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#20: Get up on the roof or find a new job.
79 Plays6 years ago
Podcast series host Jill James talks to Robert, whose career in safety led him to the closely related discipline of risk management. Robert came to safety through a popular pathway—the trades, skilled labor. As a teenage apprentice electrician, Robert was struck by an arc flash. Then, as a carpenter, he slid off of a roof without any fall protection gear. After that, while clearing trees, a large log rolled up on him. Naturally, each incident let him to question the unsafe conditions of employment experienced by hundreds of thousands of workers, ultimately starting his journey in professional safety.
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Transcript
Robert's Accidental Journey into Safety
00:00:10
Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Pro, brought to you by Vivid Learning Systems, an HSI company. This is episode number 20. My name is Jill James, Vivid's Chief Safety Officer, and today I'm joined by Robert, who is risk manager with M3 Insurance, an insurance broker in Wisconsin. Welcome to the show, Robert. Thanks, Jill. I appreciate you having me. So Robert, I would like to hear your story like everyone else does. How did you accidentally fall into safety?
00:00:40
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I'll start off real early in life, started working on a farm when I was very young and, you know, did that until
00:00:49
Speaker
I got out of high school. Once I got out of high school, I got into construction. And so I was an electrician at first, became a carpenter later, and experienced some things that kind of led me towards safety.
The Arc Blast Incident: A Catalyst for Safety Awareness
00:01:01
Speaker
The first one as an electrician was my boss was trying to keep the power on for the company that we were working on one of the main panels. And, you know, it
00:01:13
Speaker
didn't work out how we had planned it. There was an arc blast and I experienced the auditory issues and the visual issues for a period after that arc blast. And it was really something that struck me as, I didn't realize how big of a deal it was until it happened. And something that I was amazed that I was not protected against, I guess at that point. Still not really knowing much about safety.
00:01:41
Speaker
Um, you know, moving, oops, sorry. Yeah. I'm curious to, I mean, I think let's, let's unpack that one a little bit. So at this point in your life where you, you're pretty young, I'm guessing. Yes, correct. And I'm 19 years old at that point. Yeah, right. And so you had likely never heard of what an arc blast is.
Unsafe Practices in Non-Union Apprenticeship
00:02:01
Speaker
No, and I honestly didn't know what it was called until I got into safety. Right, exactly. So you had, when I say unpack, let's unpack that piece just a little bit more. You had gotten into the construction trades as a, as a teen, it sounds like. And then did you, did you go to school to be an electrician or is this one an apprenticeship program or how did that work? So, um, it was a non-union apprenticeship.
00:02:26
Speaker
So a lot of the companies I worked for early in construction were non-union, smaller outfits. So there was a lot less there for safety.
00:02:36
Speaker
Yeah, right, and so your boss, now this doesn't sound, hmm, let's see, how do we say this? This doesn't sound out of the ordinary for someone to not wanna turn off power and work on live parts, right? Correct, yep. It's not the correct choice, but sometimes it's what happens, right?
00:02:57
Speaker
Yeah, and I think, you know, even if you are going to work on live electricity, there's some things that you can do from a PPE perspective to protect yourselves. But I don't know that he was even aware of that, honestly. Right, right. Yeah, I've had the same same experience in my career with with different trades as well, not fully understanding all of the risk associated with the job. And so just before we move on, in case someone who's listening isn't familiar with arc blast,
00:03:27
Speaker
Do you want to explain what that is from your perspective now the thing that you didn't know when you were 19? Yeah, absolutely. So it's kind of like a lightning bolt. I like to think of it that way where energy is jumping from one place to another. And typically, this is on an electrical panel bus bar or on some of the wires connecting.
00:03:47
Speaker
And basically there's a gap and that electricity jumps, which creates light and heat. So it's, it's something that, you know, on a 120 volt, your, your house outlet, it's gonna arc, but it may not be severe. And when we talk about, you know, we start getting up into the higher amperages and voltages, that's where, you know, I've even seen video of somebody getting vaporized essentially by that. So that's my, my take on it.
00:04:16
Speaker
Yeah, right.
Carpentry Incident and Employer Attitudes on Safety
00:04:17
Speaker
And so when the arc blast happened to you, and you're 19 years old, were you standing in front of like a breaker panel? Correct. Yeah. And so you said the the sound of the blast affected your hearing, were you burned at all? I was not. So I was wearing leather gloves. And my boss was smart enough at the time to have me turn away from the panel. So I was not burned. The gloves were charred.
00:04:47
Speaker
But that was really scary. Yeah, and I think it wasn't something that was immediately scary because of the reactions of the people around me. It seemed like it was commonplace or it wasn't that big of a deal. But of course, now I understand how serious it could have been. Right, exactly. So you experienced some problems with your hearing. Did it have lasting effects?
00:05:11
Speaker
It did not. Um, I haven't been tested, you know, with an audiogram or anything like that, but, um, I don't have permanent tinnitus or anything like that. Yeah. Wow. What a lesson at 19 years of age. So not yet. And I'm interested to hear like, where did this take, where did this take you next? And when did the safety lights start turning on? I'm guessing maybe it took a little bit longer.
00:05:34
Speaker
It did. It took a few more brushes with death. Oh gosh. So after that, yeah, keep going. You were saying something about carpentry.
00:05:45
Speaker
Yeah, and so after the electrical debacle, I'll call it, started getting into carpentry, you know, everything from stick framing to roofing, siding, windows, just kind of the whole gamut there. And, you know, there was an incident where I slid off a roof, so we never wore fall protection on roofs. You know, some of the residential roofs can be pretty steep and, yeah,
00:06:11
Speaker
was one of those occasions where you slip, you catch yourself. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal at the time. But when you start thinking about what could have happened, it really, really sinks in. Right. And that, you know, continued where, you know, we're not we're not using guarding, we're not using PP, that's just kind of that, you know, again, non union small shop.
00:06:34
Speaker
The employer was not aware of safety regulations and things like that. There were even instances where, you know, we do know about some things for safety. Fall protection, for example, I brought to his attention.
00:06:48
Speaker
and was not something that he wanted to purchase anything for. So it was kind of, you know, get up on the roof or find a new job. I think that's one of the attitudes that stood out to me as a real problem as I got into safety. That's one of the biggest barriers.
00:07:05
Speaker
Yeah, it is. Agreed. And unfortunately, it seems, I don't know, I guess I don't want to diss the construction trades because there are so many that are doing such a great job. However, my experience, particularly with OSHA and keeping in mind that we were targeting employers who were being more risky than others as well.
00:07:33
Speaker
My experience was with people primarily who had that kind of attitude. It was a cost center. It slowed work down. It was that safety stuff. Insert any cliche you want makes work more dangerous because I'm agile on my feet. Whatever cliche you want to insert, it sounds like you experienced it all as a really young person working in the trades.
00:07:59
Speaker
Yeah, and I would say there's two angles there. So from the employer's perspective, we got to get the job done. Just get up there and get to work. But there's also the attitude that I grew up with. And it may be a Wisconsin thing. It may be a construction thing. I'm not really sure. But just that.
00:08:21
Speaker
kind of like beat your chest, I can do it anyway, I don't need a harness, I can just get up there and do it. So there's the perspective from the employees just wanting to be hard and get things done, but there's also that employer side as well. And when you combine those two, it just does not lead to safety. Yeah, right. Yes. So where did your road take you next?
Educational Shift to Safety and Environmental Science
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah, so there was a number of injuries with different employers. I had a ecological restoration company, I'll call it, that I worked for. And we were doing some tree clearing and invasive species clearing, working at the bottom of a hill. Someone rolled a log down the hill.
00:09:05
Speaker
I was standing in front of the wood chipper and the log hit me in the back of the leg. Luckily, I fell down to the ground rather than forward. It was a pretty big log. So that was something that pushed me more towards evaluating what I was doing with my life. Literally. Yeah. I just continued to experience these things throughout my career of
00:09:33
Speaker
it just doesn't seem like that's the right way to do it. Or I felt like the employer really didn't care about me and that just kind of pushed me forward, I guess I would say. So then I had herniated discs that I'm not sure where they resulted from. I worked for an asphalt company and we used to load 550 pound machines into the back of a truck without a lift gate and things like that.
00:10:01
Speaker
had a pretty serious pull in my back and went to the doctor. And there were two herniated discs there. There was a mild effacement of the cord, not serious enough to do surgery, so recovered without surgery. And I thank God for that. Surgery is never the answer, in my opinion, unless it's an emergency surgery.
00:10:28
Speaker
which then led me to go back to work, definitely took a little bit more care for my back in that scenario. But, you know, all the walking I was doing for that asphalt company led my hip to have problems. And part of it was a genetic problem where the joint and the bone in the hip was formed a little bit differently. And so there was some wear and tear and ultimately,
00:10:56
Speaker
I needed a resurfacing of my hip. So I had that resurfacing surgery and kind of went through the process of recovery, which was a couple months. And during that couple months, I was almost, I wouldn't say bedridden, but I was on the couch for the most part.
00:11:15
Speaker
And really started to think back on some of these things where I nearly got blown up with an arc blast. I nearly got electrocuted. I nearly broke my leg with a log coming down the hill. The wood chipper, yeah. Yeah. And so I started thinking, where does this lead? In two months when I get back on my feet 100%,
00:11:38
Speaker
Where am I going to be? And I think that's what really made me evaluate going back to school. And safety was still not on my mind at this point, surprisingly. Because I think it's not something that's talked about in school, growing up in middle school, high school, those types of things. Yeah, you don't know it's an option. You don't. You don't. Unless you investigate it on your own, it's not something that's brought to your attention.
00:12:08
Speaker
And so in investigating colleges in the area, investigating careers, and really trying to do a good job of forethought and planning, I actually ended up signing up to go back to school for
00:12:23
Speaker
um, environmental science. And so just something that I've always been an outdoorsman. I always liked the outside. Um, it made sense from, I might like my job perspective. Yeah. A reason to get out of bed in the morning. Yeah. Other than the paycheck. Yep. Yep. And so I found that, um, in starting to take the classes that it was maybe not exactly what I was thinking. Um, it was something that, uh, maybe I needed to consider a little bit further.
00:12:53
Speaker
And it was brought to my attention that they had a real strong safety program. This is at UW Whitewater now. And I went in and talked to Dr. Todd Lucine, who you've had on the show before. We sure have. Yeah. Great, great guy. I love that guy.
00:13:10
Speaker
And just kind of got a better idea of what is safety? What does it mean? Really, at that point, elementary understanding, OSHA. There's regulations that employers have to follow and employees need to be safe. They need to come back home the way they went in. And that really struck me to thinking back again on what had happened to me. And I thought, gee,
00:13:36
Speaker
If I could make a difference in one person's life, i.e. they don't have a back surgery or a hip surgery, they don't have back problems, if I could just make one difference, I think that would be worth it.
00:13:51
Speaker
And so I started down that path. Uh-huh. You know, it seems like, Robert, the universe, if you believe in the universe giving you signals or nudges, the universe was pushing you
Internships and Exposure to Safety Industry
00:14:03
Speaker
so hard. Absolutely. You know, I mean, like literally a blast, a fall, a surgery, like a hard stop lay on the couch. We need to do a reevaluation. You know, you're thinking back about what's happened to you up until this point of your, you know, young life.
00:14:21
Speaker
Yep. And where are you going? So congratulations to you on listening to the universe finally, though. It took some really big emphasis, it sounded like. Yeah, I think the next step would have been I wouldn't have made it. Right? Well, we're happy you're here. So you're at UW-Whitewater. You decide to make a shift from environmental science into safety?
00:14:49
Speaker
Yep. OK. And I think, you know, honestly, you know, the program there is excellent. So the classes I was was taking initially were really opening my eyes to things. But it wasn't until I got more involved with the student safety organization and started spending some more time with Dr. Lucine that I really started to see the opportunities open up.
00:15:17
Speaker
like what would it mean as a job you know being able to see what that might look like is that what you're talking about yeah absolutely and so I think you know early on again it was okay I'm gonna be OSHA or I'm gonna be you know a huge corporate a huge corporation needs a safety person for if OSHA is coming in or to make sure that they're
00:15:37
Speaker
up to compliance and things like that. So real basic understanding of what it meant. Yeah, I think that's where lots of us start out when we when we think about that. Not uncommon.
00:15:50
Speaker
Yeah. And so the exposure, I think is what really pushed me to explore and get more involved in safety. Um, you know, I would say if it wasn't for Dr. Lucine at that point in my life, I probably would have, um, you know, gotten a degree and gotten a job in safety. And that would have been.
00:16:09
Speaker
you know, probably the extent of it. But, you know, I really got involved in organizations and mentoring and a lot of other things that really led me, you know, down the last part of my path to where I am today.
00:16:25
Speaker
I was encouraged to explore internships, and not just one internship that's required for the program, but I took, I think, three different internships before I accepted a position.
00:16:40
Speaker
I got fantastic. Yeah, I got a lot of exposure. And I think the way I went about it was to go into manufacturing and safety. So I worked with Oshkosh Defense, defense contractor here in Wisconsin. I then worked for a construction company, Hooper Corporation in Madison, Wisconsin.
00:17:02
Speaker
mechanical contractor and then my third internship was with M3 and so I kind of got that full exposure of you know general industry construction and then the insurance side of it which I think is a bit of an emerging piece to safety so that I think you know the exposure again I've heard a lot of people preach about it on on the show here but
00:17:27
Speaker
You really have to take advantage of opportunities. You really have to go outside your comfort zone and get exposure to things to know if you like them or not. Exactly. And so those three internships, were they all paid?
00:17:40
Speaker
They were, they were. So it allowed you some flexibility during that time to check all of them out. And what a bright thing for you to do. It probably took me different places of my career. I would stop when I'm going to make a job change and ask myself, what do I really want? But I think it wasn't until about
00:18:05
Speaker
five years ago and I've been in the field 23 years so you did this very early good for you where I really took stock of you know looking across all the industry types and asking myself
00:18:17
Speaker
Which one do I really, which one do I really love? Which one really gets me, gets me excited to want to contribute to and, you know, kind of had that conversation with myself for my next job. And you did that coming right out of school. Nice work. Thanks. Yeah. I mean, it was something that, um, you know, kind of again, a path that was laid in front of me, um, worked with Oshkosh defense and,
00:18:43
Speaker
you know, frankly, that's a world class safety program up there. So that was great. And actually, my boss who worked there, who hired me there went to Hooper Corporation, and I followed him there. So, you know, it's one of those things where the exposure was awesome, it led me down another path, and ultimately led me here.
00:19:06
Speaker
Yeah, right. And so what was it like when you did that internship and construction, assuming that corporation kind of had their safety stuff together? What was that like for you to see it being done well compared to what your early experience had been?
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah, I would say that even with Oshkosh Defense, but particularly with the construction, the attitudes were completely different. So the mentality of we've got to get it done, just get up there and start roofing. That was not the mentality there. They truly cared about each other. Yeah. And it was eye opening to me that that
00:19:51
Speaker
there was a possibility that construction was that way. For a long time, I had, in my brain, rationalized that this is the construction attitude, get it done. We don't really care about your personal life. And I think that really changed my perspective. Yeah, good. Good. Yeah, like I said, there are people who are doing it well. There's companies that are doing it well. I'm happy that you had that experience. Yeah, it was great.
Role as Risk Manager and Importance of Insurance Brokers
00:20:19
Speaker
So M3, insurance broker, tell us about what that's like from a day-to-day basis. I'm not sure we've had anyone in the insurance industry on the show before, so set that stage for us. Tell us what it's about. Yeah, absolutely. So the difference, I think the important to
00:20:37
Speaker
to call out here is an insurance carrier actually writes the insurance. The insurance broker, we're basically partnering companies with the right insurance carrier. And so my role in loss control or risk management is a lot different than on the carrier side. My day to day varies so much. And that's one of the things I love about my job.
00:21:02
Speaker
You know, sometimes I'm answering a quick email question about when do I need to post my OSHA log. Other times I'm doing training in front of 300 to 500 people. Other days I'm just having a planning meeting based on losses.
00:21:22
Speaker
Here's what we project your mod factor to be over the next year. And here's where I think you should focus your efforts. Here's a few things I think you could do. So really, it's a consulting role. And I think the flexibility to.
00:21:40
Speaker
You know, not be under a safety budget at a company, not be housed inappropriately in the corporate structure of a company. I don't have those challenges that a lot of people in safety have. But I get all the benefits of being able to help people who really want help.
00:21:56
Speaker
Yeah. So Robert, I think it would be so wonderful if you wouldn't mind to take some time with our audience now to explain a little bit more of that work as a risk manager and as a broker. When you're working with companies or when you're working with other safety professionals within companies, you know, you already threw out a couple of things. You're helping them project with their mod rating as their experience modification rating, which is going to
00:22:25
Speaker
set the tone on what their premiums are going to be. You have the ability to really help coach safety professionals or company owners on how to reduce cost. And I don't think it's something that all safety professionals know they have access within their brokerage firms. So can you maybe talk about how you help them and what that means from even building a business case?
00:22:52
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, at M3, we have a very robust risk management team. Not all brokers have, you know, what we have a dedicated risk manager to the account. And the benefit that that provides us is that we're able to, we have a data analytics team. So a team that is literally taking your work comp losses,
00:23:17
Speaker
you know, as far back as we want to take them and doing trending analysis. And that really helps guide me to guide the company. And I think there's a lot of options as far as what we can be used for. But really, our bread and butter is you've got a sticky situation, a tough situation. Your mods been increasing or whatever it might be. You can't figure out how to guard a machine.
00:23:45
Speaker
That's really where we come alongside and partner with people to come up with innovative solutions based on our experience across the industry. So we're really housed in industries. For the most part, I'm somewhat of a generalist. But we do get the opportunity to partner with people on those tough questions as well as, when do I post my OSHA log?
00:24:09
Speaker
Right, right. Yeah, and so you had mentioned data analytics, and you're able to do that for a safety professional. So if you have a client who's like, gosh, I wish I had some data to show my management structure, to maybe move the dial on something, to ask for funding for training, or redoing a process, or machine guarding on something, and I need some statistics.
00:24:38
Speaker
You can do that for them. And they just simply need to ask. Yep, absolutely. And I think, you know, both safety professionals and a lot of who I deal with is maybe HR or they don't have a specific safety person. So there's multiple hats there.
00:24:54
Speaker
Yeah, but the the loss run data analysis is I think often overlooked in safety as a good way to provide motivation to do some of those things you talked about to improve safety to show that, you know, hey, if we can reduce slips, trips and falls by, you know, 20 percent or 80 percent or whatever we might do by doing these three things, here's the expected
00:25:22
Speaker
you know, return on investment that we're going to have. And being able to articulate that and actually show the data analysis, I think is something that more safety professionals should be aware of. I think that's one of those things that people kind of miss. Yeah, so anyone listening, remember to reach out to your insurance broker if you have one. And insurance lines as well can provide data analysis to two companies too.
00:25:52
Speaker
And so you do everything as a risk manager from what we just talked about with data, but you also go into companies, you may be providing training, you might be going in to specifically look at a particular instance that someone's having trouble with, like, I need another set of eyes on this. Do you also provide industrial hygiene services too?
00:26:14
Speaker
Yeah, so we have a certified industrial hygienist on staff. We do, I do perform the monitoring and then, you know, get it reviewed by that CIH. So we do, you know, noise, air sampling.
00:26:29
Speaker
just about anything when it comes to industrial hygiene. We also have, you know, force pull meters and all sorts of good gadgets to kind of give us a better idea of where the problem lies from a technical perspective.
00:26:44
Speaker
Yeah, right. So talk about, if you don't mind, you know, when we, as safety professionals are always looking for help, we need help because the job is complex. And I've often given people advice to go to their insurers, to go to their brokers, to get this kind of help because there are normally not fees associated with most of it, correct? Because you're already paying a premium?
00:27:11
Speaker
Yeah, that's correct. And it depends on the carrier. It depends on, you know, the size of the company and the premium and things like that. But I would say that's a fair statement that most of the time it's not going to be an additional cost.
00:27:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I know that in the last job I had in safety, I needed some industrial hygiene monitoring done, specifically a study on hexavalent chromium in a welding area. And I'm not an IH and I don't have the equipment. And so I reached out to my insurance broker.
00:27:42
Speaker
who was able to provide that service. And I know there was a nominal fee associated with it, but it was much less than going and trying to find my own IH to do it. And so it was something that was, I could easily convince the management structure to do and then work with my broker. Yeah. Yeah. And then you've got a partner too that is not going to just give you the results and say, good luck.
00:28:07
Speaker
Or yes, you need a respiratory protection program. Good luck. We really partner from beginning to end to evaluate, do we need to do IH monitoring? Does it make sense? If so, what type of monitoring do we need to do? Okay, here are the results. Here are some things that I would recommend that you do. Here are some costs associated with that. And so really, you know, from start to finish, you may not know that you have an issue, but we're going to take you step by step, show you that.
00:28:35
Speaker
there is or isn't an issue, show you what you need to do about it, and then help you implement that. So I think that's the benefit of using a broker. Just the experience across 75 or 100 companies that we work with each.
00:28:50
Speaker
can really give us some good ideas that maybe most people aren't using or thinking of. Yeah, and in the insurance world and in the insurance broker world, I know that you have specific frequencies that you're going to reach out to a company to offer assistance. But if it's a safety professional listening now and they want to reach the other direction and reach toward you, do you have a recommended frequency that, you know,
00:29:17
Speaker
to provide help with them? Is there a limit or is there a recommendation? I would say that there's not really a limit, at least from M3's perspective, we're really trying to partner with clients. We really want to make them better and be a good partner in all aspects. So we don't have a limit per se. I think recommended, we like to touch base quarterly and it really depends on the frequency of claims if we don't have
00:29:45
Speaker
You know, only a handful of claims. It probably doesn't make sense to touch base that often, but, you know, we typically recommend at least quarterly claim reviews and then annually we go over the big picture to say, okay, here's last year in a nutshell. What do we need to be paying attention to?
00:30:03
Speaker
Right, right, right. Well, this is good information. And my intention wasn't to make it into an insurance show. However, I think it's really important that safety professionals, anyone who's working in workplace safety, knows that this is really a viable and important resource with risk managers and loss control people in the insurance world to be another helping hand. Because let's face it, we all need
00:30:32
Speaker
We all need a little bit of help every once in a while, and sometimes more than others, depending on what we're doing and what we're challenged with. Yeah, and even very high functioning safety professionals, it never hurts to get another set of eyes on things.
00:30:46
Speaker
Yeah, agreed. Agreed. So Robert, tell us about, you were saying what a great benefit it was for you to have Dr.
Engagement with Safety Councils and Continuous Learning
00:30:56
Speaker
Lucine as a mentor and some of the organizations that you were introduced to. Tell us about what's that like for you now in this phase of your career? Are you still part of organizations? Are you still seeking out mentors?
00:31:10
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's something that, um, I'll probably do the rest of my life. Um, you know, active in the Wisconsin safety council, the ASSP used to be ASSE, um, on a risk management committee for that Wisconsin safety council and, and often, um, partner M3 partners with OSHA on a lot of things and.
00:31:33
Speaker
um, doing construction breakfast and things like that. So I'm always, um, trying to meet new people and learn new things. I guess I would phrase it that way. Um, and it's, it's never been something that's been negative to me. Um, you could say, you know, a little bit of nervousness going into present in front of 300 people, right? But ultimately it's never been something that's been detrimental to me. So I think, you know,
00:31:58
Speaker
It's if it's always positive, I'm going to keep doing it, right? That's right. That's right. I think it's important that people do that throughout their career and especially starting early in school, like we had previously talked. But I think anybody that gets into a box and isn't looking outside of that box is not going to do well. As things change, you're not aware of them as new ideas come out.
00:32:25
Speaker
You're not a part of them. Those types of things can really be detrimental to a safety person's career. The dreaded getting stuck in the safety coordinator role for 10 to 15 years.
00:32:40
Speaker
You really circumvent that by getting out there meeting people You'll improve your knowledge and potentially your career And so when you get stumped as we all do Yeah, right because we never know at all. What are what are your? Resources, where do you usually go for help? Yeah, that's an awesome question and and I would say
00:33:04
Speaker
You know, nobody knows everything. To try and remember the 1910, every line in there, you're going to have a hard time with it. So, you know, typically my first reach out is, it depends on where we're going with it. If it's an OSHA question, obviously, I'm going to go to the CFR and try and find an answer in there.
00:33:25
Speaker
I've got some great mentors at M3 that have been in the industry for a long time and have a lot of knowledge. So that's another resource. But I think one that I would encourage employers to use more if they don't have a broker that they can reach out to is just calling OSHA.
00:33:43
Speaker
Um, there's, it's something that, you know, most people are afraid to call OSHA. They think, well, they've got caller ID and now they're going to come visit my site or something like that. Yeah. And they can't do that. They can't. And you know, they, I think at least my experience with the Wisconsin OSHA, um, in the local OSHA offices, they, they just want to help. They're not there to penalize you. Um, it's, it's really focused on worker health and safety. And if you're reaching out, um,
00:34:12
Speaker
It's a great resource. They're not going to penalize you for it. Wonderful. Yeah.
Impact of Early Experiences on Current Role
00:34:19
Speaker
Yeah. So when it comes to that first part of your early working career and all the risks that you experienced and near misses and some things that were harmful to you, how do you think that informs how you do your work today? Do you sometimes lean back into those times
00:34:42
Speaker
Yeah, and I would I would say from the perspective of understanding what it's like to wear foggy safety glasses. So that perspective of having been an employee on that level, I think gives me a different perspective in that, you know, if I'm wearing safety glasses that are 50 cents, they're fogging up on me all the time. It's more of a hazard.
00:35:09
Speaker
for me to wear them than it is to not wear them at that point. And some of the psychology behind why people do what they do when they're working hard and they're exhausted and those types of things I think
00:35:24
Speaker
are very helpful and I draw on a lot in my career. Because a lot of my job is not just working with CEO, CFO, safety director, HR, but really bridging the gap between employees and those people. And I think that that's a skill that not every safety person has.
00:35:46
Speaker
If you haven't worked in the industry, you really can't understand what those people are going through on a day to day basis. And so you can't prescribe solutions if you don't know the whole picture.
00:36:00
Speaker
Yeah, Robert, how do you when you're when you're on a site on a work site with someone or in a company with someone, and you're in your with employees, how do you build your credibility with them? I mean, do you often tell your story about where you where you came from and what you've done? Or how does that look? How does that work for you?
00:36:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's actually probably my 30 second elevator speech that I do. You know, depending on the situation, but in trainings, when I'm talking to employees, that's something that I always start out with how I got into the industry, that I understand what their job entails, I've been there, I've done that. And I think it provides
00:36:42
Speaker
a better attention from employees when I'm talking to them that, hey, this just isn't just an insurance guy. Because I've heard that before, right? Yeah. You're just a fancy insurance guy. You don't know what's going on. But I think that helps them understand that I do. And I get it. I get it's tough to wear safety glasses when they fog up.
00:37:05
Speaker
go home at the end of the day and you are so physically exhausted that you eat dinner and fall asleep on the couch. I think that really helps get them to be more open to what I'm saying. Well, Robert, you're still pretty new in your career. How many years have you been at this now with safety? I think I'm coming up on five years this year, including all internships and things like that.
Future of Safety Industry: Millennials and Automation
00:37:34
Speaker
Yeah, right. So what do you see for our profession going forward?
00:37:40
Speaker
Yeah, and I think this is a good question that has a lot of answers, but I think the biggest things that we're going to start to see is obviously with millennials coming in, what you can get away with from a lack of safety, I'll say, is a lot less. Millennials aren't putting up with, you know, 60 to 80 hour work weeks. They're not putting up with having their stick their hand inside of a cardboard baler without locking it out.
00:38:09
Speaker
So I think that's going to be a big change in the industry and I think that will lead to automation, which is going to provide a whole other set of safety problems if we're working on computerized equipment and robots and things like that. So we'll see the need for a PPE program will probably go down quite a bit.
00:38:32
Speaker
Um, cause we'll only have a couple employees there, but, uh, when we do lockout tag out, there's going to be a lot more involved on that side of it. So I think that's, those are two big things that are going to conjoin and really impact not just safety, but really the working world and that, you know, everything that we do every day. Yeah. Interesting perspective in that you feel that millennials maybe are more risk intolerant than other generations.
00:39:00
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that goes back to when we first started talking about the kind of beat your chest. I'm just going to get it done. I'm a tough guy attitude that has been an inhibitor towards safety for a long time. And I think I'm starting to see that change where.
00:39:16
Speaker
They don't have to be the toughest guy on the job site. They just want to go home with all their fingers and toes. You know what I mean? Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's completely noble, normal, and appropriate to want to go home with all of your digits. And I think when you look at the world compared to the United States, that's more commonplace.
00:39:40
Speaker
We're not overworking people. We're not putting them in dangerous situations. And then you come back to the United States, and it's still that wild west of we're trying to move towards safety, but there's still a lot of people that are behind on it.
00:39:55
Speaker
Yeah, interesting, interesting perspective. So maybe as we round out our time today, as someone who was in the trades and decided to go to school for safety, anything you'd say to someone who's maybe needing to make a change in the trades and someone in their world is going to share this podcast with them.
00:40:16
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I would say just start exploring. So go to an OSHA construction breakfast. Go talk to your insurance broker about what that risk manager's or loss control person's job is like. See if you can job shadow. I frequently do that with students where they'll just come out and see what a day would be like. I don't think that you can go anywhere in life without exploring your options.
00:40:45
Speaker
think that you're in a box and you can't get out and you just continue to do your work inside of that box, you're never going to progress.
Encouragement for Tradespeople to Enter Safety Careers
00:40:54
Speaker
So I think the only way you do that is by exploring, getting experiences. That's really the best option.
00:41:02
Speaker
learning into those, leaning into those mentors and finding them, asking for help. Well, Robert, this has been such a joy to have you on today. And I also wanted to give a shout out to University of Whitewater for producing so many great safety professionals, including yourself and the mentorship you received from our friend, Dr. Lucine, always appreciate that too.
00:41:29
Speaker
Yeah, they do a great job over there. Yeah, continue to improve. Yeah. And thanks for explaining the insurance world to our guests today. And so people can remember that that's really a resource for us to help us do our jobs. Yeah, absolutely. Glad to provide some light on that subject. Thanks so much, Robert. Appreciate it. Thank you.
00:41:50
Speaker
And thank you all so much for joining in and listening today. And thank you for the work that you all do to make sure your workers, including your temporary workers, make it home safe every day. You can listen to all of our episodes at vividlearningsystems.com or subscribe in the podcast player of your choosing. If you have a suggestion for a guest, including if it's you, please contact me at social at vividlearningsystems.com. Until next time, thanks for listening.