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TRANSCRIPT
Julie Armour
This is an ohs.com.au production
Brendan Torazzi
Welcome to Episode 60 of the Australian Health and Safety Business Podcast. I'm Brendan Torazzi, the host of the show and today I'm with Julie armor from working armor. Hi, Julie.
Julie Armour
Hi, how you doing?
Brendan Torazzi
I'm well I'm Well now you've been in health and safety for many years, I think. Can you tell tell us and the listeners what what you do.
Julie Armour
I live I guess I really a ginormous sticky beak. And I just find it amazing what people do for work out there. I really love I guess what I'm involved in doing really is going into workplaces and having a look at how people are working, what the risks they may be exposed to in the way that they're working, and providing advice to employers, employer, body bodies, mining government, for a whole variety of people, and then lawyers, and courts and regulators as to perhaps how to how to improve the processes that people are using to manage risk.
Brendan Torazzi
Okay, so you were saying your sticky beak? Does that mean that? Are you curious? Would you say that curiosity plays a role in in health and safety and what you do?
Julie Armour
Definitely. And look, I guess, probably I discovered very early on in my career that I'm actually much better at things that I know nothing about. And I guess the reason there is that you really do have to rely on huge number of resources and input to try and get a better understanding of what the risk might be. It's really easy in a lot of areas to carry your own personal biases in. And I think part of the challenge in any health and safety assessment Issue Analysis, is the need to be able to go in with complete open mind and try and throw out everything you may have had previously, to really find out what's going on first, rather than taking in your own sort of baggage, so to speak.
Brendan Torazzi
Fair enough. I'm thinking of Fawlty Towers, that character that says I know nothing. Sort of going with that approach and see what happens
Julie Armour
here look, and I guess over the years, I found it really interesting when I've worked with people in different industries, many people are quite embarrassed to say they don't know how something works, particularly if they've been working in an industry for a long time. And I guess when I first started off in my career, certainly when I worked in heavy industry, I would often have men that I might be working with, which would say, Hey, John, would you mind asking this question? Because simply because they felt embarrassed, because they should know about that. And initially, I must admit, in a lot of heavy industry, I found it really useful. Because I don't mean to sound nasty, and people were always trying to help. But that sort of, I guess some would say patronizing attitude. But I found it very helpful, because people would actually explain very well, things that I perhaps didn't understand so well, which I found really useful. And it's been a useful tool. Again, I'm not making any statement about gender there. But but a very useful tool for finding out how how things work.
Brendan Torazzi
So it's sort of like there's no, there's no silly or stupid questions, if you don't know, just ask.
Julie Armour
Exactly. And in situations often when I have gone in with a if you'd like a preconceived idea, particularly on working overseas and working in different with different cultures, and in industries that, that perhaps I haven't had enough experience in. So I know, in a lot of, I guess, tech startups, particularly in this very sophisticated STEM areas, I have a lot of challenges, because simply the the physics that they're dealing with, I actually don't have the capacity to understand it. My, my knowledge of those sorts of areas is really limited. And so I really rely on having really open conversations with people that I'm dealing with, to actually be able to say, Well, hang on, tell me what you're doing, go go through it exactly. So I can actually look very clearly at what may be their health or safety risks be their psychosocial be they chemical be though whatever. And and that's a really important conversation that I think often doesn't happen. We make a lot of assumptions about stuff. And I guess the biggest thing I've learned over the years is to just get rid of the assumptions.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, wow. It must be fascinating. Like every workplace you go into, you know, you probably learned something new, I would imagine.
Julie Armour
Oh, totally, totally. And look, I guess probably, you know, some of that is related to the way that you know, mass manufacturing of doing things, and the sort of impacts and changes that whole mass production approach has had and where we've developed technology that you just would have thought would be totally bizarre. And often when I'm talking to people about that sort of technology that's been developed, you know, it's that classic of necessity being the mother of invention in areas that you just would not think well would have occurred and you know, 20 years ago, having situations where people were designing robotic if you like chicken catches, because the way that we were, you know, processing chickens really was high risk for the people who have to do the work. And so very interesting in in lots of different areas trying to consider, I guess just things that can go wrong.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah. And so can you rewind back for us? Like, how did you get to where you are like, what did you? What was the original? I don't know, job or business you had that? You know, what were the stepping stones. In other words, in
Julie Armour
your, I guess for me, I came from a sort of a different angle I came from me if you feel like a sports science angle. And I was doing initial some really interesting work. Initially, in my postgraduate degree where I was looking at how we could use exercise to help opiate addicts withdraw. And it was a really fascinating sort of area. But through all sorts of weirdness, I ended up doing biomechanics and looked at the, I guess, a comparison between a physical activity that is performed by females and males to look at the difference in the movement processes. And that has actually, strangely enough, at the time, I thought this will never be applicable has been one of the most useful things in terms of analyzing how people move in workplaces. And even still, today, the technologies that we were using 40 years ago, is still the basis of most of the movement analysis that's conducted in workplace or in sporting environments or wherever. And although there's a bit of AI, the same problems that existed 40 years ago, are still problems, which are hampering, you know, AI and software in that area. And it's so it was like some really good foundations. And I guess one of the things that I learned when I first was employed, I actually worked not in the sport science area, I did that when I was in doing my degree, but I work predominantly in rehabilitation and training up rehab people. And interestingly enough, just found that, but most of the people that we were dealing with had been injured, you know, and we need rehabilitation, there's no doubt about that we need and tech is just absolutely fantastic for rehab opportunities these days. But what I was seeing was that 9095 99% of the people who are been very badly injured in workplaces, or in sport, or in in a lot of other areas were actually involved in totally preventable incidents. So that really got me involved in trying to look at getting into the preventative side. So I used to train a lot of occupational therapists and physiotherapists in biomechanics, and it's, I guess, a physics based subject. And many of them found it quite difficult if they didn't come from that sort of scientific background. And so we used to take them face to take them down to some factory owners and just say, hey, look, can we show them through your factories and give them a bit of a practical application of some of the stuff that we've been doing? And with that, you know, a lot of the owners would say, can you come back and help us with a few things? And I was, so I found it quite weird. I suppose that is this useful this stuff. And so it was really fascinating to actually think that some of the knowledge that you had was actually useful.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah. Wow. So you kind of it sounds like you kind of fell into it in some ways that you're you were approaching these companies for something else, but it developed into actually a business.
Julie Armour
Yeah, and look, I guess it's helped me really identify, although I do love research, if identified that just I love the practical application, the actual ability to change something to go in, and to work with people from whole variety of different backgrounds and be able to change something that is for the better, but equally, that never is a static process. You know, it's an it's might be for the better for a week or a year that you know, in two years, it's not going to be appropriate. Yeah,
Brendan Torazzi
yeah, I guess when you you teach that practical aspect as well, you as a as a consultant or person giving advice, you become much better at what you're doing as well, because you're seeing different applications and different scenarios, and then you're able to put it into real world.
Julie Armour
And that's so right. I mean, I have had situations when I've been on offshore oil and gas platforms, and I've actually been able to employ techniques or methods or things that we did in a nursing home, for example. Yeah, yes. Stuff you wouldn't think there's any sort of relationship with and so, I mean, that's really wonderful. I must admit, I, for me, personally, I've really loved the practical application. I had the, I guess joy, if you like or the lack to be seconded for 12 months for the sabbatical, to go and work with Woodside offshore petroleum very early on in my career, and it was just fantastic. I just, you know, really had carte blanche across an amazing amount of things. histories. And it was just a great introduction. And I can remember I flew back from this year of working in a remote area. And I came back and on the, on the Sunday night, and on the Monday I'm giving a lecture about how bone responds to force. And I could just see me it's sort of 70. filled. Okay, and about how boners constables. This is not for me. So yeah. So, you know, again, from there, I went and did some work overseas, which was, was great. And again, I didn't have any particular dream to have a consulting business, but just wound up in consulting. And just like I said, I have loved the opportunity to work with people.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, that's amazing. And so how long ago was the Woodside?
Julie Armour
That was in early 90s.
Brendan Torazzi
Oh, wow. Okay, so I've been going for 30 years doing this, this type of work? Yeah. Yeah.
Julie Armour
So yeah, it's, it's, it's been very interesting. And I must admit, I have really enjoyed when I've gone back to the academic environment, to do lectures have to do whatever. And, and quite sort of inspirational with a lot of students, their interest and their involvement has been been great. But equally, I'd have to say, in most workplaces, I go to where people have got issues, they're just hungry, hungry for solutions. And they're hungry to be involved in the process. And and that's really, that's great.
Brendan Torazzi
Or from my experience, from, you know, academic environments, if you can get those lectures that actually have the practical and they're bringing it back through that lens. It's just so much more powerful. No, you're not talking about it. In theory, you're actually marrying the theory with the practical, it just makes a real.
Julie Armour
Yeah. And I must admit, I did one of the first times I did it, I found it quite interesting. Because after the lecture, I had a few students come up to me and say, Well, you know, I'd like a mobile phone, and I probably need a car. And I'd like this and the other and I'm like, What are you talking about? And they said, Well, when we come to work for you, and I'm not just giving you a lecture, I'm not offering you a job. I guess just an interesting process. And I mean, I have the lap, I think it's great. A lot of younger people today have got, you know, they just get out there and have a go, and it's fantastic.
Brendan Torazzi
And so are you flying solo? Or do you have other people working underneath you?
Julie Armour
Okay, so like, probably about 1520 years ago, I, I really like, I sort of thought, you know, maybe I should grow my business, and I need to employ people and blah, blah, blah. And I really realized that I like the technical side, I don't like people management, internal people, management issues, I understand totally, and I can go into workplaces and see all sorts of issues with them. But I just didn't want to do it for me. And so what I've tended to do over the years is to form alliances and allegiances. And I initially I can remember going out and trying to ask other people, groups, consultants, whoever, if I could work in those sorts of arrangements with them, and some best some No. And so I guess I've come to this sort of happy medium where I, it's, I am a sole trader, I have a number of associates I can do work with, but also a lot of specialists that I might call in who've got much better skills in certain areas than I do. But equally, I really do enjoy working as part of team. So I love a lot of the design work I do now. Particularly, I mean, the remote stuff, it to some degree has its drawbacks in that you miss out on going to really amazing workplaces, to get involved in that design. And it tends to be done remotely, but it's just fascinating to be working with people from all over the world with different skills in different areas and coming up with designs for buildings, facilities, for offshore platforms for for whatever. And that's been a really great part of the process. Yeah,
Brendan Torazzi
it sounds like that you're on those kinds of projects, you're able to work with the best in breed in their, you know, different niches. So that would mean that you'd learn a lot doing that as well, I'd imagine.
Julie Armour
Totally, totally, you're learning so much. And it's also it's a very whole process because you feel that you're actually getting a lot of a lot out of it. So you can actually work with people and create changes to design before the stuffs built. And it really allows so much more. Just I guess you're really getting a feeling that this is going to have some great, great impact. I mean, it also has its drawbacks. I know there's a lot of funding that comes particularly with the design of equipment that's much bigger for global companies in Europe and in Southeast Asia and and so there's sometimes challenges I can remember one that I was involved with where they were doing their chosen Australia to be a pilot for this sort of automated system that they were going to be using to be texting planes in and out of airports. And it was actually aimed for the Southeast Asian market, but they were going to trial it in in Australia. So we're going to build a prototype here and go through the process with it and it was just a really interesting challenge because From both Southeast Asian airports, if you like, we're dealing with people that are much different size and stature. And some of the challenges that we had was when we designed our prototypes, we had the few like the target audience in mind, because they were funding the project. But when we were then trying to trial it at Sydney Airport with a lot of much larger South Sea Islanders, you know, couldn't physically get into the devices. So, you know, there's stuff that you think is really simple, you know, after you've seen the problem. Yeah, very challenging.
Brendan Torazzi
So what do you think drives you, Julie? Like, what, why you had a long career in health and safety? And you, you clearly seem very, still very passionate about what you do? What, what do you think, you know, makes you keep coming back from war?
Julie Armour
Look, I think there's four. On the other side of it, I do quite a lot of legal work when people are really seriously injured and killed, and deal with families and, and equally do a lot of work in that legal space, as well with emergency services workers who also are involved in the aftermath, and, and how that aftermath of that all of the what goes on around that can affect them and their families significantly for life. And seeing that side of it. It's just awful, you know, we're only here once one time, and you know, a lot of the workers in those areas, you know, they basically give their lives, you know, they're not paid huge amounts of money. And I guess, particularly when you're seeing the other end, when people are very badly injured, at all killed, it really provides an amazing motivation. If you can actually stop that happening, that's great. But you can't do it on your own, you really have to do it with the people that's there and the circumstances that are there at the time and the place. And, and I guess that's part of the motivation. And I guess the other part is actually just meeting people, to terms with how they do stuff, everyone's got different things that drive them. So you are asking me about what drives me, I found I found it really hard in working in different cultures in different parts of the world, where what they're driven by is completely different. And so to sort of show them that I've had situations in certain countries where to show them, what would happen to their families, if they were killed at work, is what the message that they receive is how you'll get a film crew follow you if you have an accident, right. And rather than in a lot of cases, they prefer to actually stop this life right now and come back and have a better life. Right? And so it's, I guess, in many different ways, we are all driven by something very different. And it's needing to find out with each person or organization, what is it? What is it that drives them, and what's going to change how they do stuff.
Brendan Torazzi
So you've mentioned a lot about offshore and overseas, what percentage of your work is sort of in Australia versus
Julie Armour
offshore? She's really interesting you say that, because I think from from insurance purposes and texts, I would have to say that that's changed over the years. And I guess it's a bit more difficult to define now, because certainly where you're getting paid from, but I would travel a whole lot less now than I used to travel purely because so much work is done remotely. So and that in a way also takes a lot of weight from it. Because there's nothing like you know, I used to audit, I spent 10 years auditing shipyards in Singapore. And there was nothing like going on to these workplaces that were, you know, two kilometers squared that had 16,000 People working in the most hazardous jobs, you could imagine on a very small site. And with no generally often no common language. And so you can't get that experience, from zoom or from teams or those sorts of things. And I think, in many workplaces, it's quite interesting, I guess to with the intersection with it at the moment, I'm doing a bit of work with VR. And here, there's some really fascinating things that I'm learning from that, that become quite important. So for example, when you're going underground in a mine, part of the transitioning process of getting there is that it takes time. Now, if you're shoved in a VR environment, you stick on some goggles, and all of a sudden you're exposed exposed to an explosion, it really has a completely different impact. Or the result is not necessarily the same, but that learning can be quite different. And so those sorts of things that really, I guess, fascinating in how we tie up some of our tissues and needing to have that experiential in the workplace stuff. That in some cases, you know, we can't do inductions, wholly remotely. We can't do training wholly remotely. We need to, to actually have people in that physical workplace if that's where they're going to be working from. And I guess I say this all the time, because yes, we do. A lot of people more people have been working from home but still it's less than 15 sent, that I'm able to work from home, there's still a huge proportion of our workforce that are often ignored, who can't work from home. But they also need to be familiar with their workplace. And, and I think that there's some real challenges around how we how we manage that.
Brendan Torazzi
So you were mentioning earlier in the conversation that are some of the things AI hasn't been able to work out and I use, like, Are there trends in what health and safety issues are? Or are they basically still the same as what they were decades ago? Well, obviously, we've had COVID. So that would be a different, that would be a different health and safety issue. But look like
Julie Armour
I guess, what you could say is that one thing that we haven't got any better at, and whether we go back to the printing, the days of the Gutenberg Printing Press today, is the one thing we do very badly is try and look at the risks before we introduce stuff. And you were seeing this all the time now. And certainly with AI, and with a lot of tech, not tech, there's some tech that that you know, it's fantastic. And you've got people so for example, people who aren't able to work, walk who can use exoskeletons to now give them some ability, that's great. But when we're using exoskeletons in a workplace, because you know, the task we actually want you to do, it's not really right for a human to be doing. So we'll give you we'll get you strapped up into this device, it'll give you more strength. But there's a whole lot of other issues that go with that. And what we're finding now is that a lot of the interfaces that we're having, with our technology that just problematic, it doesn't doesn't mean we stop technology that, you know, there's so much that's there, but we just need to analyze the risk a bit better than we're doing right now. And it's really at the interface point, we know that if we could go into electric cars, fully automated electric cars tomorrow, that that would be able to cope, the problem is in the transition. And this is going to be one of the things it doesn't matter what we're talking about that it's going to slow us, because one of the things about us humans is if you take us away from us need to interact with something we get distracted. So what we're fighting with, as we're increasing that into more semi autonomous vehicles, of any description, there's real problems in the humans come in, basically, adopting of this is automated sort of approach when it's not. So when something goes wrong, them needing to react well, they're completely distracted, and they're not interested so that the whole concept of that human engagement is actually one of our difficulties, if you like if we in that phase between, you know, pure manual to, to autonomous, and that's probably one of the greatest risks that we've got. And one of the areas that we need to really start looking at how we do it, AI, I guess, great, fantastic. There's so many fantastic areas that we can look at. But again, one of the problems is same garbage in garbage out. You know, if we put if we write our AI with the same discrimination and biases that we have, we're going to end up with a process that's exactly the same as what we've got, it might just be able to work stuff out on those biases on a quicker timeframe.
Brendan Torazzi
It sounds like we can't just go from do a jump from A to B, we need the incremental learning and time along the way to assimilate into our own collective consciousness or some humans need to understand it to a degree before it can happen.
Julie Armour
Yeah, it's not just also understanding it's us. It's us accepting, right? The less that we're involved as humans. The bigger the problem is when we do need to actually react or override something. So if you're fully engaged, I mean, if you think about, you know, if you're driving somewhere, and you're driving on a real on a back road that's really windy, and it's really complicated. Driving single lane driving versus driving on a freeway is a really good example of one, you know, you focused, you're engaged, you're totally into what you're doing. Whereas the other, you're far more likely to have an accident, because you're totally disengaged. Yeah. Yeah. And we add to that, you know, screaming children and distractions, and you know, all sorts of other things. And I guess what we're looking at is so much more. And I guess this is where in so many ways, we've had to take a much closer look at psychosocial risks, and how they're impacting on things like concentration and things like, you know, whether we're actually engaged in what we're doing.
Brendan Torazzi
So I had just one more, I might have two more questions, but the first question was is, so when you take on work? Do you do it? Like, do you have multiple jobs or projects happening at the same time? Or do you tend to sort of focus on one piece of work at a time? Look,
Julie Armour
it just varies i Generally I would have a number of guy in at the same time, and that's okay. It's just a time management one, but it's also quite helpful too because you often find that something that you're doing in one can feed off another or provide information for another. So, yes, so I find I like to work with a lot of different, different jobs. Again, it's still the sort of the basics remain the same, but but it just creates a different way of looking at things, particularly in industries, we all get very staid in certain industries. And we think we're the only ones who do this, and we do it this way, and blah, blah, blah. And when you can get some cross fertilization across those industries, it's really, it's really, really fascinating. And the design work I do, I really enjoy that. Because it's bringing home to designers or even suppliers of equipment, you know, issues that, you know, if we want to use engineered stone, for example, in this facility design, that's great. And the architects think it looks beautiful in the interior designers love it. But this is going to create a problem for us down the track with potential dust issues, and equally whether whether the product itself gets banned. So So those sorts of things are really quite interesting to have those conversations at the time of design.
Brendan Torazzi
And then the second question I had was, how do people find you? Is it are you? It sounds like you'd have a huge word of mouth clientele is, am I am I correct? Am I sorry to assume, by the way, I'm just wondering if, if that's how you get predominantly get your work
Julie Armour
very much. So in actual fact, I have tried, you know, over the years, different forms of advertising and different forms of whatever, and nine times out of 10. They're completely useless like, and in actual fact, if you look at my website, I'm actually in the process of updating it. It's it's quite old, it's the original website that I had, it's been updated slightly with with different projects and different jobs. But basically, one of the reasons that I haven't sort of gone down that it path is that most of most of the work that I do is just word of mouth, and I get far more value out of any word of mouth than anything else. So yeah, that I guess that's, that's how, how most of it comes. But having said that, you know, when people say to me, I'll blah, blah, said, You're good at all, you've done this sort of work or whatever. I always try and make sure that, you know, I want them to understand how I do the work and that sort of stuff. So it's not just going on a personal recommendation, I want them to be sure that what they're after is what I'll be able to give them more, or, you know, I might need to bring in other people or whatever else it is. Yeah.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah. That's fantastic. Julie, well, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and your journey with us. If people want to find out a little bit more about you. What is your website
Julie Armour
as long as they prepared for that's not very exciting that is in the process of being updated. It's www dot working armor. And that's just wo RK ing IRM a usa.com.au.
Brendan Torazzi
That's great. And I take it, there's a phone number on there so they can they can give you a call and have a chat.
Julie Armour
Very true. And there's also a newsletter they can sign up to which doesn't have any cost to it. But it's again, just a way of sort of getting information out that might be topical that sometimes people are interested
Brendan Torazzi
in. That's brilliant. Okay, Julie, thanks so much.
Julie Armour
No problems. Thank you, Brendan.
Julie Armour
You've been listening to an ihs.com.au production.
Brendan Torazzi
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