Circus of Safety Episode 10 Podcast:
Circus of Safety Episode 10 Transcript:
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Circus of Safety video cast where Andy de and I, Brenton, look to guide you through the thrilling world of Health and Safety with a little bit of laughter, a little bit of knowledge, and a wee bit of magic. Welcome to the show, gentlemen.
Dez, how are you this morning, mate?
Very good, thank you. How are you?
Oh, mate, just Ticky boo, living the dream.
Thank you Ling the dream.
Mr. Evans, how are you this morning, sir?
Very well, very well, bit slow, the internet’s not playing, playing, hopefully we’ll get through it. All right, well, I don’t know about you, Andy, but it’s raining where I am, and I know, I mean, you live out on Pocko, mate, so a little bit of rain will no doubt affect the internet speed drastically, and that’s probably true. We’ve had a lot of rain.
We have, we’ve had a lot of rain.
Hey guys, now listen, last episode, episode nine, because this is episode 10, so it generally goes sequentially like that, 9, 10, ground-breaking, right, ground-breaking. Last show, we had, we spoke about risk matrices, and we got a huge amount of feedback on that show, which was great. Some really positive feedback, people not only commenting on our LinkedIn page, which is where most of them come in, but even, so inspired they were making comments on our Spotify page. Now that’s pretty cool, so that’s a whole another level for the show. So we’re definitely breaking ground. But I just want to bring one of those bits of feedback to the forefront here and in this show, we’ve got a lot of award-winning followers here. It’s an A followers, a show full of award-winning followers, and this comment comes from Shashi Simmons. Andy, I believe you know Shabash. Now this is a bit of a shout out to you, mate. She actually remembers your post on the Hiers colours. Well done, De, you’re getting out there, mate. People are reading what you’ve got to say. How do you feel?
I’m honoured, that’s very nice of her to have given us that feedback. Excellent, great. Hey, now listen, before we get a bit carried away with ourselves, as always, we need to protect ourselves. So important in this day age, you just don’t know what diseases are out there. We just don’t know what litigation lies ahead. But now again, De man, listen, you know, we were talking off-air before we got online, you might need to do a side shoot here. Your disclaimers are just taken off, right?
Yeah, I’ve been invited to speak at the disclaiming conference in Geneva.
Wow, things have really gone ahead in leaps and bounds. But and not only that, but you’ve actually got like a following. It’s almost like a cult following, and based off that cult following, we’ve actually decided to do something, and what that is actually that’s going to be a wee little giveaway, Des. Are you going to be okay with giving away a little piece of yourself today, mate?
I will. It’s the air cabin announcer that I used in last week’s disclaimer.
Hang on, hang on, Des. This don’t downplay it, mate. It is not just the air cabin announcer that you’re giving away. It’s a certified air cabin. And what certification does it have again?
It’s BSH H1T 2023. So that’s a British standard BH1T. So don’t downplay it, this is a legitimate, the real D-certified, too, 100% right.
Now, not only that, Dez, I believe you were prepared to sign it and send it out with your autograph on it to one lucky listener, one lucky listener or watcher, I guess, depends on whether, I suppose you’ve got to be, oh, wow, with a mug. Andy’s got the mugs. He kept that one quiet. Now there’s, in order for an individual to win said Certified Air Cabin Announcement Tool, what we’re asking for here is one watcher of the show, so you’ve got to be watching live because it’s going to be quick, it’s not going to take long, it’s going to be gone.
The first person to accurately identify the inspiration for today’s disclaimer in the chat, right. So that’s what we’re looking for, the first person to pop up into the chat the inspiration for the disclaimer today wins Des’ certified B1T Air Cabin Announcement Tool. I mean, that is this is next level, all and a mug, apparently, and a mug. So, no, we’re not calling Andy a mug. Andy’s got the mugs. That’s not just any mug. Andy’s got. Andy’s actually got the Circus of Safety mugs, man. Not even I’ve got one and some lucky listener is going to get one. I mean, I’ve just got a stock standard cup here, right. But some lucky listener is get a certified B1T air cabin announcement tool signed by Dez and a mug from Andy. Now, De, are you ready?
I am indeed.
So I hope everyone’s listening carefully. But over the last few weeks, I spent a lot of time thinking about engagement, clear and simple messaging, and I came across a person who has a PHD in this area and has published a few books, a well-known doctor. I thought I might mimic their style and see if this helps. So here it goes:
Oh listen and heed, here’s a legal decree, for this podcast, safety is the key. You must see, though Rhymes may be fun and our tips they may gleam, remember this isn’t just a Whimsical dream. Consult the experts, the lawyers so bright, for legal advice that’s just right. In the light, our words are like treats, a sugary thought, but don’t skip the rules that the lawyers have brought. In the land of the workplace with hazards untamed, stay informed, be cautious, and don’t play the blame game. We share little lessons to help you keep well, but for proper advice, to the experts we tell. So while we might rhyme and we might make you grin, safety is a serious thing, let that sink in. Follow the laws and regulations, please, for a workplace as safe as the calmest of seas. Now go on and listen, enjoy every show, but let’s keep in mind that safety is the flow, with Cat in the Hat spirit, we’ll rhyme and we’ll chat, but don’t forget legal stuff’s part of all that.
Wow, there’s, I’m not surprised you’ve got a following, mate. Not surprised got a following. So just a reminder to our viewers out there, the first person to accurately identify the inspiration for today’s disclaimer from De will win Des’ certified BSH1 air cabin announcement tool signed by him and a mug from Andy. Oh, and look at it, we’ve got our first person. It’s Sarah Tizard. Sarah’s throwing it down right, she just wants to meet Andy, I think is what’s going on here. So there, can you see the chat, mate?
I can, and the correct answer is Dr. Seuss, so well done Sarah. You’ve won yourself an air cabin announcer and a mug. Be interested to know, Sarah, if you know what the PhD was in.
Well, well, while we wait for Sarah to kind of Google that, then no, that’s really cool. I could, I’ll personally deliver both as well because I’m meeting with her next Friday.
Wow, hey, Andy, now that we now that we’re protected, legally anyway, any words of wisdom from the world of teaching these days, mate?
I had a horrendous teaching experience this last week.
Please, can you share it but make it quick?
It’s just awful, I can’t beyond that.
Okay, great, awesome. Well, let’s get on the show then because before, no, before we move on, can I just say that it was horrendous but it was the support via text that I received from you two that got me through, you know, helpful comments about why don’t you ask the facilitator about some legal case in Australia from 10 years ago really helped me through it, great. Okay, are we done, can we move on?
Sorry, I care, but listen, we’ve got a show to run, mate. This wasn’t a personal counselling session. We’ll get on to that a little bit later. But really quickly, you know, just a real quick check-in, your last couple of weeks for you, Des, they been good? Anything exciting that you got up to, mate?
I went to a safety Symposium.
Did you?
Wow, I did.
J, cool. Andy, what about you? Anything exciting you got up to over the last couple of weeks?
Yeah, I went to a safety Symposium.
Guess what I did over the last couple of weeks? Went to a safe Symposium yeah. How cool was that, guys? The first ever Circus of Safety Symposium. There’s, I believe you’ve been beavering away in the background, doing some editing of the videoing that we had.
Yeah, I’ve arranged some editing, so not all of the footage worked as well as I would have liked, but we did get some nice stuff that’s come together, so we might be able to post that up. I’m not sure what we want to do with that just yet, but it’s looking good.
No, fantastic, excellent. Okay, boys, well, listen, we’ve got an audience to please. Let’s get, just before we go any further, can I just say, you’re coming through on my screen in full Technicolour, you are looking amazing, like it’s almost as if you sat in my room.
Wow.
And that is because I’m powered by Son on Site, who had kindly stepped up and provided me with a very nice MacBook, so I’ve got to be fair. Apart from that Symposium I’ve done sweet FA all fortnight, apart from playing with setting up the computer. Don’t tell my employer that though, they believe I’ve been working really hard, I hope nobody from the company that I work for is watching the show because that could be an awkward performance review next week. But anyway, enough about me. Thank you again to Son on Site who’s powering me through today’s show. Really appreciate that.
Here we go, gentlemen. We are on to the wheel. Anything exciting you’re looking forward to it landing on?
I’m looking for, I want to talk about passion in the industry and ecology.
Yeah, wow, I’ve been looking forward to that one.
Andy, anything specific about you?
Root cause analysis.
Wow, wow, here we go. Hopefully it lands on something Dez wants to talk about because I think you were all was last show was all about you. So here we go, team. Are we ready for this? Here we go.
Yes, yes. Oh, got to be honest, this is secretly my favourite. This was one that I put on the wheel. I am excited. I am beyond ecstatic. In fact, this is just next level. So, why don’t we just abolish health and safety? I mean, oh, that’s awesome.
Okay, so let’s get into it. Andy, one sentence, one word, what do you think? What are your thoughts on the topic?
What does abolish mean? Get rid of, gone, see you later, throw it away. Legislation or get rid of all controls.
Oh, here we go, come on, man. Let’s not overanalyse this, just get rid of it. Just get rid of all of it. I mean, really, the whole kink, in the bin, out of here. Speed limits, gone. Road signs, gone. Why not? Why not? I mean, do people follow speed limits?
Do people follow speed limits? Do they follow speed limits? That’s all I’m saying.
Do not everyone, though. Let’s be fair, Dez. Anyway, moving on. Someone that’s a bit more logical, De, what are your thoughts, initial thoughts, shock or inspired? Let’s just abolish health and safety, mate.
Well, the initial thought is that seems crazy, but maybe, maybe in sort of a mission or a goal sense, you know, long-term strategy for everyone should be to everyone that works in health and safety should be to make themselves redundant.
Wow, okay, that’s, yeah, funny. It’s interesting, you know, we all came together like Kindred Spirits, like a moth around a flame, you know, and it’s often, which is quite inspiring because you know you make that statement and it’s interesting the first thing I said to when I, when I go into a job, and I’ve bounced around a little bit over the last few years, the first thing I said to people is exactly that. This, my goal here is to abolish health and safety, my goal and my job is to make myself redundant.
I mean, let’s be fair, especially listeners of the show, they’ll all understand if people are relying on me to keep them safe, they are a whole world of problems, a whole world of problems. I mean, I can barely keep the show together, let alone keep people safe, right? yeah, what’s your thought, Sprint?
Oh, mate, I say get rid of it. I say abolish it. Although I’ve got to be fair, I started, I started down this path of abolish health and safety, get rid of it. I’m not a fan. Why do we put it on a pedestal, I guess is where I was going with it, but then I realized that would be the end of the show because what are we just going to call ourselves the Circus of… I mean, that could work, right? I mean, if we abolish safety, does that mean we abolish the show? I don’t know, and I’m having a lot of fun with you guys. I’m really enjoying my time on the show, so I don’t quite know. Don’t quite know.
But really interesting. So, let’s stick with you, De, because when we… I hate to admit this, but Andy actually started making a valid point, right? But when we start thinking about abolishing health and safety and getting rid of it, I wouldn’t get too excited, Andy. I mean, where… where do you think we could… do you think we could draw the line somewhere with abolishing health and safety, or if we get rid of it, do we get rid of it all? What, I mean, yeah, what are your sort of thoughts around that? If we’re to abolish it, what are we abolishing exactly?
Well, it’s, I guess we… Andy correctly identified several different ways that you could abolish safety. One of them is legal, and I don’t… I don’t know if you could abolish the safety law. I mean, the mechanisms for suing for similar types of breaches existed before we had safety legislation. It was just harder to do that. Now it’s been made easier.
Can I throw something at you, though, there, while you’re talking about that? Sorry to interrupt you there, but I just want to flash back to our show, a special episode actually on Fakir White Island, right? One of the things that we spoke about in that show, relating to Fakir White Island, was around the legislation used to try to prosecute people for that event, and I was thinking back to that, I think we started going down this road. Was the health and safety legislation the right legislation to be using? So I guess with that in mind, I mean just recapping, refreshing your memory on that, do you think it would be that hard to abolish health and safety legislation and still be able to hold people to account for failings and hurting people?
Well, the mechanisms would still exist, but it would be harder to exercise those mechanisms. You’d need to finance yourself to bring a prosecution or civil claim against the offender.
Okay, fair enough. So something to think about there, I guess. And oh, I can’t believe Andy clearly has a kindred spirit in Keith Harvey there, who again has circused the safety dictionary. Keith’s comment there, thank you, Keith. How can you abolish something as in health and safety when it’s not necessarily clearly defined? And I think that’s where you started going, Andy. I mean, do you want to kind of elaborate on what, where you’re trying to go with your initial shock and all? I mean, what are your thoughts on the abolishment of health and safety, and I guess maybe more so, what are we actually possibly abolishing?
Absolutely. It goes back to what I bang about pretty much every week, is that the area that we’re in is ill-defined, which is good for it because it generates lots of discussion, but fundamentally it’s problematic because most people don’t really know what they’re doing. There’s miscommunication. I think trying to abolish things, I don’t know if that would work anyway, but the word “criminalize” came up. So let’s flip it around a bit. Should we criminalize health and safety? What should be an offense for doing safe things?
Wow, well, well, you know, like that’s, you say that and we laugh about it, but how often do we drive around and see people trying not to do things safely? You know, how often do we drive around seeing people break rules? It’s almost as, would that be, what’s the, ah, there’s a, what’s the, the thing where you say something negative to create a positive? Ah, there’s, come on, the smart one here, ah. Ah, you try to, like, this absolute mind blank, like reverse psychology type thing, that’s the one, and I was expecting that from De, but anyway, Andy will do. I mean, would it be, would reverse psychology in health and safety work? I mean, would it make a difference? I mean, people are so busy trying to hide away from their responsibilities often, people can’t, you know, so if we reverse psychology it, would it make the world a safer place, these looks?
I think there was a study about that, where it was a traffic situation where pedestrians and traffic interacted, and they basically removed all of the rules and just said it’s just a free-for-all, there’s no speed limit, there’s no turning signals, there’s nothing, and the results were quite positive. I couldn’t name the study, I think it was in Northern Europe somewhere, but yes, it’s, I’ve seen that play, it was the trigger for Sydney Decker and safety differently. They’ve since tried it in the UK and scrapped it because there were lots of accidents.
So you said lots of accidents, more accidents than if there are road rules?
Yeah, apparently so. So there’s some research that I can provide a link to. But one of the interesting things from my previous life when I was a teacher was when we were teaching kids to play soccer and stuff like that, if you put them in sort of five-aside teams, they’d referee themselves and they’d be honest and truthful. As soon as you stepped in to referee, their whole mentality changed and all of that honesty and integrity seemingly go out the window, and they rely on the referee to make the decisions. I don’t know if that’s a reasonable analogy for a law, then suddenly the whole dynamic changes, as opposed to you lose that sort of goodwill and that sort of sense of community around in fair play, I guess.
Yeah, and that’s what I was trying to get out. I mean, right, like, you know, if we go back to your first analogy around the traffic, right, speed limits are a control against managing a risk, and if people see the speed limit, right, they’re seeing it as a target, and when we set targets, we like to, you know, because we’re a society of overachievers, I mean, look, we put a man on the moon, we’re trying to get to Mars, we’re constantly pushing boundaries here, right? Sorry, we want to go beyond safety, right? We want to go beyond compliance. We’re just the Aron here. We want to be overachievers, so we set t hose rules, almost as if it’s an almost like I’m G to argue that we’re creating objectives for us to try to beat, that we are trying to create a situation where we’ve got a system to beat, and I’m going to be, I’m going to put it out there. I look at audits as a challenge, you know what I mean? Like, I look at compliance audits as a challenge. How can I get myself around this? How can I overachieve at it? And it becomes quite an ethical dilemma at some point, right?
Absolutely, absolutely. I think there’s a real interesting balance between doing things for the right reasons and doing things because you have, because you’re told to by rules that are imposed on you. And you tend to be far better motivated as people if you can see the purpose in what you’re doing, as opposed to it just being imposed on you. I think there’s quite a lot of research in that sort of space. It’s quite interesting, fascinating, obviously for the right reasons, yeah, very much so.
We’ve obviously got a be up old Keith’s bonnet here because he’s chiming in again. Thanks, Keith, keeping the show going, mate. Would abolishing environmental management or quality management go hand in hand with abolishing health and safety? I’m going to say hell yeah. I mean, why not, right? We often say those things are all linked, so if we’re going to get rid of one, let’s get rid of the other one, I say. In what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. I’ve got lots of analogies today. I’ve been up for a little while this morning, sorry. Probably had one too many coffees, but I mean, so I guess it’s fascinating, right?
And I’m just going to kind of chime in here with my thoughts because in my current role, my initial engagement within this organization that I currently work for was as the health, safety, and environment manager, right? A really dedicated role dedicated to health, safety, and environment, HSE. The title recently moved into an operational management role, right? And I think, Andy, you and I had a couple of conversations about this. I was actually quite concerned about that, and I was a little bit worried about is removing a health, safety, and environment manager. What is that saying to the business?
What is that saying about our organization and how we look after safety? And after a number of conversations, the outcome was, it actually provides greater opportunity to create a safer workplace because again, as soon as we, what I find is, as soon as we put safety on a pedestal, it becomes this thing that people want to knock down and critique. We refer to the “Tall Poppy Syndrome” all the time, right? As soon as we elevate something up and we put it on a pedestal, for whatever reason, our psyche says, “Let’s knock it down.” And my worry is by having this standalone health and safety kind of department or health and safety thing, or as Keith pointed out, environmental-specific thing, or quality thing, are we just creating a psychological target for us to try and beat or knock down? And I’ve noticed now with the change of my role, I’m actually able to achieve far more in a general operations role as opposed to a very specialized, very specific health and safety role.
I mean, Des, any thoughts on that?
Yeah, I’ve often come up with this with people giving me feedback in the organizations I work in, saying, “Oh, we want a dedicated safety person on site.” And I’ve always hesitated to go down that path because I don’t want that person to become the safety person for that site and the only person responsible for safety because it would be quite easy for people with other priorities to put all the safety responsibility onto that person and not take it on themselves. And so, well, you know, that person was looking after it, it’s not my problem. And I’ve always hesitated, and this makes me think of that.
I mean, De, you and I both work in the same industry. I mean, we know Andy doesn’t actually work, but I get the same thing, right, often. And it’s fascinating because one of my sites recently, we’ve got a dedicated health and safety person. It’s an incredibly large site, and the health and safety advisor on that site took some extended leave.
And it was really interesting to see the reaction of the business or that site when I came in and said, “Oh, hey, listen, FYI, your health and safety resource is taking extended leave. Oh, who’s replacing them?” And I was like, “Oh, I’ve got no intention of replacing them. I believe that that advisor has done exactly what I asked them to do and has advised you, has coached you, has mentored you, has ensured that you got the right systems and tools for you guys to manage your own health and safety.
You know, you don’t need a dedicated person here, and if you get a really questionable call, oh no, no, no, we’ve got to have somebody on site, right? And again, if this person that we put in there wasn’t called a health and safety advisor, it was called maybe a general operations business partner or I don’t know, something like that, right, would the reaction to them taking extended leave have been the same?
Probably not, right? Yeah, probably, probably not. I mean, you get a cabin to take extended leave on a regular basis, and they are an incredibly valuable team member on our construction site, right? Nobody blinks an eye, it’s like, “Oh well, the cap’s gone, we’ll have to work with what we’ve got,” and they are just as valuable as a dedicated health and safety resource, one would argue on a side.
Yeah, Andy, your thoughts, do you see, you know, anything further to say on where Dez and I are going with this around concerns we have around, I mean, you work in a lot of organizations or across them and support them, you know, I mean, what are you seeing out there at the moment, Andy?
I think it’s that dual question or that dual challenge of fundamentally we want people to work safely, and it’s often captured at the moment that people do work and then do safety, and having an advisor or a safety person amongst a team is often deemed to be the person that does the safety, the chippy does the carpentry, right, and then the safe does safety. When really, we need to move away from that, and we want our cabins just to work safely, and that’s the only way that it’ll ever really work, I think, but there seems to be a huge resistance to doing that, and I think a lot of that’s to do with understanding of what safety actually is, amongst groups of people, and a lot of people’s exposure to safety has been paperwork, and you know, people that often go into sort of very hands-on professions, they don’t like paperwork, that’s why they left school when they did, you know, so making safety easy for those people and actually is a tangible thing, safety is not about paper, it’s about actions, will make a difference, we just want our people to work safely, I think that’s the only way we’ll ever succeed.
I mean, I want to simplify it even further, and we just want people to work, right? You know, now if they injure themselves, they can’t work, if they’re unhealthy, they can’t work, if they’re, you know what I mean, so it’s just about getting stuff done, right? And then I guess because, and I think we’ve spoken about this before there, and I’d love to get your thoughts on this, by creating a standalone department, by creating a standalone thing, are we actually creating clutter? Is that what’s, are we creating our own clutter?
Are we a self-generating clutter machine? Because suddenly we feel like we’ve got a dedicated safety resource, I’ve got to justify my job because people are too scared to make get made redundant, people don’t want to be made redundant, so do we then by default start creating work for ourselves, start creating clutter and bureaucracy to try and justify what we’re doing? I think we’re doing it probably with the best of intentions, but yeah, we’re definitely creating safety clutter, and I would argue that best of intentions probably isn’t a good enough reason on its own to create a lot of that stuff.
But from another perspective, I mean, there’s a lot of information out there to digest for people who are working on a construction site. You know, you’ve got everything from the type of hard hat that you need to get, you know, the standard that it needs to be certified to, you need to run PPE trials, you need to have an operational and compliant health and safety committee. There’s an absolute host of information that needs to be digested by people who are really just want to get on and build the building. I think it helps when you have a safety person that can manage all of that and just say, you know, just be the sounding board when they say, “What type of hard hat do we need? I’ve done the research, this is it, let’s run it through the committee, do a PPE trial, and get it put in place. Cool.
And that’s a valid point. Maybe, well not maybe, that is definitely a valid point, and I think though, I guess my worry is that by creating the title is like the flame that I just spoke about that brought the three of us together, right, the title health and safety. People seem to push everything back onto that that sort of um health and safety professional. I mean Andy, you’re a consultant, right? You go in and would you say you deliver? I mean, do you tell people how do you how do you describe what you do? Do you describe that you deliver health and safety training? And if we were to abolish health and safety, would that affect what you do?
Well, most of the training that I deliver isn’t really to do with the legislation. So most of the training that I deliver is to do with accident investigations, which you would want to do anywhere, right, whether you’re required by law or not to do safety. You would still need to investigate and you still need to manage risks. I mean, and I would say that a better description of what I do would be in the risk management space rather than the safety space. Yeah, well there we go, you that’s fascinating, yeah, fascinating conversation for another day.
Oh, I reckon we might want to peel that peel that L off. I mean, is it maybe not so much than about abolishing uh health and safety, but maybe just rebranding it, renaming it, relooking at how we talk about it? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, we can go right back to some basic fundamentals and say the whole goal of what we’re trying to achieve is to stop people getting hurt but to keep them in employment and keep the economy going. And it’s a balancing act between those two things and uh if we can sort have come to some sort of solution around that, that how we balance that I don’t think the current legislation is particularly good at doing that. I think it’s slightly tilted in in one way rather than the other. Okay, interesting, okay well hey um sticking with you Andy, um I’m not going to give you a choice here we got a challenge by choice show and the Choice Is Mine, the challenge is yours, that Old Chestnut right? listen, I’m going to tell you we are abolishing health and safety, right? We’re abolishing it. I want you what are what can you actually see any pros in the abolishment of health and safety? Bit of a tough question here I know if you’re not into it but like I said my choice your challenge, any prosos in abolishing it?
I think I think there’s a chance that perversely you would actually increase engagement in activities that are about stopping people getting hurt. Hey, wow, M, that good thing we record this, right? We can go back and actually grab that, that’s cool, that’s brilliant, and no fair, cool there’s I mean what about you, right? Like regardless of what you believe or what you think or what your personal preference is, uh, my choice your challenge we are abolishing health and safety, uh, do you actually see any pros in the abolishment of health and safety?
Yeah, and I think for the same reason that Andy just mentioned, that it might make some people take it a lot more seriously, it’s a bit closer to home, but there will be some people who will continue to not take it seriously, I guess, and that’s the that’s I mean, you look at the show as a classic metaphor for that, right? I mean you two turn up fortnight after fortnight ultimate professionals, right, you’re prepared, you’re researched, and you take this thing seriously, right? Yeah, oh I need to be disappointed by you, yeah. Oh, is that where you’re going with this, sorry that was exactly where I was going, I rolling coming hot every time unprepared, disorganized, uh, and somehow managed to keep your crew going, that’s amazing, right?
So could I turn that round on to you then Brenton, so if safety was abolished and I came to one of your sites how would it look different? I think it would look very different to be fair, I think it would look incredible. I think it would be a thing of beauty, something to aspire to if we got rid of it. What I think you would see Andy is I think you would see people getting on and working and I think you would see them getting on and working in a way that is right if that makes sense.
So my worry is we have created so much bureaucracy and so much um clutter that that people are working unnaturally and I think by abolishing it you would see people working how they need to be working, right? You’d see people working in a way that makes sense for the situation that you find yourself in and I think that would be a thing of beauty. I think I think it would be a thing of organized chaos if you can imagine such a thing chaos being organized, right, because you might look over to one part of the site for example and there’ll be people undertaking work activities which will be fantastic and they won’t be wearing a hard hat, heaven forbid they’re on a construction site not wearing a hard hat, why?
Because there’s no need to wear the hard hat over there right, yet you’d look to your right, and you’d see work activities taking place, uh, and you would see people wearing a hard hat. That is because there is a need to wear a hard hat. But I think what ends up happening, and it’s fascinating, I’ve had this conversation with some of my own site managers around, why are we wearing a hard hat? Oh, because we have to. Why do we have to? Because safety says we have to. And to be doing something just because somebody perceives health and safety said so, I think is the wrong reason to be doing it.
So, I think it’ll be a thing of beauty, to be fair, Andy, if we abolished health and safety, an absolute thing of beauty. We’d have to go back to rebranding the show. I just want to stick with that, though. I want to focus on us because it’s not about anybody else; it’s about us. I’m quite enjoying this little get-together we have, and we need to work on rebranding. But I think if you went to one of my sites, I think you would see a thing of beauty. I think you would see a thing of organized chaos, really. It’d be great.
I love that answer because the question was, ‘What would your site look like if we abolished safety?’ and you said that it would be people working, people working, right, people working naturally. It’ll be a thing of beauty, which implies that your sites are currently none of those things at this, at this very moment. What’s work number? Oh, you, you ring work, we will be ticking boxes like there’s no tomorrow. But no, but there it, you go to the sites now, and it, I, the feeling I get is it’s a feeling of unease, a feeling of unnatural, a feeling of who’s going to catch me out, right.
And it’s a feeling of people, people are too scared to think because of this overarching thing called health and safety. And you could go to one of my sites now, and listen, they’re not going to be perfect because no site is perfect, right, because again, if there are rules, if there are these things, people will try what they can, intentionally or unintentionally, to navigate around them, right. oh, I wonder, you know, it’s like kids stealing lolly from the candy jar, right. I mean, all kids do it. I mean, we all probably stole liquor from a parent’s liquor cabinet at some point, right. Let’s be honest about that. I mean, I’m still stealing liquor from my parent’s liquor cabinet, and I’m definitely not a child, you know.
And yeah, so I think, yeah, right now you go to my sites, you see a sense of unease. I think you see a sense of worry. You see a sense of nervousness, and un-naturalism, if that is even a word. Yeah, so those are my thoughts, anyway. so, de, well then, sticking with you, mate, if we were to abolish health and safety, yep, because that’s what the wheels landed on, do you see any traps in this, any traps in abolishing health and safety? Yeah, and it’s what I pointed to before, is that some things are really complicated, and there’s a lot of information out there to digest, and I don’t think that you could do your trade as well as digest all of that information.
I think it would be difficult. You’d need that support. So, if you’re abolishing health safety, you’d probably need someone that had that knowledge to support the organization, yeah, not interesting. Y see your point. Definitely see your point there. Andy, I mean, your thoughts are if we were to abolish health and safety tomorrow, what do you see as the traps? Uh, for that, I think one of the, going back to what you were saying, which you made some very good points, Bron, then, there’s no surprise in my voice, there it’s just the way I speak.
The whole ‘why do we wear a hard hat? Because safety says so’ is really, f, I found that really fascinating because you wear a hard hat to stop your head getting hurt, and I know that, you know, yeah, and that’s the answer that we should get. So, I think there’s been a huge problem in the marketing of safety over many, many years, moth to a flame mate, moth to flame, and that imposing things on people. One of the interesting things about the hard hat issue on construction sites though is it, if it’s comp on SES, it reduces the chance of lapses, so it reduces the chance of people moving from an area where they don’t need it to where they do need it and not putting it on. Argue that point, actually, that’s cool. You can argue that that’s fantastic. I think I think you’re dumbing down people is my opinion, you’re making people stupid.
No, I would disagree. I just think that it’s part of life and part of being human is to not be stupid, make mistakes, and forget things, and you know if you’re walking from, you’re inside a building doing some Roofing as doing some ceiling, whatever the people do with ceilings in a residential construction site, and suddenly you walk out and you got, you got to wear your hard hat inside, it’s stupid, I get it. But if you walk outside all of a sudden while somebody’s lifting some stuff and it falls on you, then you don’t have to think about putting your head out on you see there’s your first problem there.
We need to take the SC to construction sites and educate them. You cannot death TR, you cannot compare a residential construction site, and those guys are Cowboys mate, uh, to a commercial site, right? You, in fact, you cannot compare the two, right? So we’re only abolishing safety on basically the field that you two are working, yeah, that’s because they’ve already abolished it on residential sites like it was never there.
Just apologies, firstly, U, thank God we got a disclaimer, just apologies to anybody that works on the residential construction game. Well, okay, no, I mean that’s, yeah, and I guess that’s the whole point of this, right, and there are arguments for and against, and I guess it’s just fascinating to have that conversation, right?
Yeah, and I guess I just want, and that’s what we’re, that’s one of the reasons for the show, isn’t it, guys? I mean, it’s about people actually thinking about what we’re doing and not just doing it for the sake of, of, of doing it. So, yeah, cool, I mean listen I know it’s crazy, you know when that wheel first spun you probably thought, ‘Oh how am I going to talk about this for a while,’ but what do you know, time is time is wrapping up, and the show’s getting on, so it’s time to sort of wrap up.
I mean, what’s your final thoughts on the topic, on the conversation we’ve just been having? I mean, what are your takeaways?”
“Well, I’m glad you used the example of hard hats as well because to me, that indicates the use of a blanket rule, and I don’t think that blanket rules actually comply with the intention and the wording of the ACT. So if anyone’s got a blanket rule, might want to look at the fact that you’ve got to risk assess in each individual task, see, and maybe hard hats is the wrong example for that because I actually agree with Andy that sometimes, maintaining compliance can be an issue.
But are you comp say, it’s, say it’s reverse parking in all instances, I think that having a blanket rule on those types of things is potentially safety being lazy and incompetent, and maybe it should be abolished in those types of circumstances. Because just on that mate with reverse parking, do you know how hard it is to get something out of your boot when you’ve reverse parked and there’s like no space behind you? Do you know how hard that is, you got to climb in through the front seat and over the back seat, and it’s just chaos, just chaos?
Oh great, great, thanks. Is there anything else mate to wrap up the show on?
I don’t think so, I think we should throw over to Andy. Yeah, Andy, what are your thoughts mate, what’s your wrap up on the topic?
Very, very interesting concept, I think in my mind, it’s suffering from a branding issue, is health and safety. So let’s abolish the term, call it something else. I think that would be very helpful, but then we’d also need to use the new term and the new philosophy to educate everybody else because it’s, it’s, it’s like you’ve indicated, Bren, it’s not happy out there, people are still very much focused on with being told to do safety as opposed to, ‘Hey, by doing safety, I won’t die today,’ which is the ultimate goal.
It’s an incredibly hard sell when it should be the easiest sell in the world, if, if you do this stuff, you’ll still have both arms at the end of the day, you know, but people just want to push back on it and I find that that really fascinating, really fascinating, and this sort of pulls together a lot of the other, I love the discussions we’ve had, it’s quite nice the way it’s pulled it all together, it sure does, it sure does.”
yeah, and I guess I mean that’s where I’m, I’m kind of, I just, I just want us to think about how we’re, how we’re approaching this stuff. I mean, I guess my, my thoughts, my final thoughts, I mean I think you can have, I think you can abolish it without abolishing it if, if that’s the biggest, uh, contradiction of all, all contradictions today.
You know, I think if we, if we, if we keep the framework, if we keep the intention behind what we’re trying to do, but we abolish the branding, we abolish the, the perceived Big Brother, the perception of, uh, you know, that aspect of it to stop people looking over the shoulder to create that vicarious type approach, I think there’s benefits, I think my take, my final wrap-ups and takeaway for the show is, I think you can do both. I think you can keep it but you can get rid of it, you can abolish it but you can still have it, and I know that’s a contradiction in itself but I think there’s a little bit of food for thought there.
Now, I’m not suggesting go down the road and kind of, I don’t know, credit another thing called Safety 2 or whatever, or no safety, I don’t know, but I’m just thinking we just talk about getting stuff done, right, and we aim to do that. So, no, great, great conversation, guys, and I love the fact again that I just don’t agree with anything you two say, it’s brilliant.
Now, what have you got coming up over the next couple of weeks? Got any more safety symposiums you’re going to? Before I launch into that, I just love the fact that you said we should talk about getting stuff done, not getting stuff done, just talk about getting stuff done. I don’t actually do anything, have you seen these hands, look at them, look at these hands mate, they don’t do anything. I mean, obviously, I work very hard, uh, when I’m in the office, but yeah, anyway, carry on dude, anything exciting the next couple of weeks, mate?”
It’s end-of-year strategy discussions, which I quite enjoy actually, yeah, I love the end-of-year stuff, Christmas parties, drinking, eating, and I love it, love end-of-year stuff.
Great, thanks for the reminder, mate. it’ll be really interesting to have that conversation with you, uh, once you’ve gone through that, and maybe not necessarily analyse the detail, but analyse have you come up with anything new and exciting, you know what I mean, what are you going to be doing differently that you did for the last five years, for example, and does a strategy day actually make a difference? Maybe we could put that on the wheel, does safety planning make safety better? Oh, that’s a good one, that’s a good one.
Andy, what about you, mate? What do you got coming up over the next couple of weeks?
Oh, I’m off to the South Island next week, speaking at a CCH up with S health and safety reps, safety conference thing, presenting a talk on psychological safety, which is, something that interests me greatly. I can tell that’ll be good, I’ve been doing a lot of reading about it.
Fantastic. And yourself, what are you up to?
Yeah, good. I’ve just suddenly had a concern pop up, I need to double-check my diary, actually. I am incredibly privileged, and I am currently in serving and we’ve spoken about them a couple of times and the, uh, Global qualifications framework and the like, but as part of that, I’m heading off to Sydney, in a couple of weeks, and we’re heading over to an Incho Workshop where I’m going to be kind of facilitating one of the workshops there, which is quite exciting, and, and our sort of board meeting but also an invigorating few days of the at the world safety Congress.
So, I’ve just got to make sure that I’ve planned my flights around the show, really, otherwise I might be trying to stream it off Wi-Fi off an airplane. I might need your cabin announcement to DAR, so yeah, now really excited, mate. I’m just full steam ahead planning to head over to Sydney to see the world’s Congress. So listen, just again, this is all about me, don’t worry about Des. Andy, any of our Australian listeners going to be at the world safety Congress in Sydney in November want to catch up, do a coffee, let’s do it, let’s have a chat, and let’s see where it takes us. Take some mugs across, I, I can’t take you with me, mate, sorry, can’t take you, like how quick I was with that again.
Something just to all our viewers out there, something de Andy and I talk about on a regular basis, we’re, we’re incredibly flattered and I don’t know about the other boys but overwhelmed by the response and the support that we’re getting for this weird little thing we call the circus of safety, the engagement we’re getting both publicly on the LinkedIn page and individual messages being sent, has just been phenomenal and just as part of that just want to acknowledge, one of our recent followers to the page, hopefully, he’s tuning in, I don’t quite know what the time zone is, and you ask why the time zone brings in, well, this follower, I think he may be our first, boys, from Pakistan.
So we have now we have broken onto the largest cons in the world, so a big, a big shout out to Hamad Khan, who is a health safety and environment officer at the National Technical Services for Pakistan. So hey mate, listen, thanks for liking the page, thanks for joining in on the show, uh, look forward to you contributing at some point, yeah. So I guess, guys, till the next one, I guess we’ll see you, hopefully in a fortnight. Thanks very much, see you then. Thanks very much, see you then. No worries.