I do not see it become a replacement for TIRR.
00:34:10
Speaker
You know, oh yeah oh then go ahead. I'm thinking about what you said about using Heka for present, like today, you know, today on the job site, dot, dot, dot.
00:34:27
Speaker
And it feels like there still has to be ah quite a bit of prevention work done because the today on the job site and what you discover and learn doesn't always mean that you can put in some sort of prevention strategy, especially if it requires engineering work.
00:34:51
Speaker
Yeah, Jill, you're so correct. like Sorry, my my i'm I'm absorbing and listening and I'm thinking this is going to work for some of the time, but it's not going to work for some of the big things.
00:35:05
Speaker
You're absolutely correct. We don't have direct controls for everything. I'll give you the easiest example. Sure. um There's a high energy hazard, um workers working right next to traffic on foot, like workers on foot next to traffic. Yes.
00:35:21
Speaker
And especially for utility work who are moving from location to location really fast. Well, we have cones, right? Right. But that's not going to stop anybody from going into a construction site.
00:35:34
Speaker
So that work zone management thing is a huge barrier. You wouldn't need a concrete barrier in between to be able to stop a vehicle driving into your work site.
00:35:47
Speaker
Right. Is it feasible? No. Is it easy? No. Is it expensive? Yes. so of course, we don't use it all the time. And that is a risk we accept.
00:35:58
Speaker
okay But at least now we know how many times we accept it. We know when, we know where. And then we have a lot of data to make the case that, hey, the developer, hey, the engineer, hey, the industry, this is a risk this is one of our biggest risks. If we're going to kill somebody on our worksites, it's probably because of this reason. Could you invent something that is lightweight, that is easy to put in place, that is going to protect our worksites? Exactly. So yes, yes, definitely. There are so many examples of this.
00:36:34
Speaker
um there are cases where we thought we were really great at and we're not. okay um Trenching is a high energy hazard we're observing that we thought we were amazing.
00:36:46
Speaker
That's exactly what I was thinking about. I was thinking about how many contractors actually have enough trench boxes for yeah with for all of the places that they're digging holes or how many have enough knowledge and equipment on the soil typing and the space to do yes yes please yeah you're exploding my mind i love this yeah And honestly, if you want to know more about the current industry data being collected, i would contact Edison Electric Institute because they're really at the forefront of of this this work. Say which institute again? Edison Electric Institute. They represent all of the investor-owned utilities on North America.
00:37:32
Speaker
Okay. And what they have done is after my PhD was done, like HECA was created for predictive analytics purposes. They took HECA and they really took it upon themselves to operationalize it.
00:37:47
Speaker
They created a rule book, they created data collection examples, all freely available on um on the internet. Wow. PowerToPreventSIF.com.
00:38:00
Speaker
And all of them is shared, but publicly open access. okay So they are right now collecting this data across u utilities. And they actually have a lot of learnings to share from that data. And the examples I've shared are from that um database that they're collecting. So yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of opportunity for innovation. And HECA has been a kind of a conduit for us to find out where those will be and how we can target. I mean, even Electric Power Research Institute, EPRI, is working collaboratively with EEI to understand some of these gaps and actually do research, engineering research, into some of these direct controls that seem to be missing, not feasible, um can be improved.
00:38:55
Speaker
Yeah. I know that when you when you presented um information on HECA at the and NSC conference this year, a friend of mine, an EHS friend of mine, had his whole yeah EHS staff in the room as you presented in that plenary session. And he called me a few days later and said, my team is so fired up.
00:39:17
Speaker
They want to institute and put in place everything that Dr. Alif talked about. And I mean, compliments to you. Congratulations. Thank you for coming up with something, you and your collaborators. If people are listening and they're like, how can I learn more about this? Do we go to the Alliance website at Boulder, the Construction Safety Research Alliance? and find more information there?
00:39:45
Speaker
um ah Yes, that's a way. You can always go to power2preventive.com. EI resources are also very good in the upper operationalization side of things. Okay.
AI and Predictive Analytics in Safety
00:39:56
Speaker
I'll do another shameless plug. Mahaloel just um has a new book, Energy-Based Safety. That would be a really good resource to read, just to see everything in one place. Mm-hmm.
00:40:10
Speaker
um But truly, all of this work is collaborative and open resource. so And there's a lot of different companies who are implementing, who are in the journey. i would recommend finding a friend first. right Reach out to the community, CSRA, EEI, AGA, Inga Foundation, EPRI, whoever closer you are closer to okay um getting somewhat involved in the community, I think would be a first step because everybody's very open. All of this is produced by the community and they would be the benchmarking support. They would be the kind of the shepherds of this work. So yes, we are like Mahaloel, myself, CSRA, we are there to support. We're there as, you know, um as resources but there's a lot more out there it's just a unfortunately it will take some effort as I'm reaching out um to get there and again i would not encourage anybody to try and implement HECA tomorrow
00:41:24
Speaker
here um It is definitely a journey. It will take time to build up um and for safety. Like it will change management is, I think we can talk for another three hours about that. But the first step is to find community um and start really reading the resources, Google it honestly, and you will find tons of stuff.
00:41:47
Speaker
h Thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah. where I don't know if this is the right time to ask this question or not, but where do you see ai artificial intelligence going in i mean as it relates to what we've been talking about or in general for the EHS practice?
00:42:12
Speaker
that's That's also a very good question, too. um I have mixed feelings about artificial intelligence. e And i don't think it is correct to talk about artificial intelligence as a like a kind of a blanket term, because there are so many different kinds of AI. um And honestly, I think all of them should be evaluated within their own impact and um availability and use and feasibility and etc.
00:42:46
Speaker
For my field, um I again, i specialize in predictive analytics. So AI for me is data intelligence, machine learning, um trying to find patterns in our safety data to show us reveal risks or intervention points. So That's where I am. And if you really want to, there is a machine learning paper I wrote a couple of years back about a framework that connects um business, project, and crew characteristics to HECA values. So like serious injury and fatality risk.
00:43:28
Speaker
And is it feasible to make that kind of predictive analytics work? And the answer to that question is yes. okay But um currently, in the in that that was a state of the art academic work. Industry, do they they do not have any database structures to support that kind of machine learning risk search algorithm because all of these systems live in different worlds and we need to be able to stitch our data back together and relate that with serious injury and fatality risk observations that we do and maybe for the future, also link that to the injury rates we have long term, and then create models based on that kind of data and intelligence. Unfortunately, though, again, these data sets are not ready, and they're not consistent.
00:44:28
Speaker
And unfortunately, again, they're not available. So for my metrics work, I'm not very, i don't i don't feel very prepared for the next stage of ai Yeah, I mean, it feels like as a subject matter expert, you would have to be unwinding so much to prove or disprove its validity.
00:44:51
Speaker
When it's pulled many different sources, yes? Definitely. And it's its meaning and its usefulness should also be tested. Because, like, for example, for HECA, people got super excited. And they said, okay, we're going to look at um picture data. And we will train the AI so that they can, you know, detect these high energy hazards before the workers. And then point them out to the workers so that they can, you know, see them better.
00:45:20
Speaker
Yeah. But what happened is that once that algorithm did that, workers... didn't really bother to look for more, right? They said, okay, AI found these four, so submit, yeah you know?
00:45:39
Speaker
And AI is not perfect. It definitely cannot see everything. I'm absolutely sure right now it doesn't have the sensors of Internet of Things capacity to recognize pressure, electricity,
00:45:53
Speaker
Etc. From a picture. sure So we basically. Ended up taking. um The workers. Kind of. um Job there. Of hazard recognition. Gave it to an AI who looks only at pictures. And called it a day. Now if that happens. It's absolutely not going to be meaningful or useful. It could hurt in the long run. yeah So maybe a better use of it would be a training. Like while you're training. Hecups or.
00:46:22
Speaker
using it as a like an assistant tool or something like that would have been better. Sure. But again, so many questions about this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah The human eye and our knowledge is so powerful.
00:46:39
Speaker
Except it's only, yeah. I don't know. I'm just running through all of the fatalities I've ever investigated in my 32 year career. And when I worked as an investigator with OSHA and the things that, yeah, the things that were predictable and the things that were unseen and, and all of that, all of that applied, you know, and ah so much of it had to do with lack of knowledge on the part of the person who unfortunately lost their life.
00:47:09
Speaker
Yeah.
Innovative Safety Thinking
00:47:11
Speaker
Yeah. I so agree. And I, people tell me like, so you're telling me HECA is going to be the answer to everything. And that is so not true. What I'm saying is that this risk thinking, the systems thinking, like how operations work as a system and how risks happen because our decisions in these operations. Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:36
Speaker
um can be seen. We can actually analyze it. And honestly, what you're saying related to unpredicted risks, fair, right? We cannot see everything. So Heka will not capture everything.
00:47:49
Speaker
Right. But these concepts can be embedded in prevention through design, right? and we can We can start thinking about it very early on. Yeah. We can embed them in our pre-job briefs, how we talk about the work before we start the work.
00:48:03
Speaker
Mm-hmm. um We can include them in our risk assessments. How do we actually write our procedures and standards so that we point out life threats before they actually even go to the site?
00:48:16
Speaker
So it's I think it's an overhaul and a change of mindset for serious injury and fatality prevention and that prioritization of CIFs.
00:48:27
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I mean, and you had said to me when we had a chat prior to the recording that we need to create systems so that people can make mistakes within them. Yeah, yeah. And people will always always make mistakes. like i I made like three, four, 30 mistakes since I started this podcast, right? Yeah.
00:48:50
Speaker
um Okay. ah Well, that's true though. This is human nature. And I think it is it is our engineer's pride to think that we can solve all of our problems looking at the system. So I don't think that is entirely true. That's what I would call an engineer's bias. Yeah, sure. um But there is so much work to be done on a systems level, on a risk level, on actually things that are happening level.
00:49:20
Speaker
Yeah. um So that we can design our systems better, create some room for failure when people make mistakes um and then try to protect their lives as they're you know doing the good work and going back to their families. So yeah I totally think that there's still a lot of room for research here and room for growth.
00:49:41
Speaker
Well, it sounds like the work of a lifetime, and I'm so happy that you are part of it and doing this work. And sounds like you landed in the perfect place in Boulder. For sure. And there's still, um for example, like things we didn't talk about. So I'm i'm mostly specialized on metrics and data systems. Yeah. But recently, our CSRA released research on decluttering safety, one of my favorite topics. Same word.
00:50:11
Speaker
ah Yeah, it isn't it so interesting? So what they've, and I'll probably butcher it, it's not my research, but we've got to ask Yakub and Matt and all of those great researchers.
00:50:22
Speaker
What they've done from, with my words, is, you know, safety builds layer over layer over time, like responding to incidents, contractors, subcontractors, clients having you different requirements, different safety requirements. forms. sure And over time, the safety management system becomes a clunky car who's like barely moving, but kind of going and everything's going okay. But you're really scared of taking anything away because the idea is that if you take like a little one bolt out, it's just going to fall apart.
00:50:58
Speaker
um They've done a systematic review of what these cluttered pieces look like and how can a safety professional assess and identify clutter in their safety management systems and then take those away systematically or how to improve them.
00:51:15
Speaker
Right. um And it's not like this is like this thing you're doing altogether in the industry is clutter. It doesn't say things like that because they say, oh what was it? One man's clutter is another man's gold.
00:51:33
Speaker
Different systems treat those differently. But I think this is a really good um kind of advancement because, again, the executives keep asking us about ah ROI, right? Return on investment. What is a safety return on investment? Yes. And it's an impossible task, right?
00:51:52
Speaker
Thank you for saying that because, but i mean, it's written about constantly, it's spoken about constantly, and then everyone's like, well, who but how do we measure it? What do we do? what are the yeah what are the date What are the data points?
00:52:06
Speaker
Yeah, and I've i've only seen like surface level evidence if if about it can be done. There's not enough data out there to create some generalizable results. But with this decluttering work I think they are on to something because maybe we cannot calculate our ROI of safety in general terms, but maybe we can calculate the effectiveness of safety programs in terms of risk mitigation.
00:52:36
Speaker
And then we can, you know, when we're decluttering, we can take those programs away that are actually not impactful, for example. Mm-hmm. But again, a lot more work to be done there. and we still need to think about what ROI means for us safety folks. Because again, i don't want to open that kind of worms, but it is over said, under done.
00:53:00
Speaker
it A hundred
Governance and Executive Alignment in Safety
00:53:01
Speaker
percent. A hundred percent. It is the bane of so many existence. Yeah. Everybody wants the quick fix and that's that's a culture problem.
00:53:12
Speaker
ah Yeah, that's not getting into the culture problem. I know, I know. You said you didn't want to talk about culture. Yeah, but I really want to talk about the the executive sides of these metrics because ah ROI ties to that, invalidity of TRIR ties to that, kind of like this structural governance issue that we're up against these days. Mm-hmm.
00:53:34
Speaker
um And that is about how ESG reporting how investors are evaluating safety in terms of injury rates still, yeah even though there's a lot of evidence against it.
00:53:47
Speaker
here um So the the problem is kind of exasperated by the subcontractor review process because, you know, TRIR is the is the apple of all eyes when you're you're going into a pre-qualification package. So there is a real systematic governance issue about how our metrics are being used.
00:54:10
Speaker
And i I had my you know good friend, Brad McLean, come up on the stage in our safety summit and said, like, okay, they say culture eats strategy um for breakfast. Well, the governance will eat your strategy for dinner, right? So how these metrics align on the executive side of things and investor side of things and contract side of things are going to be very, very important. So my kind of...
00:54:36
Speaker
broad call to this audience is that if this is a problem, if this is a heartburn for you too, really reach out to our community, um CSRA and ourselves and your executives, ask for resources. We have a ton to educate the executives specifically to really get them away from these injury rates who not really helping our conversation or the case of serious injury and fatality prevention. Mm-hmm.
00:55:05
Speaker
Actually, there's a new report published on the CSRA website under resources called Safety in the Boardroom Report. Mm-hmm. And it is, a I think, a 12-page summary of everything I talked about today to be kind of addressing the executive. So it's very concise, not very technical, but explains the problem really well and kind of puts questions in there so that they can ask their safety people better questions about their programs and so on.
00:55:37
Speaker
Oh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. um' I've had astute leaders ask me, like, how do I measure safety? How do i even hire for it? you know, but it's it still remains true that, you know, EHS profession is still this sort of unknown entity. Like, what do they really do? How do they do their job? it's not You know, it's not as widely understood as, say, accounting or nursing.
00:56:06
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. As a profession, like people don't get it. Like, what do you guys do? How do you do it? You know, but that's beautiful. Safety in the boardroom report. OK, that's something that we can put in the show notes as well.
00:56:20
Speaker
Yeah, it is open
Call for Collaboration in Safety Research
00:56:21
Speaker
access. Quite a nice effort by the board of CSRA, Board of Advisors, because they felt like they're fighting an uphill battle with their boards about this um about this kind of conversations around TRIR, around HECA, and especially HECA because the boards, the first thing they say, okay, I like HECA, let's put a 75% HECA should be our target.
00:56:47
Speaker
okay And when the boards say that, what do you think that happens? The heckas are a hundred percent. and If you're going to have a target in a hecka, you're, you're, you're going to basically break it. So kind of trying to educate, um, boards and CEOs and asking more, better questions and kind of adjusting their demands to what is empirically proven safety science versus what is tradition, ah Or just a good idea that somebody had, but long got forgotten, you know. a
00:57:23
Speaker
Beautiful, beautiful. what What else would you like to share today as we close out our time together? um Honestly, I think my closing thoughts will be around community because safety science is um really needed in this profession. um And if if you're an engineer, if you're a safety professional, if you're a manager, ah doesn't matter if you're from operations, from quality, or honestly from customer service of any kind.
00:58:00
Speaker
Everything we do is interconnected and it's a system of things. And safety cannot be standalone. So I really would encourage you to reach out these communities out there that are working on this and then getting involved on in different aspects where you're interested in and then help somehow. Because academic academics are not going to solve all of these problems alone, obviously.
00:58:27
Speaker
um Industry practitioners in their own companies cannot solve serious injur injury and fatality problem alone either. um this is This needs to be an unprecedented collaboration between industry, academia, research organizations, operations and safety and management.
00:58:47
Speaker
to kind of address this once and for all and finally be effective and um try to break that serious injury and fatality injuries line that didn't budge for the past 15 years and finally see a reduction in SIF rates. Hopefully that is that is the overall purpose. purpose What a beautiful call to action.
00:59:12
Speaker
And that's something that any one of us can do. Yeah, honestly. And reach out to us. We're always here as resources for sure. Yeah. And to be part of the community. i love it. Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. Dr. Alif, thank you so much for your time today, but more so your research. And how long have you been doing this research and working on at Boulder?
00:59:39
Speaker
um Actually, not long. I finished my PhD in 2022, been a consultant for two years. So I've been here as back to CSRA for a year now.
00:59:52
Speaker
Wonderful, wonderful. it's It's so vitally important for you and and all of the people who are your collaborators and colleagues at CSRA. Thank you so much for your work. I appreciate it, as does the community, I'm sure.
01:00:08
Speaker
Yeah, and thank you for helping us disseminate this great research. um we We couldn't have gotten this out if it wasn't for NSC, for you, for all of our um partners.
01:00:22
Speaker
trying to get the research out there. Well, i hope you come I hope you come back or send your colleagues when you have things that you want to share with the community. I'm happy to always host you here. Thank you. Of course. For sure. yeah Yes. And thank you all for spending your time listening today. And more importantly, thank you for your contribution toward the common good. May our employees and those we influence know that our profession cares deeply about human well-being, which is the core of our practice. If you aren't subscribed and want to hear past and future episodes, you can subscribe in iTunes, the Apple Podcast app, or any other podcast player you'd like.
01:00:56
Speaker
Or if you prefer, you can read the transcript and listen at hsi.com. We'd love it if you could leave a rating and review us on iTunes. It really helps us connect the show with more and more health and safety professionals like Dr. Ilou. Thank Special thanks to Emily Gould, our podcast producer. And until next time, thanks listening.