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120: Four Pillars of Employee Wellbeing
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This week, Jill sits down with a truly accidental safety professional. Catherine West now serves as senior director of global health and safety for a business consulting company, but she never intended to get into this industry. After deciding to leave her sales role, she quickly discovered an unexpected love for safety, where she gets to work closely with employees to better their experience and the workplace. Tune in to hear her discuss the four key pillars of employee wellbeing, learn about some of the programs she has implemented to support those needs, and find out why she thinks a “culture of caring” is crucial to workplace safety. Also discover some advice she has for safety professionals on tying personal factors into employee health and safety!
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Pro brought to you by HSI. This episode was recorded September 4th, 2024. My name is Jill James, HSI's Chief Safety Officer, and today my guest is Catherine West.
Catherine West's Background
00:00:23
Speaker
Catherine is currently Senior Director of Safety and Health for a global company.
00:00:28
Speaker
She's a compassionate and inclusive leader who provides visible leadership to successfully implement transformational initiatives and programs to advance culture development and strategy, which is why I asked her to come here today. Catherine is active with the National Safety Council serving on their delegates committee to the board of directors.
00:00:48
Speaker
and is a member of the women's division at NSC. She supports their DEI scholarship efforts, helping to obtain resources to provide scholarships for underrepresented suit students, pursuing a degree in the EHS and safety related fields. Catherine joins us today from Tennessee.
Meeting at OHS Summit
00:01:08
Speaker
Welcome to the show, Catherine. Thank you, Jill. I really appreciate being asked and it's a pleasure to be here.
00:01:15
Speaker
Yeah, I'm so happy that we were able to meet one another. We met um about a year ago at an OHS Leaders Summit and you were on the stage and I thought, oh my gosh, I've got to know this woman and learn more from her and you are such an impactful speaker. um I'm just so thrilled that that we're able to do this today. Well, I appreciate that warm introduction and the the ah the compliments there, but you were the one absolutely nailing it as the moderator for that conference. And I too was equally as impressed and wanted to get to know you better. So it was a win-win. Thank you. that was a That was a big leap for me. I had never mc i never had MC'd a conference before that day. And so um that was
00:02:06
Speaker
That was a big stretch and I'm about to do it again starting this week. Well, you couldn't tell. You look like a pro. Thank you. Thank
Catherine's Journey into Safety
00:02:16
Speaker
you. So, Katherine, what is your origin story? he ah home How did you find your way into this profession? Well, it's pretty interesting because the title is the Accidental Safety Pro and that totally fits.
00:02:33
Speaker
You hear people say, I aspired to be a safety professional, or I knew early on, or this was a career choice. Yeah, no, that's not me. I never once said, oh, I want to go into and I'm going to aspire to be a safety professional. It is something I'd literally stumbled into by chance.
00:02:54
Speaker
But once I stumbled into it, I found that I actually loved it and I've made a couple of attempts to get out of it and I always seem to come right back into it. But I had recently separated from the service in the Army Medical Services Corps and was recruited to come to a smaller manufacturing company here, which is in Tennessee, which is the town I still live in now, even though it's been a number of years. And I actually was hired to do sales and was doing professional sales for them. And another little, we can have another little sidebar story, but I wound up getting pregnant with my first child, which is something multiple doctors told me that would never happen. So it was a miracle in and of itself. So once my daughter came along,
00:03:43
Speaker
I knew I couldn't stay in sales because it required extensive travel. I was on the road, you know, week, two weeks at at a time. At the time I was doing just domestic sales, but they were getting ready to promote me into international sales. So I was going to be going two, three, maybe a month at a time.
00:04:03
Speaker
And I just could not do that with a small baby. And some other challenges. She was premature on top of that. Nothing serious. And she's outgrown it. She's doing absolutely amazing today, but she did have some health issues starting out. So with that, there was no way I could be traveling, no way I could be on the road. So it actually started kind of looking for something else. And it just so happened. Actually, while I was still on maternity leave,
00:04:32
Speaker
The company posted a position in human resources. The same company. The same company. ok They wanted to do an internal hire. And the focus of the human race this human resource position was going to be more on recruiting, employee relations. And oh, by the way, they didn't have a safety person in the companies. And so they're like, yeah, can you put together a safety program for us?
Creating a Safety Program
00:04:56
Speaker
Interesting. Many people listening to this. There's people who know that one well. Yeah. And i I'll admit to say, you know, I wasn't even sure what OSHA stood for. I was like, what what is the Sacramento? What is this? yeah Coming out of the service, I hadn't worked in industry. yeah You know, I heard stories of my dad and my brothers. They were all you know blue collar workers. My dad retired from the railroad after 35 years. So I'd heard him speak of different things regarding to safety and some some experiences that he had, but I really had no personal reference for it. But sure enough, I said, sure, I'll give it it a try. You know, I'll take on any challenge once if it doesn't kill me, so to speak. ah and So I did, I jumped right in and
00:05:42
Speaker
dove into getting all the training that I could on both human resources, learning ah about the whole human resource environment and that career, but also with ah with the safety side. And I really found myself gravitating doing the training and the safety and going out there and working with people. The plant had a horrible, horrible safety record. and so to So there were plenty of opportunities for improvement.
00:06:11
Speaker
who So to speak, and i I found that being the piece that I gravitated to out of all my other responsibilities or duties there at the plant um and quickly.
00:06:24
Speaker
you know, attended like the OSHA Training Institute and got all my certifications that I could, and all the training that I could, the company was, you know, well willing to send me all this training to get up to speed. And that's how I got started. And unfortunately, there was a downturn in the business after I'd been there a few years. And ah so I went up getting caught up in that. And the next job after that went into safety and I've never looked back.
00:06:54
Speaker
how So while you were doing this, that first job, did did the did you keep doing the HR stuff too? Or did you kind of, yeah, how did that work? I did. And of course that was part of my responsibilities as well. And in a way there was a big connection and I learned so much through that, through the recruiting. And we had adopted a behavioral based interview ah process yeah and I was put in charge of kind of bringing that into the fold.
00:07:23
Speaker
getting the managers and everybody on board with training. And that was really my first introduction to anything behavioral based. And so I quickly made the connection between how people behave yeah and even though the whole purpose of it wasn't looking at it from a safety standpoint, it was looking, you know, what competencies are we hiring for?
00:07:48
Speaker
it was pretty clear that there were certain competencies that when you brought people in, they just, they were a little bit safer in some mindsets and just how people behaved. And there were some natural tendencies that people tended to gravitate to. So there really was a connection there that I was quickly able to see when you find these competencies in people, oh, by the way, they're they're not the people out there having accidents as much. They behave differently when they're on the floor.
00:08:17
Speaker
Yeah, I want to talk more about what it is that you learned in this career based on those early observations, but I think we'll get to that. So what so after you made that you know you ah you know downturn, and then you said you never looked back, what was that what was that next job that you really jumped into safety? It was safety yeah into safety.
Focusing Solely on Safety
00:08:38
Speaker
And I went to work at the for a contractor down at the Marshall Space Flight Center, working on a NASA contract, which was amazing to support the mission with NASA. um But I knew when I started looking for another job and building my resume, I really focused on the safety. I knew my next job was going to be in safety. That's what I went looking for. I didn't go look for another HR job. yeah I didn't go look for another trainer job. I went looking for another safety job.
00:09:11
Speaker
And he was fortunate enough to find one pretty quick. um And so every job after that has been back in safety. And it's been how many years now? Oh, that was getting very close to 27 years ago. Oh, wow. Congratulations. well Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot has changed in the career field in 27 years. Yeah.
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah, so some of those things that you mentioned that you started to notice with that connection with the way people behaved, what are some of those things that you've that you've noticed that you're bringing forward into your work now, the the missing critical pieces?
Recruiting for Safety Competencies
00:09:55
Speaker
People who are willing to take responsibility for themselves and others, people who are willing to train and help others,
00:10:05
Speaker
Again, there's so that close connection. If you're willing to take somebody under their wing, you know, to help train them, they're going to train them and take that accountability for others and others safety and others, you know, how they perform in a way. yeah Those are some of the things, which again, those are competencies. Now that we look for, when you're building a culture within a company, you want those competencies in people. You look for people who are willing.
00:10:30
Speaker
to intervene who are willing to reach out and stop somebody if they're doing something unsafe, who treat everybody like their family. Yeah. And building that culture like your family. So Catherine, when you notice that those competencies don't exist in a person or a company or a department, can you can you teach that? And have you been successful in that? Or how do you go about making that change?
00:10:59
Speaker
That's an interesting, and I can tell you some anecdotal stories because it was another pretty large project that I was on for a number of years. When I started at the the project, the safety record was pretty bad. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't that great. They were probably running probably close to a four for a total recordable rate. So again, lots of opportunities for improvement.
00:11:27
Speaker
and really looking at the analysis, you know really digging into the data. What does the data tell you? And it very quickly emerged that whole 80-20 curve where it was about 20% of the population causing 80 plus percent of the incidence. I mean, it holds true. I mean, it's just odd how so many of those things hold true. And we were seeing probably not the politically correct statement, but we were seeing the repeat offenders with frequent flyers. We'd call them our frequent flyers. It was the same people have an incidence over and over again.
00:12:04
Speaker
hey So obviously, you know you've got too much time invested in training. These are you know very knowledgeable people, very highly skilled people for the for what they do. So you can't just go, OK, we're going to get rid of them. So how do you address that? So we actually went out and assigned them mentors. And we picked senior leaders in the organization, like a director or above.
00:12:31
Speaker
And their role, you know every week, every two weeks, they kind of dictated the schedule. We let the directors kind of say you know what frequency they could meet and just start having those one-on-one conversations and talking to them about their behaviors. you know What were they doing that were leading up to these events and bringing that awareness to them?
00:12:54
Speaker
It wasn't 100%. I can't claim 100% success, who but the the number of our ah repeat incidents dramatically dropped in that demographic. So we did see a significant reduction and it was just, again, making them aware that, you know, we we don't want this behavior. This isn't the desired behavior and making them aware what were the things that were impacting them that was causing them to behave the way that they did that was leading to their incidents.
00:13:29
Speaker
Yeah, wow.
Well-being and Workplace Safety
00:13:31
Speaker
Yeah, that's really interesting. And I bet you have more stories, I'm guessing maybe every once in a while people would come to you and say, Hey, I didn't realize this about myself or those senior leaders that you assigned to people would come back with some interesting data for you as well on what they learned from people.
00:13:51
Speaker
It is, and that that is another point to where I started down this journey, ah journeyur sorry, in realizing that it was the mental state. And why I'm so adamant that the people's wellbeing depends on the safety is a lot of times it was people who were having personal struggles, other financially, family situations that were going on. They were taking care of an elderly parent.
00:14:21
Speaker
had a special needs child, one in particular who had a number of incidents had a special needs child um and a pretty extreme case as well. So he was working long hours and then going home and getting hardly any rest and dealing with a less than an ideal situation at home. And so there were so many personal factors that were impacting these people that they were bringing into the work and they were causing them to be injured.
00:14:51
Speaker
more than the rest of the population. Yeah. Makes sense. Makes sense. One of one of the, well, I mean, the thing that you spoke about last year at the conference that you and I were both at was about wellbeing and how it's a critical piece of workplace health and safety.
00:15:13
Speaker
Do you want to talk about like when it it sounds, you know, I was going to ask when you realize this was critical, but it sounds like you're telling that piece of the story right now. And I and i know that and I know that there were, you know, when you started really ah um working in earnest on employee well but being, there were specific areas that you focused on. I think you just mentioned two of them, family and financial, but I'm wondering if you can kind of dig into, you know, what did you learn about well-being and what are those areas um that you decided to focus on so that others can can learn from you as well, Catherine?
00:15:53
Speaker
Well, I'm very fortunate that the size of the company that I've been with, they have other departments. And when they were very open to this, we've had our safety philosophy that started back, goes all the way back to 2017, where we started building the culture and everything that we've got in place. And that building of safety culture has cascaded over into all aspects of the business. So working with the HR partners and putting together what we call our well-being strategy, which encompasses all four pillars of a person's life. How do you optimize your physical health?
00:16:34
Speaker
knowing the impact that your physical well-being has on your mental well-being and just your ability to perform your job. And it's just so many demonstrated studies out there at that point to if you're physically more fit, everything else just kind of tends to fall in place a little bit better most of the time. And again, we've established financial tools.
00:16:58
Speaker
brought in a vendor to provide financial planning. So that was financial and financial security is one of the pillars as well. Understanding that people dealing with financial shocks and financial struggles, again, it's those things that's going on in your head that impacts what you bring into the workplace. hu The other piece of that is just having a balanced emotional state.
00:17:24
Speaker
There's a number of emotional resources that we have. We've got people who are out in the workplace that are trained in a sign to be available for people to come alongside to and just talk if you're having a bad day. And their role is just to sign point them to the resources. You can publicize EAP programs, you can put it out there, but so many times people won't go look or they don't know how to go look or they're hesitant.
00:17:52
Speaker
They think, you know, the company is watching so they don't want to go out there and look at, you know, who's having some emotional struggles. So there's so much stigma around it. yeah So doing everything you can to de-stigma, de-stigmatize those things and make it easy and available for people to connect anytime they need it. And then the fourth pillar is just the social connection.
00:18:16
Speaker
particularly going through COVID. I mean, we saw so many cases and not just in the company, ah you know, across the globe, you heard so many stories about people just dealing with the isolation and the work from home situation and not feeling connected and and having a chance to build those meaningful relationships.
00:18:38
Speaker
You know, we almost got away from that term. And it was a term that was used pretty popular several years ago about the work husband and the work wives and the work family. yeah Because you spend more time at work with those people than you do at home in some cases. That was absent.
00:18:57
Speaker
So, you know, you didn't have that. You didn't have that. And some people need that. You know, others don't. Not everybody needs it. But a lot of people really need that social connection. They feel they need that relationship. So again, how does that impact people when they don't have those social connections going on? So how can you purposely, as an organization or as an enterprise, ensure that you're building those meaningful relationships? And if you've got remote workers,
00:19:27
Speaker
How can you help them to build those relationships outside of an office situation? you know Help them get involved in community, get involved in their churches, and and help them with the tools and the resources to to get them moving in those directions to build those social relationships?
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah, Catherine, do you mind if I repeat each of the four and can we can we just dig into each of them just a little bit? So if people are wondering like, oh, I wonder, you know, ah as I'm listening to you, I'm like, ooh, I want to ask a question about that piece. Ooh, I want to ask a question about that piece. Is that OK? Sure. OK, so the the you tell me if I got this
Four Pillars of Well-being
00:20:06
Speaker
correct. The four pillars that you identified are the person's physical health, their financial um health,
00:20:16
Speaker
their emotional balance or emotional wellbeing and social connection. Did I get those right? You nailed it. Okay. All right. So the financial planning and security, as you spoke of it, like many of us, people who are listening are are like, okay, sure. My company offers a 401k.
00:20:37
Speaker
And we have these annual meetings and I know I have access to the person who helps manage those things. I have a feeling you're talking about more than that. Yes, it is. I actually have a vendor that provides financial planning services to help you How can you maximize your 401k and those company benefits with whatever outside financial planning that you may want to do? But it also offers training if you're in a financial bond. ah And part of our EAP resources also offer financial planning. and And basically if you are swimming in credit card debt, so to speak, what are some things that you can do to help yourself get beyond that?
00:21:25
Speaker
and deliberate action plans to help you be more financially stable and more financially sound. um So that's why it goes beyond just the 401k.
00:21:37
Speaker
Yeah, so more than retirement, it's retirement. And it sounds like it's also helping people manage that month to month, year to year. Exactly. Budget piece of their life. Yeah, so important. um I had the opportunity when I was at the ASSP conference in Denver a few weeks ago, I listened to a speaker from the University of Colorado, Boulder,
00:22:03
Speaker
They have a research group there and they um are specifically researching the the high rates of death by suicide in the construction industry. And one of the things that they've found in their studies um that causes um stress and, you know, emotional well being that is not healthy is the financial piece. yeah Like that industry in particular, because of its seasonality, and the unpredictability of wages, it really, um they found has an impact on that's one of the causation areas. And so it's, it sounds, it sounds so critical that this is a pillar of well being, maybe people didn't don't have these skills, right?
00:22:53
Speaker
Exactly. Some people don't, you know, it's, they don't teach basic bookkeeping one-on-one in schools in most cases anymore. So those basic financial tools, error you know, so many people are coming into the workplace that don't even have a foundation for those. You know, how do you balance a checkbook? Yeah. Or what is the, what does that mean or how, yeah. What are the ways that you could do it? You know, some people are, some people are into spreadsheets.
00:23:24
Speaker
I personally am very ah fiscally responsible and all of my notes are in a three ring binder because I like it that way. You know, it's finding a system that works for you. That's right. That's right. There's no one size fits all. Yeah. And so when you started offering those sort of interventions or opportunities for the employees, to were where people like, oh, this is awesome. i yeah how how What was the reception like?
00:23:52
Speaker
and I think like any new program, it was ah probably a little bit slow to take off is that so many things are so it, we really put the onus on our supervisors and our managers to go out there and be deliberately and purposely talking about it, making sure people know because you can send flyers home, you can send emails out, but so many people really don't pick up to that, you know, the connection to what it can, um,
00:24:21
Speaker
mean to them, the so what for me kind of thing, you know, or maybe it helps somebody else, but yeah, it's really not going to help me. But another thing that we do, we've we've got um We kind of call it our culture of caring moment. We, we take our safety moment, so to speak, which is pretty common. You know, a lot of people, a lot of companies have their safety moments. We go a little bit beyond that and we expand that to be more than just safety and talking about financial situations and talking about these programs are some of the the ah more common things that we'll put out there and get our our supervisors and our managers and people to talking about.
00:24:57
Speaker
So we have found once you start having those personal conversations and make it a one-on-one conversation, then somebody is willing to speak up and go, oh yeah, I called and I thought it was great. And so getting that word of mouth yeah cascaded out through the organization.
00:25:15
Speaker
Yeah, how this has benefited, you know, get those personal stories. I found yeah for anything financial across the board getting those personal stories and those people who are willing to speak up good, bad or ugly on how with it has benefited them. Yeah, I mean, it's demystifying some of the things that carry those stigmas and and financial well-being, financial security, financial knowledge, you know, like mental health, so many other things are um carry an unfortunate stigma on it. So that sounds wonderful to use your culture of caring moment um to to demystify that. The other that one of the other the second one that you identified pillar was physical health.
Promoting Physical Health
00:26:02
Speaker
So tell us about how did you approach employees physical health?
00:26:07
Speaker
We've got a number of programs that we offer and even have transitioned to online health programs and not just the typical go to gym. That just really doesn't fit a lot of people anymore and in the work ah situations. So there's online programs that you can log into and do your workout at home. You can do it on your phone. If you're traveling, you can do it on your tablet. um And also,
00:26:32
Speaker
again, back to the remote workers, or even if you're in the office, ensuring people have the time to go do it, making it okay. If you want to go at lunch and go take a break and go work out, go do it. yeah Getting the leaders to set that example, I know quite often our senior leadership on when they have their town halls or other events, they talk about utilizing the physical fitness programs and they talk about the benefit and they're open about, yes, I dedicate time on my calendar
00:27:04
Speaker
to go work out and making that OK and making that accepted norm. I think so often we get people feel like that pressure is like, OK, I can't leave the office. I can't leave early to go work out or, you know, it's going to be viewed as I'm slack. And if ah if I take off to go work out, but making it the norm that it's OK to go take care of yourself.
00:27:27
Speaker
Wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah, I guess I want to ask if you saw any any shifts with people's physical health, or is that something that your department isn't like monitoring? I don't, unfortunately, I don't have that data. um you know, that's that is HR information. Exactly. That's gonna hold that a little closer to the vast though. They do. They do. They do for sure. For sure. Totally understand that. All right. So emotional, emotional health, emotional balance. And yeah, you talked about resources and pointing people toward that. Yeah, what does what does that emotional health look like tactically? Tactically, it's the
00:28:15
Speaker
Frontline supervisors, looking everybody in the eye every morning and just asking the question, are you okay? And knowing your people well enough to know that even if they say I'm okay, that they're not. Um, frontline supervisor, you know, if you're doing hazardous work, but even if you're not doing hazardous work, making those connections with people to know when someone's a little bit off ye and having the willing, you know, being willing to go have a conversation and just say, Hey, you know, let's go get a Coke or let's go get a a glass of tea or a cup of coffee or something and get them out of a situation to where there may be more willing to talk and point them to those resources. It looks tactically if maybe I am assigned to do a hazardous job, maybe I'm a crane operator getting ready to do a big lift today or for an example. Yeah.
00:29:11
Speaker
but I'm not on my A game today. It's being willing and understanding that it's okay to say, I'm not okay to do this today. And that being okay h and management working around that and figuring out a way to come accommodate that going back to, you know, whatever the schedule pressures may be,
00:29:37
Speaker
management taking on that schedule pressure to allowing people to feel like it's okay to say, I'm not okay if they're not on their A game that day. Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:48
Speaker
And Catherine, I'm thinking about the responsibilities of these managers and leaders, and that's a phenomenal culture of caring that you're that you've created. ah What about the care and feeding of those, so to speak, of those leaders and managers? Who's looking out for them? like How does that work upward?
00:30:11
Speaker
yeah That could be the biggest challenge. because you know it's hard time Sometimes the hardest thing is getting the managers to practice what they preach, so to speak, and to recognize when they are burnt out. But again, it it starts with the senior leadership.
00:30:26
Speaker
and having programs and policies. And one of the things that they do, particularly through the holidays during Christmas, I mean, they'll say, hey, we're taking off for two weeks. Don't send us emails through the holidays and set in that expectation that everybody does the same and go take care of themselves.
00:30:46
Speaker
and getting that message out there loud and clear. Wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah, I've worked for leaders like that too. one it's It's a really refreshing thing. Yeah. The social connection piece, that's of interest as well.
Importance of Social Connection
00:31:04
Speaker
I think as I was listening to you talk about that,
00:31:07
Speaker
Um, and I want to dig more into that. I was thinking about loneliness. The United States Surgeon General just this year, um, has said that loneliness is an epidemic for people in the United States. Yeah. And that's sad. Yes. Yes. Um, yeah. And that social connection. Would you, would you talk more about, yeah, like,
00:31:35
Speaker
what opportunities are you creating for people or any thoughts on on that piece? That's been pretty varied in locations where we have predominantly worked from home situations and as we're trying some places are trying to get people back into the office so you know once a week they'll have a pizza party to encourage people to come back into the office or even if they want to you just come in for the day and just want to come in for the lunch and get people to start building those connections and ensure they feel connection. And ah again, there's resources out there on how to connect with social activities um outside of work. We've also got a pretty robust, what we call our um employee networks and our employee affinity groups.
00:32:25
Speaker
And quite often these groups do go beyond the boundaries of work. And, you know, if they're all like in a local area, even if they're remote workers, they'll all meet up somewhere and and go out to dinner or go out and have a drink or something at a certain time of day or or have a frequency in which they'll do that again. And that's encouraged to do that. And again, rebuilding those social connections out there.
00:32:51
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah, talk about the affinity groups and in case anyone heard that and went, Oh, what is she talking about? Well, they're actually getting more and more common. And I think it's a great thing where they get people who are some you know affinity groups. For an example, like VetNet is the veterans network. So we have a lot of veterans, a lot of veteran spouses are included in that because I mean, veteran spouses have their own unique challenges that they face. So building those networks to where veteran spouses can lean on each other.
00:33:28
Speaker
Veterans, we've got ah one for people of Hispanic, people of color, a women's network. So yeah one with disabilities. People have some type of limitations regardless, you know, it could be visual, could be physical, could be hearing um to include, you know, people who have some neurodivergence is a part of that. So we have actually a pretty um well-represented population of neurodivergence. And so building a network where they could get together and talk about their unique challenges and then taking those challenges and making it visible to leadership and just raising the awareness of these are the challenges and these are the accommodations that we need. Interesting, i I have through the course of doing safety work, worked with this group quite a bit on helping out with accommodations.
00:34:28
Speaker
and yeah everything from a computer screen. you know What do you need if you have some visual visual limitations for a computer screen? And what are the best ones? And and they always have the best answers. Of course. Of course. so Going to them and and helping out with those challenges. you know So they've been great to work with. And so it's it's a phenomenal program that everybody gets excited about. And certainly, I'd like to see it even expand. We even talked about some ideas of how to expand it even broader.
00:35:05
Speaker
what a What a great, um I don't know if you want to call it a side effect, a benefit of the affinity groups also, of course, being a social connection. ah Yes. Of course, that makes so much sense. That makes so much sense. yeah i and Yeah, the importance of making those connections at work, but it sounds like you're also giving people ideas and opportunities to make connections in their communities.
00:35:32
Speaker
Um, you know, for people that maybe that's, maybe that's more important to them than making connections at work. It's like, Hey, I'm at work enough. Let's, I want to, I want to connect in a different way. And we also offer is a philanthropy platform where you can.
00:35:49
Speaker
make donations through your payroll. You can do it through the through your payroll if you if you like, or you can do it otherwise. It'll go to your charity of court of choice and quite often they will run matching funds. So if, say if your favorite organization is, you know, I'll just go back to the veteran's organization and you want to donate a hundred dollars, the company will give a hundred dollar match.
00:36:16
Speaker
to that organization. um They also pay for a certain number of volunteering hours. So if you want to go volunteer at like a STEM yeah event, or you want to go to a local high school and lead something to do with STEM, then they actually give you a number of hours to to go out and do those things.
00:36:36
Speaker
Yeah, HSI does that as well. Yeah. Yeah, it's lovely. And then we have, you know, then we have conversations about, you know, what is your volunteer work? Yeah. yu Beautiful. Yeah. So how, gosh,
00:36:54
Speaker
I think this Pillars of Wellbeing, Catherine, that you're talking about is just a beautiful aspect of, can be a beautiful aspect of our EHS careers.
Addressing EHS Challenges
00:37:06
Speaker
And people listening might be thinking, oh my gosh, that sounds like a lofty goal. I'm over here in the trenches just putting out yeah EHS fires left and right. How can I ever even get to that piece? Do you have any advice for people like how to maybe get started or who might collaborators be? There's a ton of wonderful resources out there around digging into the mental aspect or doing investigations and getting to that root cause.
00:37:40
Speaker
And when you think you've got the root cause and you say it's situational awareness, yeah I don't accept situ loss of situational awareness as a root cause. There's always going that next level beyond that. That's when you start having those conversations. That's when you start, well, what were you doing last year? And I'm very caring, not stool pinching kind of manner, but in a caring,
00:38:06
Speaker
way, just start asking what's going on with their life, what is impacting their mental state. um Because so often it is that mental state, again, what's going on, you know, the six inches between your ears, that drive your behaviors. And it's your behaviors that cause you to take different actions. And it's those actions that cause events.
00:38:31
Speaker
So dig in that next level thing on if someone just says situational awareness was a ah factor. Don't accept that. Go beyond that. Yeah, absolutely. it's It's this whole thing of keeping your mind on your job, but what took your mind off of your job? Exactly, exactly. And if another one of my favorite is like, well, they were using a cell phone.
00:38:57
Speaker
why Why were they using a cell phone? you know If they were in an area, they weren't supposed to be doing using that to cause that distraction. What was going on that was so critical to them that they felt they had to take their off the ball to look at their cell phone. yeah yeah Maybe they're waiting on that call from the doctor. Maybe they're waiting on that text from a ah teenager that didn't come home last night.
00:39:22
Speaker
Again, yeah there's so many factors and it it's so complicated. You know, it's not black and white. um So why did they think it was acceptable? Why is it the organizational norm to be accepted that it's okay to look on your cell phone if you're in a location you're not supposed to? um So again, it's just taking it that next layer down, it that next level or next layer of the onion.
00:39:48
Speaker
Yeah. And so you're saying for people to maybe open the door into a conversation like this and to address some of these pillars is to maybe look at what's happening right now and specifically look at those instances where people are are saying, oh, it was, as you say, situational awareness or some other sort of trite thing that doesn't dig very far, dig into it dig and and see what you uncover and use that information.
00:40:16
Speaker
Exactly. I mean, that's, that would be the place to start. And then as you mature that, you can start branching out in a little bit deeper, but those would be the, certainly the starting places and the easy ones to tackle. Well, not easy ones, but that could have the biggest impact. And you might be surprised at what you find is really going on in your organization that's driving the root cause of your incidents.
00:40:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, Catherine, you mentioned having partners in HR to be helpful um and work alongside one another. What what might ah that kind of conversation look like? Or what other partners could people be thinking about if they're like, I don't know, maybe there's somebody else I'd like to start with?
00:41:03
Speaker
HR is certainly, yeah HR and safety work so closely because you're really dealing with the wellbeing of your employee base. So having that partnership and gaining that trust is so critical because so easy, so often sometimes HR professionals don't want to include safety. you know They don't have that level of trust or thinking you know you're crossing lines between what you need,
00:41:32
Speaker
uh, what you have a right to know, but just, you know, building that rapport, even if you have to go have that additional level of training on, you know, privacy act information need to know. And, you know, building that partnership, uh, is certainly where I would encourage, uh, everybody to make sure that they have that relationship because so many there's so much overlap between the safety programs and the ah HR programs.
00:42:00
Speaker
that having that partnership is just so critical. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, what about, do you ever work with operations or would that be another door to, to open in the beginning? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, i that's, I just kind of take that as a norm yeah and having that partnership and making sure that they understand too, and, and making sure that they understand,
00:42:29
Speaker
the criticality of them bearing the unbearing schedule pressure and not putting on the employees and being cognizant of the impact of schedule pressure here and making sure that they understand that and having those conversations. It's also so critical for operations personnel to be engaged with their people and know their people. Our safety professional to employee ratio is extremely low. I would say across the board, I mean, just anecdotally from what I've seen, it's probably a lower ratio than most comparable industry or most comparable organizations. And it is because we do put so much on our leadership and we put so much of the accountability on our managers and those expectations for them to be out there and be engaged.
00:43:24
Speaker
toward the safety profession on them. We're the consultants. We're there to help. We're there to enable them to go do the things that they need to do. It's a perfect way to say it. And so true. And so true. Catherine, 26 years in,
00:43:40
Speaker
um what fills What fills your bucket in terms of the career or keeps you going or just as a hume as a human?
Fulfillment in Safety Work
00:43:52
Speaker
Wow. um That could be the toughest question yet. It's the little wins. You know, I like helping people. I like knowing that what I do makes a difference. And safety profession can be such a thankless job. you know It's so hard to ever go back and say that to prove what you did caused something to happen. Did the incident not happen or would it not? You can't predict that. You can't ever say the accident that you stopped. You can't prove a negative, so to speak. right So it can be so thankless.
00:44:33
Speaker
So when you have those stories that keep people come back and they say, you know what, I was getting ready to do something at home and I remembered your discussion about ah a safety moment or an event. And I thought about what you said at home and I did something different.
00:44:50
Speaker
or it's those stories about they talk to their kids and they got their kids to take a different choice because of the things that they learned from work and the safety program and and how we emphasize taking it home, taking the tools home, you know teaching safe plan of actions to your kids and to your families. And you hear those stories when it happened and people do those things and it's the little wins. um you know It's being able to,
00:45:21
Speaker
influence, you know, the the direction, you know, like, you know, working with HR and putting these programs and knowing that the company is listening. When you're out there talking about you need these things to build an effective culture, and them acting on it. So knowing that what you've done is is making a difference.
00:45:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's the same for me. I like to hear those little wins. And sometimes they come from your family. Sometimes they come from your friends. Sometimes they come from your colleagues. oh Yeah, we've been to, you know, it's conference season again. So we run into people who tell us stories as well.
00:46:02
Speaker
and and Yeah, that's good. How about um growing your profession? where how do you How do you grow yourself? Do you have your own personal board of directors? or is it the attend yeah Is it the attending the conferences, your collaborators, just on a peer-to-peer level,
Lifelong Learning in Safety
00:46:23
Speaker
Catherine? What does that look like for you? All of the above. Just like when we met, when you run into someone out there that you think is very like-minded,
00:46:32
Speaker
making those connections. Being a part of the National Safety Council is tremendous. I'm not necessarily giving them a plug. that's fine well I mean that yeah yeah have no financial gain for giving the NSCO plug. It's just strictly you know how ah ah how I feel about them. i do They do such amazing work. um and making those connections out there, but never stop learning. You know, who's out there in the industry that you think is really leading the charge? And and I will give Todd Conklin a plug. I really think a lot of his work and um what he's doing and I like his concepts and listening to that, but also I'm working on my master's, so you never stop learning.
00:47:22
Speaker
Wow. Okay. I didn't know that about you. Wonderful. Yeah. Never stop learning, you know, ah and look beyond, well, I am working on, you know, a master's in that program, but look beyond just the safety. You know, what are, what are the things going out there, going on out there that you can learn that may not necessarily be considered technical safety, but it would influence how you would do your job.
00:47:54
Speaker
you know what what are What is the leading edge psychology? What is the leading edge sociology? What's going on in the environment? Those are all impacts to how safety is going to be done in the future. Perfect example is look at the impact that You know, the climate change, and I'm not trying to make a political statement. You know, everybody's got their opinion on, you know, what's causing climate change. There's just too much data that you can't deny that it's not happening. So what impact will that have on safety? What impact is that having on people's mental wellbeing? What impact does that have with where people are moving and and staying up on what's going on with things that's happening?
00:48:39
Speaker
broader than just safety. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely true. Absolutely true. Yeah. I mean, just, just that piece alone that you just said, you know, we're, we're, we're in the waiting period for the heat standard for OSHA to pass that. And that's, you know, a piece of things are hotter. It is as hotter, you know, we're having to implement heat protection measures in places geographically that has never had to worry about that before.
00:49:05
Speaker
Right. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Katherine, this has been just
Podcast Conclusion
00:49:12
Speaker
wonderful. Thank you so much for your generous time and sharing the four pillars of well-being with the listening audience today. Well, no problem. And again, I appreciate Ben asking. I hope there's something out there that somebody can take away from it.
00:49:30
Speaker
And thank you all for spending your time listening today. And more importantly, thank you for your contribution toward the common good. May your employees and those we influence know that our profession cares deeply about human wellbeing, which is of course the core of our practice.
00:49:44
Speaker
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. Or if you prefer, you can read the transcript and listen at hsi dot.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 safety and health professionals like Catherine and I. Special thanks to Emily Gould, our podcast producer. And until next time, thanks for listening.