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TRANSCRIPT
Brendan Torazzi
This is an ohs.com.au production Welcome to Episode 25 of the Australian Health and Safety business podcasts on Brendan Torazzi, the host of the show, and today I'm joined with Wayne Riley from safety insights. Hi, Wayne. Can I Brandon, thanks for agreeing to come on the show today. Tell me a little bit about what safety insights does and how you're involved with the health and safety industry?
Unknown Speaker
Well, I've moved out of senior positions in the corporate world to start my own business. One or two redundancies along the way, I just thought, well, I'll have a crack myself. What I do really, I boil it down to being a complex problem solver. So complex safety problem solver. And most safety problems are complex. Most of my business is people who know me or now off me, but obviously like to find new clients as well. But yeah, most of my business people who know me or know of me, and know what I do, and you know, they've generally got a safety problem they can't quite put their finger on.
Brendan Torazzi
And so what was your when you worked for other businesses? What what industries were you working in?
Unknown Speaker
I actually started like 15 years and the Royal Australian Air Force.
Brendan Torazzi
All right, that's a great way I find that a common thread with a lot of safety people, they come out of the services.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, so I was an engineer, and maintenance engineer on f1 elevens. My whole career, wow. And well, being in the aerospace and not just military, aerospace, but aerospace industry, generally. I mean, safety is part of an engineer's job. It's an outcome that's expected, along with quality air worthiness. So it was kind of natural and towards the end of that career. I studied my lifelong passion in Environmental Science while I was in the Air Force, and also did a Bachelor of occupational health and safety. And towards the end, as I got promoted, I helped the, at least the flying squadrons of the Air Force transition into civil accreditation as maintenance organizations. And and that meant becoming a National Aerospace assessor and revising all the quality, safety and competency processes.
Brendan Torazzi
Wow. Okay. And so what was the next
Unknown Speaker
the next step was well as a as you get promoted, the unfortunate thing is you get postings and I had a young family and I got a posting down to Canberra, so decided to get out at that point or the 15, Ema. And from there, I moved into a small consultancy that had big clients that showed me the ropes in construction and mining. major projects
Brendan Torazzi
have been quite, quite cool. So you sort of like government and then going to the other side to like a private business.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. And it was very diverse as well. They were a very solid little consultancy. Couple of ex military guys. Mostly engineers from the military. Ex National Safety Council, kind of guys, you know, really showed me the ropes and yeah, got to do a lot in mining and construction in a classroom quite a bit teaching, workplace assessment and training, safety officer training, mining, safety training.
Brendan Torazzi
And so were they were they a registered training organisation?
Unknown Speaker
Or they were? Yeah.
Brendan Torazzi
Okay, who was that just as a matter of interest? Well, they
Unknown Speaker
were called Australian safety and learning systems. They still are, but all the all the old guys that used to own and have moved on.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, right now, and are they Queensland based?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, believe they are. Still right,
Brendan Torazzi
like, okay, so you sort of all that knowledge that you'd built up I guess, took that to teaching people.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. And from there I was poached by one of their clients. And so I became I ended up becoming head of health sapien by I'm in quality for our recon hatch, which was formerly Connell hatch. Yep. So delivering, you know, major infrastructure projects, as you know, the epcm, the engineer procurement, construction management. Business. So did some major projects with them and did some global projects with the with one of the parents are ICANN. And then from there, I there was a bit of a downturn around the GFC. And the major projects just weren't coming. So I started to want to get my hands dirty, and I became head of health safety environment and training with golden contractors, which was an RTO as well.
Brendan Torazzi
Okay. It's interesting, you sort of going between, I guess, industry, then to, you know, teaching people back to industry, then when you got to Golding, it's teaching again, where you're teaching or you know, you're running there. RTO.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, yeah. The RTO was, was running pretty well, before I got there. But I haven't done health safety, mainly health and safety. So, you know, group manager health and safety environment. Yeah, the training came under me. So it's and, and operated competencies and things like that.
Brendan Torazzi
And so were they effectively just training because Golding, as I remember, like, big contractor workforce, where they essentially training the contractors.
Unknown Speaker
So, yeah, that would be training their own people.
Brendan Torazzi
Yep. It was like an enterprise enterprise RTO.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, within a year, which is rare for a contractor and then mainly the big civil and, and mining contractor. And from there, I went on to Rio Tinto. Okay. I actually applied to get a job at Rio Tinto before I left. Our con. And the funny thing was, it was one of those situations where we, we don't think you've got enough experience for this role, or, you know, particular experience because it was in bauxite, and alumina. And I hadn't had a lot of that sort of operational experience in that field at that time. And it was one of those situations where they, I thought it was don't call us, we'll call you, if something comes up. It was about a year after where they call me and offered me a job as global Principal Advisor safety and risk. Amazing. And I took that and say the best job with a with a corporate that I've ever had. It was basically thought leadership roles. So all operations around the world and, and companies that they own. And a lot of it was helping emerging businesses in Africa and Asia and the Americas. sort of come up to speed.
Brendan Torazzi
Now that must have been really satisfying, being able to, you know, think big picture and also make a difference.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, think big picture and get in and help businesses on the ground as well. It was really good. It was a good roll. Unfortunately, the roll was made redundant in about 2014. Okay, since then.
Brendan Torazzi
So that was you said, you mentioned a couple of redundancies that was the was that the first one or? Yeah, yeah. Okay. And then from Rio Tinto, my own business. Okay. Okay. So, so that's when safety insights came into play?
Unknown Speaker
Yes, yes. That's when it was born. Out of necessity.
Brendan Torazzi
I mean, it sounds like you've had some amazing, different exposure to different industries. And so, you know, puts you in a fantastic spot to, to, you know, put some of your ideas into play. So what what do you think? Before we got on the call, we were talking about some of the things that companies were You were saying that safety consultants sometimes make it quite complicated when it can be reasonably straightforward. And there's some basic things that companies need to stop doing or they can put into practice to start seeing some results. Shall we talk about that?
Unknown Speaker
Sure. Sure. Yeah, so you know, when thought with the background like that diverse background, I've had the I don't know whether you call it fortunate or unfortunate, but I have investigated quite a few very serious incidents around the world fatalities, and horrible accidents like that. And so you get to see you get you do get to learn a lot by doing that. And I find that one of the big problems, I think, with safety is just too many solutions. I think people follow that natural human tendency, consultants, managers, leaders in business, they follow that human tendency to just jump to a solution. I think it was Einstein, who said, If I had 60 minutes to solve a problem, a complex problem to save the world, I'd spend 55 minutes understanding the problem, and five minutes on the solution. I think it's true. Yeah, there is so many solutions and people jump, it's almost this mono causality for a safety problem, it's almost, it's always got to be behavior, these broad labels that they put on things like it's got to be the work of behavior, or it's got to be the safety culture, but they don't define what that is they just lump it in that beach category. And I think a lot of people can go into a safety problem with this nice little briefcase full of solutions. But unless they really understand the problem, and and it is a complex problem. But some very simple steps that you need to follow basic science to solve that problem. And a lot of people don't go through that. And so ended up solving the wrong problems more, more often than not.
Brendan Torazzi
So they're just applying band aids, without seeing what the actual root causes.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, or the applying very big, broad brush, expensive programs, then often end up doing little about tangible risks. Yep. To me that the simple. If you have a look at industries or organizations that are best practice, high reliability, high safety, high quality, they all have a few things in common. They've got very, very robust risk identification and controls and control management. So I'll call that risk control, and got very, very good operating discipline. So operating discipline being, you know, they got the right people, trained, competent, doing the right job, the best way, every single time. And that's all a function of leadership. So if I was to put it into a, an equation, it would be leadership outside of brackets, risk control, plus operating discipline equals safe, quality, reliable outcomes. Without damage or loss. I think a lot of people think, you know, safety is an input. It's something they can do or add. But it's not actually an outcome. It's just the opposite of damage loss, low quality, low production. So you know, the same things that get you high quality, high reliability, good production, and profit are the same things you need to do to get good safety. They're all interrelated.
Brendan Torazzi
So so how do you I mean, I kind of get it if you're a smaller business, but with these really big businesses, isn't it tricky to get the effectively to get the if the boats going one way, and it's the wrong way? How do you get it to turn around? He would have seen you would have seen some of this in the bigger organizations he worked for, I guess.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I have. And, you know, the organizations that haven't got that operating discipline established, well, they haven't got those or they don't understand their risk controls well, and manage and monitor them well, and you know, they've got inconsistent leadership. You're right, it is very hard to turn the boat, they often look to the workforce and say, well, it must be their culture. But, you know, human beings have always we've always operated in groups, you know, tribes, hunter gatherers. So leadership's always been key to that. So, you know, they'll talk about from the top down leadership. Well, leaders at the frontline doing the right things. It makes a big difference. Safety, but they need the leaders above them to allow them to do that. So quite often you see these competing pressures, you've got general managers and chief operating officers up in arms about safety performance on one hand, but on the other hand, they're not allowing their supervisors, superintendents and middle management, you know, the time, they're not giving them the capability or the resources to actually lead in safety?
Brendan Torazzi
How critical is the training component? And I guess, you know, I'm just wondering what sorts of training can make a difference, because you've talked about leadership. But then I guess there's also, you know, just core skills as well. I don't know, like a predict particularly around I don't know, like, licensed base stuff that people have to do on the job?
Unknown Speaker
You know, look, I think you're right, it's, it's twofold. So there's the softer skills of leadership. But there's also those core skills in and around. So a good leader needs to understand, you know, what they people do, they need to understand, implicitly the risks associated with that, they need to understand how to actually manage those risks, what is the best practice around at the moment to manage those risks, and there's often plenty out, and then they need to make sure that the people are doing it. They don't need to be there all the time, they need to probably concentrate on being there at the right time, with those skills to make a difference to safety. And quite often you find they can go off and do leadership courses and things like that. But more often than not, it's good old fashioned coaching of leaders on the ground in what they do.
Brendan Torazzi
And did you find that though, like, let's say Rio Tinto not not picking on them, but just because they're a bigger organization? Do they have a like, are they training all the time, they start off and coaching and
Unknown Speaker
yeah, like any organization of that size and scale, they've got pockets of brilliance, and then pocket to not say, great. And then they've got a lot of pockets where they need Good is the enemy of great, you know, they're doing you know, what, we're all good, we're complying and we're doing what we're supposed to be doing, and then they still having problems. So yes, they do do a lot of training, where you find this very strong leadership, you know, especially at the general manager level, and that person has the authority that they need to change things when they need to change them, you'll find that they're the pockets of brilliance, or end up being the variance or the, the great outcomes in terms of production, reliability, quality and safety. I think, you know, the, the operating discipline is a big part of it, there's, there's quite often, you know, broad standards and procedures. And a lot of organizations tend to start there, but they're kind of written in isolation from the work. If you go to aircraft maintenance, for example, you don't have safety procedures, or necessarily safety management systems, you have procedures, and management systems. And they are the best available knowledge and practice that the organization has at the time. So a lot of organizations don't do the work to get on the ground and actually proceed realize different tasks. I see in mining all the time. People doing job hazard analysis again, and again, and again, for the same job. And often it's fairly poorly done. There's they don't seem to proceed, realize what they do. And then I guess, get the operating discipline around it, doing it the right way, time and time again.
Brendan Torazzi
So it has to be integrated. In other words, it's like a job you do. It's just safe by nature. Is that?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, it's I think it's what, you know, one of the models calls a generative culture, it's just the way we do business where it's about the actual work, isn't it? It's, it's not about a safety form, or, and quite often, you'll see programs where they say, well, the leaders have to get out there more. That's how we'll get better safety if the leaders are out there more and they'll create these checklists so that you know, senior leaders can go out and do these AFD observations that are kind of a little bit false at times, and then they're not really natural sort of leadership. Whereas, you know, good leaders will, will be out there already. And they'll be taking their natural opportunities to lead, like when they sign off on a permit, to work or things like that. They don't need to create artificial opportunities, if they if leaders understand well, what it is to be a leader. It's it's leadership by walking around talking to your people, understanding, you know, how do they do the job? What do they know? What do they not know? What do they do? What did they not do? What equipment that they have? Is it effective? You know, what features are present or absent in the work environment that can create risk? And then manage those?
Brendan Torazzi
And so is it sometimes quite simple to make a difference? Like, I don't know, you get a consulting gig you come in? And is it sometimes really obvious? where companies are going wrong?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, well, it's almost always obvious, you know, by their performance. And you know, it's not as if a company having a lot of accidents, it's not obvious that they've got a safety problem. But I think safety is a complex problem with business, and complex problems are made up of many component problems. So going out, and actually asking the right questions in the field naturally, with people doing what they do. And having the open and honest feedback. It's like science, science 101. It's getting the data, you know, making the Objective observations and collecting any performance data that they have and analyzing it, forming and testing a hypothesis. And then, you know, coming up with what do we need to do to address these problems? Often it's in design and the design of the workplace or the equipment, or even how they're configuring their people, equipment and environment to do the work.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, that'll that'll makes really good sense.
Unknown Speaker
I'll give you an example. That might make a little bit more sense as I went into a recycling plant. And the same things happen in a couple of manufacturing plants now, where they were having problems with the isolation of equipment. So a lot of people call it lockout tagout. And they've been several people look at these problems. And one of the one of the consultants or people within the company had revised all the procedures. And they did more or less a 4801 standard revamp of the management systems and safety systems and things like that. But they kept having a problem. Another person came in and said, Well, it's all the workforce, you know, they need some retraining, and things like that. So they did that. And the problems still started to happen. When you looked at it, and you spoke to the engineer, he spoke to the electrician, you spoke to the operations people and you spoke to some of the workers, they found out that there have been changes in the plant and some automation. And just reading the electrical circuits, you could see that the isolation simply weren't effective, even if you did them to the procedure. Things were starting and stopping quite on their own by remote signal. And so that's a good example of like, you can go in with these solutions. Well, it must be the workers, you know, they're making mistakes, or it must be the systems they're not good enough. But the real problem was modifications to the equipment.
Brendan Torazzi
mismatch between the policies and and what's actually happening on the ground.
Unknown Speaker
Correct? Correct. Correct. And the funny thing is sometimes the, the engineers might not the operations people might not say, and the safety people have a different view. And it's kind of sometimes getting them together to a common understanding of what really is the problem and rolling up your sleeves and actually going out and finding out reading some circuits perhaps, it's, you know, mechanical or electrical circuits, piping and instrumentation, it's often not the people are off can often be victims of the work environment, all the equipment that they use.
Brendan Torazzi
Sounds like good old fashioned communication. Yes, yes, in fact, can often help.
Unknown Speaker
Good old fashioned scientific inquiry and communicates.
Brendan Torazzi
Excellent. Okay, well, I am well, we're going to wrap up now. Just got a few short questions for you. How old are you?
Unknown Speaker
Oh, I'm 4848.
Brendan Torazzi
And what do you like to do to keep fit?
Unknown Speaker
Personally, I like going for walks. It's either beach or bush for me. I quite like walking. I enjoy surfing when I can bring a golf bit of tennis. But not often enough.
Brendan Torazzi
Excellent. Okay, and how many hours sleep you're getting each night?
Unknown Speaker
Well, I tried to get 10.
Brendan Torazzi
That's amazing. It's often not that. Okay.
Unknown Speaker
I try to get at least eight but it's probably closer to six.
Brendan Torazzi
Okay, and then if you could be remembered for one business achievement, like your legacy, so to speak, what would that be?
Unknown Speaker
I would hope it would be safety insights, helping businesses solve problems.
Brendan Torazzi
Now that's, that's great. So if people want to find out a little bit more about safety insights, could you share your website for us?
Unknown Speaker
Yes, yes. That's one of the things I'm doing at the moment is is building that but it's it's it's there ready to go? www dot safety insights. One word, so that's as a FETY. INS IG hts.com.au. So www dot safety. insights.com.au.
Brendan Torazzi
That's brilliant. Okay, Wayne, thanks very much for coming on the show today.
Unknown Speaker
You're very welcome, Brendan. Thank you.