(0:04) Welcome to another episode of Tech Unlinked, where we dive into the raw, unfiltered world (0:10) of technology, innovation, and the incredible people driving the change. (0:14) I’m Ashur, and today we’re going to explore how technology is rewriting the safety playbook (0:18) from reactive to protective. (0:20) Joining me is Salya.
(0:22) She’s a results-driven EHS, you know, environmental safety leader with over a decade of experience (0:28) protecting people, product, and the planet across some of the most complex industrial (0:32) environments. (0:33) She currently leads the EHS department for PepsiCo, EMI region, and previously she was (0:38) working at the, you know, driving the overall national safety strategy at Unilever Pakistan. (0:43) Salya, welcome to the show.
(0:44) Thank you for having me here and picking up a very important topic, which we actually do (0:48) need to talk more about when it comes to different industries and different scopes that we’re (0:53) working on. (0:53) Yeah, absolutely. (0:54) I’ve been, more recently, been interacting with a lot of safety specialists, you know, (0:59) and I found that they, all of them, have a certain passion around, you know, how to work (1:05) with safety, how to keep people safe, and that was something very refreshing, very nice (1:09) to look at, you know.
(1:10) Usually when you talk to people, they’re like, you know, just normal about their jobs, but (1:15) I really found whoever I met, especially you and a few other people as well, everybody talks (1:20) about safety so passionately. (1:21) So it was very, you know, energising and refreshing for me to experience that as well. (1:25) So that’s been good.
(1:26) All right. (1:27) I’m just saying that definitely it is something which has to be done with passion because (1:31) if it is not done with passion, and if it’s just about, you know, compliance, pick in (1:36) the box, then it’s automatically going to result into certain negligences and non-conformances. (1:41) So usually just like doctors, you’ll see a lot of safety people, they’re also very, very (1:45) passionate about what they do, because it also gives them a sense of satisfaction that, (1:51) you know, whatever we’re doing is trying to save people’s life and trying to save livelihoods.
(1:57) So that is why I think you’re meeting people who are very, very passionate. (2:01) Yeah, that’s true. (2:02) Absolutely.
(2:03) Doctors share the same passion usually. (2:05) So yeah, I think when it comes to human life, generally, that’s the major thing that’s driving, (2:12) you know, these kind of careers and these kind of job options and everything. (2:14) So that’s, yeah, that’s true.
(2:16) Kind of circling back on the same. (2:18) So what was your first moment in your early career that kind of made you realise that, (2:22) hey, safety is just not theory, you know, it’s a matter of life and death, or it could (2:27) be a potentially a matter of life and death. (2:29) For me, Ashur, I think it was very, very personal because as a part of my education as well, (2:34) I studied health and safety.
(2:35) And trust me, when you say that it is more theoretical for people, it was more theoretical (2:40) for me as well. (2:41) It was just like one of the courses you’re studying, and you’re getting to know about (2:45) all the systems. (2:46) But it got personal for me, because I did actually lose my friend in a driving accident (2:52) who was unfortunately not wearing a seatbelt.
(2:55) And this was exactly the time when I was working for an organisation which had very, very strong (3:00) safety systems. (3:01) And that was the time when I started to reflect that whatever we’re doing is not just keeping (3:06) into consideration that it’s a high risk organisation. (3:09) And you know, that is why they require safety.
(3:11) I figured it is something it has to be done everywhere, wherever we do, wherever we are, (3:16) which organisation we’re working for. (3:18) So it was very early in my career, though, right after we graduated, but I think the (3:25) right time for me to also understand the importance of this particular area and this particular (3:29) scope. (3:30) And hence, that is where my passion lay first.
(3:33) So absolutely. (3:34) So I mean, something as simple as cycling a seatbelt could, you know, cost you a life (3:39) or save your life. (3:40) So that really tells you that how important even the minor things could be.
(3:44) All right. (3:45) So how do you typically break down between your reactive and predictive safety in a simple (3:51) everyday language, if you could explain for the viewers? (3:54) Okay, so if we have to explain it to people, just in very simple language, reactive safety (3:58) is like waiting for an accident to happen. (4:01) And before you take any action, it focussing on, focusses on fixing the problems, you know, (4:07) after they have occurred, after you have done the investigation or after the incident (4:11) has taken place, whereas predictive is the one where you’re using analytics, data, information (4:16) sensors to identify a potential risk.
(4:19) It’s just like weather forecast that warns you about a particular weather condition or (4:24) storm in advance, and then you prepare accordingly. (4:27) So predictive safety is also in the same way, letting you, helping you identify things that (4:33) can happen and things that can go wrong. (4:35) In safety language, we call these leading and lagging indicators.
(4:39) I remember talking about it as well, where leading are the ones which are more active (4:43) and predictive, and lagging are the ones which are more reactive. (4:47) Okay. (4:47) So does this shift happen in the last few years, or it’s always been kind of seen in (4:52) that way, where you see leading, lagging, or does this shift has happened more towards (4:56) predictive, you know, with the new technology and everything, which we’re going to talk (5:00) about shortly as well has come in.
(5:01) So I think if you see, if you go back in the 1800s, you must have seen a lot of major (5:06) accidents that happened. (5:08) I won’t talk about the incidents from a very far, far place. (5:11) But one that happened in our neighbouring industry, the Bhopal incident, where a lot of (5:15) things went wrong and that particular incident took place.
(5:18) And that’s when all the organisations, they stood up, safety organisations, they stood (5:23) up and they tried to figure out that what actually went wrong. (5:27) But this entire shift has taken much longer than it should have. (5:31) It’s been now a lot of decades and people are still not understanding the need for (5:37) doing this.
There are still organisations who are very, very, very reactive. (5:41) And there are still organisations who have started working on more, you know, leading (5:47) indicator approach, but still they’re not very, very strong with it. (5:51) And honestly, if I tell you the challenge that they are facing is too much data that (5:55) they have, too much information that they have.
(5:57) They are just unable to figure out that how to put that data into the right use. (6:03) So, yeah, it’s a cultural shift that has taken many, many centuries now. (6:08) Okay.
So, yeah. (6:09) So next question is exactly on that. (6:11) So after years of investigating incidents, there’s a lot of data that comes in.
(6:16) What are some of the patterns that you consistently see, you know, that traditional (6:20) audits or manual site reporting or mechanisms like these would generally miss out? (6:25) Okay, so traditional audits are usually focussing on frameworks and processes that the (6:30) safety system defines. (6:31) Something which everybody is missing out on the human side, the people side, that is (6:36) where usually in an audit, you would not find out what sort of a communication is (6:40) happening with the people on the floor or people in the field. (6:43) What are the cultural challenges? (6:45) They might have a perfect process in place and they might have a perfect, you know, (6:49) reporting in place.
(6:50) But are people really connected with those processes? (6:52) That’s something which comes out to be a big barrier. (6:55) Usually when we are investigating, we keep a rule of thumb that after any investigation, (7:00) we have to identify three gaps. (7:02) One is the process gap.
(7:04) One is the system gap. (7:05) And third, which is very important, is the people side. (7:07) Many reactive organisations focus on the people side first, but then that is more driven (7:12) by accountability.
(7:13) They want to focus on who did it wrong or who messed it up. (7:17) And then they want to talk on to the account. (7:19) So traditional auditing systems, while they’re excellent when it comes to process health (7:24) check, we need to have more systems in place to identify behavioural issues and behavioural (7:28) challenges and what is happening on the people’s side.
(7:31) OK, that’s interesting. (7:32) You work with some of the world’s strictest safety standards. (7:37) So where do you think all of these frameworks or existing frameworks at times struggle to (7:42) keep pace with the way modern risk is now also evolving? (7:45) So you used to use a different set of tools.
(7:48) Now you use a different set of tools and environments are completely changing. (7:52) Have these safety standards been keeping up? (7:56) They’ve been lagging a little. (7:57) If they have been lagging a little, where do you think they are basically struggling (8:00) in? (8:01) OK, you started off by saying that work for the strictest safety standards organisations.
(8:06) I will not talk about that. (8:07) There are very few numbers. (8:09) They are updating themselves from a process safety approach or a process based approach (8:14) to a risk based approach.
(8:16) However, for traditional setups, I think the struggle is very, very different because (8:20) they’re working on different complex supply chains and rapid technological changes. (8:25) The old frameworks in industries where they were only focussing on regulation or only (8:30) focussing on compliance, they would forget the fact that, you know, lack of agility in (8:36) your supply chain and lack of identifying or evolving risk can actually result into (8:41) an incident as well. (8:42) For instance, when we talk about a manufacturing side, in a manufacturing side, it’s a (8:48) VUCA world.
There are things changing on a day to day basis. (8:51) And if you’re not going to change your safety framework according to the changing supply (8:56) chain and you’re going to stick to those traditional safety frameworks only, then it’s (9:01) just going to be a push that you’re going to give to your people. (9:05) And it’s just going to be a process that you’re going to ask your employees to follow.
(9:09) And it’s not going to be an easy one because they’ve started working in a different way. (9:14) I think that’s the struggle that is there with modern risk. (9:17) Modern risk is focussing more on risk prediction.
(9:21) One is risk assessment. (9:22) You know something is wrong, you go and you figure it out. (9:25) The other part is risk prediction.
(9:27) There is a framework by the name of world class manufacturing that teaches you that (9:31) where you have to identify what can go wrong. (9:34) You know, if a person is standing next to a conveyor, what will go wrong? (9:37) What is it that the person, maybe the conveyor is in the perfect condition, but what if he (9:41) decides to put his hand somewhere on one of the fixed points? (9:45) That’s something which is really important. (9:47) And that’s what modern, you know, the traditional organisations are probably lacking when it (9:52) comes to identifying modern risk.
(9:55) Right. Or what if he just decides to climb on the conveyor belt and pick something up (9:58) there while it’s running. (10:00) So, you know, I mean, it’s hard to predict human behaviour.
(10:02) So now prediction. (10:04) Prediction is predicting behaviour or predicting scenarios. (10:08) All of that comes from data.
(10:10) Now, the more the data you capture, then you have to organise that data and then see, you (10:16) have to kind of evaluate, you know, looking all of those patterns at what’s really going (10:20) on. And how do you think technology, more recently, you have the CCTV cameras are now (10:26) fairly common across everywhere. (10:27) And then you have this computer vision technology and real time alerts.
(10:30) How do you think that can really help in organisations, you know, catching up to this (10:37) modern risk to help in evaluation of different type of patterns emerging? (10:41) And A. And then B, how do you really explain it? (10:44) So let’s say if you have to first, it’s a question of whether it’s helpful or not. (10:48) Let’s answer that. And then B, let’s say if you’re deploying it in a certain organisation, (10:52) how do you guys as safety leaders explain to the frontline workers that, hey, how this (10:57) would eventually help them out? (10:58) Okay, so I’ll answer the first part first, because we spoke about that, you know, there’s (11:04) a lot of data that is there.
(11:06) Now, think of an organisation where let’s say 1500 people are working. (11:10) So 1500 people are coming from 1500 backgrounds. (11:13) They have a different mind.
(11:14) They all operate in a different way. (11:16) They all might be coming back with a lot of coming to work with a lot of baggage. (11:21) Some might be relaxed.
(11:22) Some might have a different environment or set up that they’re working in. (11:26) When you actually go to the floor and you start observing one person for the entire (11:31) day, you would know that every person might make a certain mistake every day. (11:37) And then if you start observing these 1500 people, maybe you have 1500 alerts for 1500 (11:44) people in a single day.
(11:46) That’s exactly the amount of data that is being received by a good safety organisation (11:52) or a safety driven organisation. (11:54) This is such a huge amount of data. (11:57) And usually we say these are probably some sort of unsafe conditions or unsafe acts, (12:02) sometimes even near that are being captured.
(12:05) Now, with this huge amount of data, it is very, very difficult for the organisations to (12:09) actually analyse the data and pick up the areas which are of bigger concern. (12:14) When we say bigger concerns, things which have a higher probability of happening, which (12:19) most of the people are doing wrong or things which have a higher severity, which can (12:23) result into a major incident, a significant amputation or let’s say even a fatality. (12:29) So this data and this set of information is impossible for people to actually sit down (12:36) and analyse and identify.
(12:38) And that is where technology plays its part. (12:41) That is where things like AI using CCTV, especially utilising CCTV to capture these (12:48) because it’s not for 1500 people. (12:51) You cannot have one or two people evaluating them or let’s even if you have 10 people (12:55) evaluating it, you cannot capture everything.
(12:58) So utilising these sorts of technology tools that are there becomes very, very important. (13:03) And even more important is that how you’re reading this information, how you’re building (13:09) on to this information. (13:11) Now, coming to the second part is that once you have done the analysis, how are you (13:16) communicating it to your frontline? (13:18) Because that’s the more trickier part.
(13:20) There are organisations who would focus on like we spoke about accountability, but can (13:25) they hold their 1500 people? (13:27) Let’s say even 100 of them do something wrong. (13:30) Can they hold 100 people accountable in a single day? (13:33) They cannot. (13:33) They have to build that culture of care and culture of trust and let them know that (13:39) whatever we are doing is to help you and to protect your livelihood and to help them (13:45) understand that this is aiding for their own safety instead of using this particular (13:50) information and telling them that, you know, you are the one who did something wrong.
(13:54) Today, I’m going to give you a warning. (13:56) Tomorrow, you’re going to be fired and you’re going to be terminated. (13:59) This way, we will end up firing the entire organisation one day.
(14:03) So that’s not the approach that we should be taking. (14:05) And to build on to this culture of care and to build on to this culture of trust, it’s (14:10) very, very important to talk to these frontline people, to talk to our field people and make (14:16) them understand the purpose of this. (14:18) I’ll give you a very quick example.
(14:20) Now, in the new vehicles, they have this proximity sensor coming in and the reverse (14:25) camera coming in and the blind spot alert that is coming in. (14:29) And this is what customers are actually preferring because they’ve understood the need (14:33) for it. I mean, we would now not prefer buying a vehicle which doesn’t has all of, which (14:39) does not include all the sensors and technology that is there because we’ve understood the (14:44) need for it, how it has made our lives easier.
(14:48) It’s exactly the same way for the frontline. (14:50) For the frontline, it’s might going to take a little longer time in explaining it to them. (14:55) That’s because they’ve never gotten that exposure of understanding how these things and (15:00) these tools can help them or aid them.
(15:02) But once they do, they actually partner with you, they actually support you and they (15:07) actually help you develop further on this particular agenda. (15:11) We have seen in organisations that usually frontline is now the one coming up with such (15:16) initiatives and such agendas. (15:18) And that’s how it has helped us.
(15:20) I hope I was able to answer your question. (15:23) No, absolutely. (15:23) Absolutely.
So what you’re saying really is that, you know, because I know I asked two (15:27) different questions. The one was that how technology can help, definitely help. (15:31) And the reason it can help is there’s large amounts of data, different varying patterns.
(15:36) And that’s where AI, ML and machine learning and all these solutions really come into (15:40) play. It helps us filter through identifying that, hey, what’s super important? (15:45) What are the top three things that I really have to go for that are happening in my (15:48) particular site? And I can go and target them and hit them and kind of resolve them. (15:52) The other is really making all of these frontline workers as your partners in the sense (15:56) that, hey, at the end of the day, whatever trouble that I’m taking to help resolve this is (16:01) for your own benefit.
(16:02) Exactly. (16:03) And yeah, and these are the reasons and these are the reasons we do it. (16:05) We don’t do it for monitoring productivity and whether how much, you know, smoke break (16:10) you had.
It’s more really towards making sure that you get home back safe to your (16:15) families and, you know, you’re able to come to work the other day. (16:18) So those kind of scenarios. (16:20) And especially when we talk about these frontline workers, there are people who are not (16:24) from a very well-off background and there are people who are some, most of the times (16:28) they’re the bread owners of their families.
(16:31) And imagine if one person comes across a particular incident in the entire household that (16:36) gets disturbed. Now also think of a scenario where this person is thinking, oh, there’s a (16:41) camera installed on top of me and they’re monitoring my behaviour and I’m going to get (16:46) fired if I do something wrong. (16:49) The amount of stress he’s going to have while doing that particular job and then (16:55) eventually that stress is going to translate into a different kind of incident.
(16:58) So this is also another reason for them to be comfortable, for them to be relaxed in a (17:05) particular environment where they do have a camera and to help them understand that this (17:10) particular camera is only to generate alerts. (17:13) It is only to generate, you know, a warning for you so that you don’t do anything wrong (17:19) or you don’t mess it up. (17:20) So that’s how it becomes very, very important.
(17:23) You’re linking it to livelihood, but it is linked to livelihood. (17:26) Which of these systems gave you different, how do I put it, different signals, right? (17:31) So they could save you behavioural signals, they can give you important environment ones, (17:35) equipment health, history. (17:37) Which of these signals in your experience you found that are the strongest early warnings (17:42) of danger, right? (17:43) So, I mean, I’m familiar with the Heinrich triangle, you know, the number of UAUCs and (17:48) all of those incidents and near misses being increased.
(17:50) But within that specific, let’s say, if you go into further categories, which are the (17:55) most strongest early warning signs of changes you’ve seen? (17:58) The ones at the bottom of the pyramid. (18:01) You work on that. (18:02) That’s the behavioural signals.
(18:04) And why is that important? (18:06) Because you’re working on changing the behaviours of the workers, helping them explain things (18:12) like, you know, don’t take shortcuts, do not unfollow a safety protocol or go for an option (18:19) where maybe you will be able to manage your work in a different way, which is not the (18:24) compliant way. (18:24) However, I do also believe that the equipment health goes hand in hand with behavioural part (18:31) as well. (18:32) That’s because if a person is doing everything right, but the equipment itself is not functioning (18:38) properly, it is eventually going to result into an incident as well.
(18:42) You see a lot of vibrations happening on a particular machine and a person is unable (18:47) to detect that can result into a fire as well. (18:49) So both behavioural and equipment health will go hand in hand. (18:54) Environment comes later.
(18:55) Environment is a result of behaviour and equipment health, because it’s going to be more of (19:01) a reactive approach if we start looking at environment at the first phase, you know, (19:07) because it takes a lot of time to deteriorate environment. (19:09) It’s not going to give you an early signal. (19:11) However, these two are what is actually going to help you identify early signs of warning (19:16) and early signs of danger.
(19:18) So a person can do everything right. (19:20) Nowadays, we are living in a world where in a lot of machines and processes, we do (19:24) not even require people if they’re running on their own. (19:28) So in such cases, it’s very, very important that the machine or the equipment is operating (19:32) in the right way, in the best optimum way for which it was particularly designed.
(19:37) So equipment health is equally, if not more or less as important as behavioural safety (19:42) or environmental safety and all of those things. (19:45) So yeah, that’s just focussing on bottom of the pyramid, because in the bottom of the (19:50) pyramid, you have unsafe acts which are linked with behaviour. (19:53) And then there are unsafe conditions which are linked with the equipment.
(19:56) I know we talked a little about, you know, AI surveillance and then making sure that (20:02) because as more of this grows, there’s a huge issue in organisations around privacy and (20:09) trust. (20:09) And, you know, even in in US, there have been several laws that have been passed that, hey, (20:14) you cannot record workers or you cannot around their privacy laws and within Pakistan as (20:19) well. (20:20) But, you know, generally around those sites.
(20:22) So how do you address those particular factors? (20:25) I know in some organisations, it will be very simple, but in major, bigger organisations, (20:30) especially in the US, Europe region, there you have GDPR and all those compliances as (20:34) well. (20:35) It’s becoming a real hot topic, right? (20:37) So even there, they’re not even allowing to take you clean shots of vehicle licence number (20:42) plates or ensuring that that data does not go to the cloud. (20:46) It stays within that specialised camera for all of these things.
(20:49) So how’s your experience been kind of addressing concerns around privacy and trust? (20:54) I think it’s a very important question. (20:56) And I would say that instead of being more organisation driven, it’s more country driven, (21:01) depending on the regulation that particular country has and the rights it has given to (21:06) its people for privacy, which is a good thing in itself. (21:09) But however, if we still want to develop ourselves in safety tech innovation, the most (21:15) important thing is how we’re building the trust of foundation of this particular innovation (21:20) and how we’re letting people know the importance of this particular safety innovation that (21:25) we want to do.
(21:26) Workers do have a concern with AI surveillance, but as we already discussed, it’s important (21:31) for the workers to know what is the use of this particular information. (21:35) How to overcome that is by building on more guardrails around the systems that we have (21:41) developed. (21:41) And I think keeping in consideration more IT security or cybersecurity guidelines, the (21:47) fear that people generally have is how this information is going to be used.
(21:53) That’s the first part. (21:54) And that is where organisations have to play their part in helping them understand that (21:58) how the information is going to be used. (22:00) The other part is, let’s say the organisation is doing its best part.
(22:04) But for those who are developing these particular systems, how are they ensuring that this (22:08) information is not going to be misused or is going to be shared elsewhere? (22:14) I am not a software person, but I know for a fact that what are the IT security guardrails (22:20) around the particular information that we have? (22:23) How long is it protected? (22:24) Who is it protected from? (22:26) How do you make sure that it’s going to stay protected for many, many years? (22:30) It’s not like the information is protected now, but even in future, it’s going to be (22:35) somewhere which is staying between the organisation and the responsible people who are taking (22:41) care of it. (22:41) So that’s important. (22:42) And to further take it to the organisation, that’s one thing which we should be working (22:47) on.
(22:48) I know for a fact that AI itself now is evolving a lot. (22:52) And there are many AI security companies that have now jumped in and they’re trying to work (22:57) on it. (22:57) But we as an organisation, when we are taking our particular tool or product to an organisation, (23:04) we have to utilise that information.
(23:06) We have to utilise those standards and develop our own standard and guideline that is there. (23:10) So maybe something like having responsible AI standards, very similar to how we have (23:16) ISO for quality or ISO for security and SOC 2 compliances. (23:20) So maybe have some sort of those.
(23:22) Yes, I think having standards like ISO would really help. (23:25) And having standards for IT security would really help. (23:29) And maybe making them specific around AI usage or data captures and all of those things.
(23:35) So yeah, absolutely. (23:36) And it would even get better if we tell them it’s not just that we have a standard in place, (23:42) it’s a standard which is probably getting audited, getting governed. (23:45) Somebody is looking at the standard, how it is being implemented as well.
(23:49) So that’s one scenario. (23:50) So what are your thoughts on the fact that, let’s say, (23:53) if AI detects imminent danger faster than humans, (23:56) should they have the authority to automatically intervene or not? (23:59) Thanks, Kailet. (24:01) I’ll give you an example before I answer this.
(24:04) And I think my example would be able to answer this question. (24:07) I’m not sure if you’re aware of it that Engie actually introduced a particular (24:12) auto braking mechanism in its vehicles back in 2023 and 2024. (24:17) Now, what happens in a country like Pakistan, that you give all the authority to the vehicle (24:22) sensor to actually stop the car in case it detects a threat.
(24:26) But do all other cars around it have the same technology in place? (24:30) So what would happen if Engie suddenly stops, (24:33) another vehicle from the back can come and collide with this particular vehicle. (24:37) So I think this is the case where we will have to do risk assessment (24:43) on the basis of each scenario separately. (24:47) There are cases in which you can give complete autonomy to the AI system (24:53) where it can immediately come in and stop that incident from happening.
(24:58) But in some cases, you will have to still keep humans over there or keep people over there (25:03) to immediately pick whether it’s going to result into a bigger threat or not. (25:07) For instance, suddenly turning off a part of a machinery (25:11) might result into a bigger incident itself. (25:14) So this is where AI and humans, and it’s not like we’re going to end human jobs.
(25:20) This is where both have to work together. (25:22) And they both have to assess the risk of each and every scenario and utilise it accordingly. (25:28) And humans can continue to work on these different technology tools that are there.
(25:33) And I think with machine learning automatically over a period, (25:36) machines have started to learn certain scenarios as well. (25:40) But you can’t fix every scenario to every particular situation. (25:44) It depends on where you are, who you are operating with, (25:48) what is the environment around you.
(25:50) A lot of factors are there when you’re looking at a risk assessment. (25:54) So yeah, I would not say that AI would completely replace the human side. (25:58) Yeah, I agree.
(25:59) So if it’s a machine working environment, maybe then yes. (26:03) So everything around that machine is also machine. (26:06) And if something is about to happen or something, (26:09) then yeah, then it probably makes sense.
(26:10) But if you have humans involved, there are other forklifts involved, (26:14) whatever different kind of machinery involved or different people involved there, (26:18) then yes. (26:18) Then in leaving up that entire decision to a machine, maybe not the best of ideas. (26:23) So coming to talking about safety from an ROI perspective.
(26:29) Because at the end of the day, it’s also an expense on how much it wants safety (26:36) or how much that we put towards it. (26:38) When you’re communicating with, let’s say, executive leadership, (26:41) how do you shift the narrative from generally… (26:44) I mean, it depends on the organisation. (26:46) But generally, let’s shift the narrative from, let’s say, safety is a cost (26:50) to really safety is a performance and risk management advantage (26:53) for an organisation in the long run.
(26:55) Okay. (26:56) Now with the increasing focus on safety standards, (26:59) learning from the incidents that are happening all across, (27:02) there are some responsible organisations (27:03) which do not start off their conversation with cost. (27:07) But if it comes to it, when an organisation has to start talking about, (27:10) you know, cost of doing safety, (27:12) they should also be given a perspective of the hidden cost of not doing safe.
(27:17) Right. (27:17) Because usually, yeah, because usually if you do not adopt to safety tools (27:24) and safety systems that are there, (27:26) eventually you’re going to lag behind in completely (27:30) or properly implementing a safety framework or a safety system that is there. (27:34) When we’re talking about hidden cost, (27:36) we generally don’t realise, but there are many, many, many aspects of it.
(27:40) Starting from the medical attention that you need to give to an injured person, (27:45) let’s say it’s an injured person, (27:46) to the lawsuit you’re going to probably handle (27:49) to the cost of hiring a different person in his particular place. (27:54) So there are multiple costs that get associated with it. (27:57) Sometimes it would even result into your product recall.
(28:00) Let’s say it has been contaminated. (28:02) It’s a huge cost that is there. (28:03) So it’s not just although ideally, it should be we trying to explain it to them (28:09) that it’s about people and we value them the most (28:12) and they are who is actually running your organisation.
(28:16) But still, if it ever comes to some traditional organisations (28:19) who do not understand it and who consider safety as a cost, (28:23) we should be reflecting more on the hidden cost that is there. (28:26) Now, with that being said, I think it’s also very important to understand (28:30) that we’re not doing safety and operations separately. (28:34) We have to do safe operations.
(28:36) So we should ideally be talking about doing safe operations (28:40) instead of doing safety and operations separately. (28:44) It’s just like producing a quality product. (28:46) We don’t say we are going to do production as well as we are going to do quality.
(28:51) That is eventually going to result into, (28:54) I would say, a bad quality product at the end of the day. (28:58) It’s the same way how we look at safety and production. (29:01) And usually when you have to go to the executive leadership team (29:05) and you have to explain it to them, (29:07) our first conversation should not be cost or expense.
(29:11) Our first conversation should be how this programme (29:13) is actually going to help you protect your team (29:16) and how this programme or tool is actually going to help you (29:19) do better risk assessment and better risk management. (29:22) That should be the selling point. (29:24) And if they understand this, (29:25) I think it’s a lifetime understanding that is there.
(29:29) How do you think, I mean, it’s not ROI, ROI as well, (29:32) but maybe as workplaces and having these superior safety performance systems (29:37) and digitised systems, (29:38) maybe they can become a competitive differentiator in retaining talent (29:42) and retaining and building trust with their employees. (29:44) Like you said that early on, if you make them as partners that, (29:48) hey, we’re doing this for you, (29:49) that particular talent is concerned about safety (29:51) and they see how the organisation, (29:53) there’s a certain organisation that’s really moving forward (29:56) in, you know, from, in this perspective. (29:58)