♪ [music ] ♪ - [Mary] My name is Mary Conquest. I'm your host for "Safety Labs by Slice," the podcast where we explore the human side of safety to support safety professionals. We move past regulations and reportables to talk about the core skills of safety leadership, empathy, influence, trust, rapport, in other words, the soft skills that help you do the hard stuff.
♪ [music ] ♪ Hi there. Welcome to "Safety Labs by Slice." My guest today focuses her work around gaps and opportunities in the safety profession. By that I mean she sees gaps and she's working to bridge them.
She also sees organizational opportunities that safety professionals don't always consider when they define their area of practice. Today, we're going to chat about both. Amanda Clements is the group health, safety, and environment manager for strategy and well-being at Mirvac. She's also the founder and CEO of the Collective Lab, a digital ecosystem and community focused on creating the future of workplace health and safety.
Amanda has 18 years experience in health and safety roles for high-risk industries. She holds master's in safety leadership and has done formal studies in diverse topics, such as design thinking and creativity for innovation and organizational performance, as well as entrepreneurship and innovation. In addition to being an international keynote speaker, facilitator, and writer, Amanda considers a few of her greatest achievements to be surviving stepmom status to two teenage boys, kudos for that, climbing some of the world's most beautiful mountains, and not drinking coffee.
Amanda joins us from Melbourne. Welcome.
- [Amanda] Thanks, Mary. Lovely to be here. And hello to your listeners.
- Okay. Let's talk about gaps first of all. You've characterized the safety profession as relatively immature in its development, and have said that there's a skills gap that you're working to address. So can you talk about the development of the industry and how that relates to skills development?
- Yeah, sure. So I guess when I say it's immature, I don't want to, you know, disregard any of the incredible work that so many people around the world are doing. I guess where I was coming out from that is if you compare it to say other professions like accounting, I often think about this that effectively, you know, that's been around for hundreds of years.
You need to be certified, particularly in Australia anyway for nearly 50 years. And it's advanced so much that you now need to have a qualification and a license to even audit people's tax. Yet when it comes to, you know, people's lives within the workplace and the advice people are giving, you know, you don't even need to have a qualification per se.
So I think that there's lots of opportunity to advance in terms of the minimum standards and, you know, where we could really push the profession going forward. And there's lots of, you know, the institute in Australia, and I'm sure in other countries, who are doing some fabulous work to do that. I guess, you know, in my experience, like when I first joined the profession, let's say 16 years ago, couple of years into my career, even then there was lots and lots of other practitioners who didn't even have, you know, a Cert IV, or a certification, or anything like that.
So I have seen that definitely advance. But even if you look at the qualifications, I think that there's lots of opportunity to look beyond just technical skills and look outside of that and really, again, bring so much more value to what practitioners are doing and providing to companies.
- So when you're talking about skills development, are you then talking specifically sort of outside technical skills?
- Yeah. And look, when you approached me to come on the podcast, it was the first I'd seen about Slice, which was amazing and definitely resonated with me. And I've gone back and looked at most of the podcast since. And it's been awesome just to hear a lot of people actually, especially in other countries, talk about the need for more human or soft skills as you call them. I like to call them human skills and business skills.
And so I really classify there's technical, some people say non-technical, but I kind of feel like then we're still putting technical as, you know, there's like a big bucket of technical and then little non-technical over here. I really think that, you know, it's probably more a balance of technical human skills and business skills.
And so, you know, the human skills would be listening, inquiry, facilitation, communication, influencing, coaching, storytelling, you know, you can go on and on. Business skills, I think even get an even smaller focus, and that's really within the context of a business.
And so it's interesting when you talk to a lot of practitioners, they sort of really put a boundary around their role. But as a lot of practitioners know, understanding the context and the work, in general, is so important to then be able to give the right advice. And so the types of skills that I'm thinking about for practitioners is business acumen, understanding context of a business, particularly when you're newer to the organization, leadership in general, not just safety leadership, but leadership more broadly, work design, change strategy.
There's whole bucket in there as well. And I think the other thing I would add is...I've actually just gone back and rereading over my holidays an amazing book called "Range." And it's fascinating when you think about...and this is not unique, of course, health and safety. But, you know, when we are sort of going through uni and just generally what society expects is there's a very big emphasis on specialization.
And so, you know, you might study one particular like health and safety, do a degree and a master's and kind of then you go into health and safety, but there's lots of evidence to prove if you have more range of skills, you are much more successful. So, for me personally, I've studied psychology, lots of different types of psychology, business entrepreneurship, and
[inaudible] have some really amazing things to what I think I can add value to.
- So just I guess taking a broader approach, in general. So what do you think is the best approach to get from here to there in terms of where the profession is as a whole with these kinds of skills and where you'd like to see it move?
- I would definitely say taking a really holistic approach to learning is what's served me really well. And what I mean by that is really looking within health and safety science and practice, but looking well beyond that as well and looking at lots of different mediums.
So I have found, again, for me to listen to different podcasts that are not just health and safety, to read books that are about safety science and not, and also, yeah, lots of different formal training courses within and outside of health and safety. But what I would really...I think, the area that probably needs the most progress, I would say when it comes to learning, is advancing a bit more further than just your typical training.
And what I mean by that is that mentoring and coaching, I think, is really equivalent in terms of how much it can actually help an individual learn and therefore, add value to the organization. And, you know, I say it needs a lot more focus, I think, every company I've been in and when I talk to my peers, if you ask about their budget allocation to development, very rarely does it include a budget for coaching.
Sometimes it's coaching in addition to some form of qualification. But yeah, again, my experience tells me that when we've had an expert coach, and particularly someone that's very well versed in health and safety, then the gains that can be made to individuals and teams doing team coaching as well is really incredible.
- It's a different kind of learning, isn't it, when you're in discussion with someone and doing things together.
- Yeah, absolutely. And that reflection, again, doing individual coaching and then coming together as a team. We've done some amazing work when we are developing strategies and, you know, really big important pieces of work. And we've had a coach in coaching individuals, but then coming and talking to the team as well and really stretching people's thinking and the way that we are working together.
And so, yeah, I've seen a lot of benefits, I guess coming from that in terms of what then we're able to achieve as a team.
- Okay. So another gap that you're looking to bridge or working to bridge is the one of a lack of connectivity between safety professionals. So where are you seeing this lack of connectivity, in particular, and how do you think it's harming the profession?
- I like to think about it as if you imagine, I guess, multiple concentric circles, where I see the profession does really well is...so there's the me and the we level, and that's really within your team in your organization. I've actually been interviewing a lot of practitioners over the last six months, and when you ask them, who do you go to for support?
Nine times out of 10 they will say they will go to another practitioner within their company. And if they don't get really the answer, they'll just deal with it. And very rarely, maybe 1 or 2 times out of 10, people will then go and...if they don't get what they need internally, they will go to somebody they've worked with previously that might be at another organization.
But very rarely do people actually go to the us, which is perhaps within your industry. And then the all level, which is, you know, another practitioner in another company, in another industry, in another country who, you know, for all I know and I've met many, so I know that it's true they're working on the same problem and a similar solution that we could really help each other.
So for me, yes, conferences and webinars, and I've certainly done some more formal training that's like a digital course that is global, and I've met some incredible people that way. But I'm really interested about how we can connect practitioners at scale globally. And I'll just give you an example of why I think this is really important.
I was recently doing a keynote at a conference in New Zealand, and they had an awards night the night of the conference. And I was pretty gobsmacked when I saw they were giving an award for a solution. They basically redesigned a tool that before they redesigned it was causing serious head injuries and concussion and the company that I'd worked in 10 years ago had solved the same problem with the workers and redesigned that tool.
And so I just sat there and I was kind of doing the maths around how many companies would be doing this activity around the world, how many years has it been, how many injuries were there every year? And I was just getting, you know, hundreds of potential injuries that we could have prevented. So I think, yeah, there's that global reach at scale is what really lights me up about the potential to prevent harm and optimize work.
- Yeah. I mean, that's where your digital community comes in, right? That's the work of the Collective Lab?
- Yeah. That's absolutely the hope. And we're hoping to have something out later this year. So I've had to be working on it for a little while, but taken a few diversions. I was very lucky to ask to do a particular project around gender equality and respect, which obviously has a flow and effect to health and safety. So I've taken that diversion last year and hoping to get something out to the broader community this year.
- And you may have answered this, but I'll ask it again just in case. Connectivity can be about human connection, it can be about the cross-pollination of ideas, and/or it can be about sharing specific technology or solutions. So you spoke to that a little bit just now.
Where do you see the biggest gap?
- Now that I think you know all of those things you've, you've listed, Mary, there, but it's, again, going back to the research I've been doing and talking to practitioners. The other thing that really resonated to me about, you know, just how people are feeling was that there were two things that really popped up, which was that people feel isolated and that they feel undervalued as well.
And that absolutely resonated with me over years and years, particularly earlier in the middle sort of parts of my career. You know, I was sort of working with remote teams, with national teams, but I was quite remote from the other people. And then, yeah, just that feeling of just trying so hard and really wanting to help people and not really getting probably enough back in terms of, is what I'm doing working?
Are people giving...you know, not getting the recognition? So I think when it comes to then connection between the profession, I really feel that if we were able to accelerate that and to improve that, you would be able to share more and then therefore learn more and add more value.
And I really think if we're adding more value, then we'll definitely be able to see the results and we'll get the recognition that health and safety practitioners deserve.
- So, there are different ways to create connectivity. You know, there's digital communities, you've already mentioned conferences and that kind of thing. Are there any particular sort of methods that you would encourage because you think they work better, or do you think you think it's just the sum of all different kinds of efforts?
- It is a little bit the sum of all different kinds, but I would say that in my experience, the value you can get from different interactions is a lot different. So, whilst I see the value in webinars and conferences, I think that that model as...it's almost like the gold standard where do we go to meet people and learn, let's go to an annual conference.
And I have asked this question of a lot of people, like, you know, what was the follow up? When you went to that conference, did you apply anything? Did you keep in contact with anyone? And honestly, 9 times out of 10, it's no, I learned some really interesting things and we are thinking about doing this, but, you know, they just go back into the day-to-day. And that's not to say I've met some incredible people at conferences that I've stayed in contact with, learned a lot from webinars, but I feel like, again, we really need to push the boundaries on how we can learn better.
And one example, or one other method I love personally is and that I'm part of is a cross-collab group. So Andrew Barrett in Australia here runs a cross-collaboration group, and there's different practitioners from different companies, different industries. It actually started as an immediate need during COVID.
And we got so much out of it that we just kept it going. And it's not even just the actual sort of fortnightly meeting, I've built amazing connections and kept in contact and meet sort of one-on-one with different, you know, health and safety executives that are part of the collab.
And we have different people coming in from time to time as well, which just kind of keeps it fresh and you meet new people. The really important thing about that is it's not just a talk fest. It's not just, you know, what's your problem? Andrew's very, very skilled at actually enabling learning. So there's a specific questions, there's a high level of inquiry, and a reflection, and so that really helps you to go back into your workplace and think a bit differently about maybe how you were doing something and yeah, just really helps the learning cycle.
So that's a big one I would recommend.
- Yeah. I would think that's fertile ground when you were talking earlier about where do people go when they have a problem, right? There's a difference between going to a conference or a meetup thinking I may learn something, as opposed to I have a specific problem right now, I have a question, I wish I could talk to someone about it. And you mentioned that people tend to go to people in their own team or people that they've already worked with.
To me, that speaks to the strength of one-on-one relationships, and I think that that's what this collab that you're discussing helps develop. Does that sound right?
- Yeah, absolutely. I mean, of course, in a relationship, there's a level of trust and, you know, psychological safety that needs to be built up over time. I guess what I'm really curious about is how could you do that at a global scale. I feel like for me in my career, that could have added so much more value. Like, I learn a lot from practitioners in construction in Melbourne, in, you know, Australia, but I would've loved to have learned more from either construction practitioners in Canada or from, you know, somebody now practicing or specifically focusing in, say, on psychosocial risk, which is a big part of my role right now in Canada or the UK where they're really advanced and we can share and learn a lot more.
And so I don't feel like there's a really easy way of meeting those people. Sometimes it happens, you know, randomly on LinkedIn or something like that. But yeah, I'm really interested about how we can enable that connection at scale.
- Speaking of global scale, I'm going to switch gears a little bit from bridging gaps to spotting opportunities. So, one thing that you're passionate about is connecting safety practice to larger organizational and community goals. This is the global scale I'm talking about.
So specifically, integrating safety professionals into business ESG or triple bottom line frameworks. So first of all, let's back up a little because we have an international audience and I'm sure different terminology is used in different areas of the world. So, can you explain, first of all, what does ESG mean and what is its place in a modern business?
- So ESG stands for environment, social, and governance. And I actually came to this area, or this focus actually through the company I was working called it CSR, which is corporate social responsibility. As you've mentioned, triple bottom line which is people, profit, planets.
So it's more than just looking beyond profit. So again, I really think that it's such an interesting area when most practitioners aren't fully versed in it, but if you look at the goals, it's completely aligned with what we are trying to do, which is really enable organizations to provide the conditions that support people's health and well-being rather than just profit over people, which is exactly what ESG is all about.
So it's actually more...there's very high rigor around the reporting standards. And so companies that actually have requirement to report on ESG because quite often, for example, in the company that I'm part of to get investment, you actually need to show what are your ESG targets and measurables and how you're, you know, faring on different fronts.
So health and safety fits into the S, which is social. And again, there's lots of different reporting frameworks, but for example, actually most of them, health and safety has its own specific reporting criteria. And so whether a company's signed up to ESG or not...even in the company I'm working in now, even though they are and they take it very seriously, there's a lot of opportunity to improve the way we report on health and safety.
And what I mean by that is there's still a lean towards, for example, reporting on lag, safety, physical safety measures. Whereas the board and our investors are asking about what are we doing around mental health and psychological health and safety, which, and it is part of, we can tie that into the health and safety criteria.
So, yeah, look, I think there's a lot of opportunity for the profession to get curious and learn about ESG and talk the language of the businesses they're in, if that's a priority for them. And I think it really shows that as a practitioner, you're interested in the business, not just this one little part of it that keep keep on managers, say, we need to do this, we need to do this. And to a manager, they're looking at the whole.
So, I think it can help you really resonate a little bit more with same management particularly.
- And do you think...so on the other side of this current divide because I've actually never heard anyone connect the two, health and safety with ESG, so on the other side, people who are more heavily involved in ESG, either reporting or initiatives, do they think of health and safety?
Is that a connection you think that they've made, or is it a connection that's just sort of ripe for anyone to make - Oh, I think it would vary. The thing about ESG is that typically, it sits with a sustainability team in my experience. It actually sat with me in my previous role. But they're actually trying to tap into all the different parts of the business. So, I think about it, they're sort of the umbrella team, but everything that they need to report on for S, part of it comes from the sustainability team, but the rest of it actually comes from our team.
So, I was started in the company I'm working at about eight months ago and reached out straight away to the sustainability team and who are they and, you know, get to know them. And then within a couple of months, we had a monthly meeting going. And they love it. They love it that we're interested and we can help them. We can actually help each other.
And over time we can improve the reporting, and therefore, you know, the impact we're making within communities. So, yeah, I feel like, again, it's an untapped connection probably where they want to hear more from us and we, you know, hopefully, want to contribute more to that as well.
- They're looking for you. So make yourself visible. I mean, other than just simply reaching out and saying, hey, let's have a coffee or let's have a chat, are there any particular kinds of advice you would give to safety professionals and how to connect with sustainability or, you know, any of these kinds of initiatives?
- Well, if I look back, I think for me, I've just became...what worked for me, sorry, is being curious. And that is really literally, again, going back to my conference statement. I went to a really well-known conference in Australia and listened to one of the presenters, Wade Needham. And he's an expert in Australia on...health and safety executive, but he is an expert on bridging that divide with ESG and looking at how we can really harness that.
And I was really just blown away by what he was talking about. I didn't understand half of it because it was new to me. But all I did was, you know, reach out and say, "Hey, I'm really curious about this, can you explain a little bit more?" And he was very generous with his time. And really from there, I just started researching the different reporting criteria.
And there was just so many light bulbs going off around, oh, that connects with that and that fits with that. And so, yeah, I mean, it's reaching out to people, but also, you know, doing your own research. You can find anything you want online. There's lots of podcasts that, for example, Wade's done or others have done, I'm sure about the connection between ESG and health and safety as well.
- Great. So there's lots of avenues or lines of inquiry.
- Yes.
- Do you have any specific examples of safety and triple bottom line programs or reporting coming together like a project or an initiative that you can talk about anyway, I should say?
- Yeah. Probably the first one that comes to mind because it's a recent example is because I'm working in a property development and construction company. I was working specifically before that in delivery construction. And so I'd got to know a little bit about Greenstar, which is a certification to do with really optimizing the environmental build within the building so we're not harming the environment.
And so coming more into the property development space, I started reading a little bit about there's like WELL certification it's called, and it's similar to Greenstar, but it's very much about health and well-being. So it's all about how do we design and operate buildings that optimize...the people working within the building, optimizes their well-being.
And so typically, these areas are more of a...like when you look at the people that are certified, they're engineers or they're development managers or sustainability people. And so I think it would be really easy to kind of sit back and say, oh, that's not in my PD. It's not in my remit.
Somebody else is doing that. I'll, you know, just listen and learn what they're doing. But when I joined this business, I mean, now, I looked at the WELL certification and I thought, you know, this is actually something that I think could add a lot of value to my own practice. And I started doing the certifications. It's quite comprehensive.
Have learned so much, still doing it, still learning. But literally a couple of months ago, one of the development managers reached out because they knew that my focus is health and mental health particularly, and there's a bit of criteria on that. And they're madly trying to, you know, submit it to get it in done in time. Basically, you have to show, you know, you meet all these criteria and you get points and you need a certain amount of points to then get the certification.
So, they reached out and said, "Oh, we need some information on this bit. Can you help us?" We're in a rush. And I said, yeah, sure. I flipped it off straight away and I said, let me have a look at the rest. And so I was able to help them actually respond to so many other different criteria they hadn't even thought about.
And that gave them a lot more points towards this certification. But what was interesting about that, not only was I able to help someone and they were so incredibly appreciative, all the different criteria...so not all, some of the criteria as I was going through it actually correlate to our health and safety and well-being strategy.
And so whilst I'm over here talking to people about that and introducing it and the why, and then operationally we're trying to achieve this goal, I was able to make the connections and I kind of think about it like positive leverage. So, we're trying to leverage something, but do it in a positive way to advance, you know, our goals within health and safety.
So, I'm excited to dive into a little bit more of that this year and, you know, bring a community of people together that are doing the WELL certification in our company and then connect, you know, the dots around our health and safety strategy as I was saying.
- Wow, that sounds really interesting and exciting. It's always great when someone's like, oh, here's a connection. And you say, yeah, that's great, but I see all these other connections and the light bulbs are going off and it's exciting.
- Yeah. Like if we put ourselves in the shoes of a manager, they're looking at work holistically, whereas quite often the functional groups are looking at this bit and this bit and this bit. And so I really feel that the value we can bring is trying to make those connections across the functions. And that means we have to really step up into that and look at how we can cross-collaborate with sustainability or HR or finance or technology, whatever the function is.
And again, you know, I see a huge amount of value that could be added from what we're doing.
- So along those lines, one thing that you've said before is that you cringe a little bit when you hear safety practitioners saying that their job is to make themselves redundant. So, I was just wondering if you could explain why does that statement make you cringe?
- The first thing I would say is when people put that out is absolutely well-intentioned in the sense that, of course, they're trying to reduce harm as much as possible, and that means they don't need to be there to give advice.
So what I find cringey or it's really a shame, I think, is that it's really a reduction sort of view rather than how can we actually optimize work, or how can we optimize people's well-being? And interesting one of the podcasts, Mary, I was listening to you interviewed Jason Anker. And, you know, again, that's someone in another country doing completely similar but, you know, different work in consulting.
And he's got, you know, a similar line of thinking around this to me. And so straightaway I was like, I'm dying to reach out to him. So, again, it's really about how can we add more value rather than just almost do the bare minimum around risk and harm reduction. And honestly, if I could go back to my 22 or 25-year-old self, I would just drill this message in about, you know, what's actually possible in terms of what value and opportunity there is.
Because I think a lot of the times that I sort of burnt out and got frustrated and wanted to leave the profession, which is more that I would bear to express, a lot of it is because I didn't believe in what I was doing and I wanted to add more value.
And, you know, when I really started to learn about that, which was, if I think back, it was actually around the time that safety differently and safety 2 started coming about in Australia. And that just set off enough, I'm a bit agnostic in terms of theories, but it set off enough of a light bulb that there was just something more, there was something more that we could be doing, more that we could be adding, more that we could be contributing.
And yeah, again, that's led me down the path of positive psychology, which is all about well-being optimization, human performance, which is, you know, all about productivity and getting the most out of your work. So, yeah, I think that's, again, it's not in the payday, but, you know, why stop there? I think, you know, anything's possible in terms of, yeah, again, what we can bring to the role.
- Yeah, let's expand the PD.
- If you have a PD.
- Where do you think safety is going as a profession? What do you think is the next, I don't know if it's a natural stage of development or just the next stage of development in this trajectory.
- I would say, I mean, even in the last 10, probably 5 years particularly, I've seen so much advancement. I mean, despite...I don't know if you've talked about this little bit on your podcast as well, despite a lot of the debates about safety 1 and 2 and this and that and all the different theories, the people that have been doing the work in that space I think have advanced the profession so much more than at least in the first 10 years of my career.
And that may just be because it's, you know, what I'm paying attention to, but I think it's getting people to think differently and more open-minded, and again, more cross-disciplinary because a lot of the theories have actually been inspired by other disciplines as well. I think that the changes around actually elevating health, particularly in mental health...in the last year, I think it's been the most advancement and development I've seen in my whole career in Australia anyway.
And so I really think that's super exciting. Where I think it needs to go further though is one huge area of opportunity for collaboration and advancement is definitely in technology. Technology is going to advance so much. And when you ask and talk to practitioners, it's kind of like that's operations or that's ITs department, but we're implementing systems, we're giving advice, we're changing the design of work all the time.
And if you are not sort of aware of technology or even curious enough about it to go and say, talk to the IT team and, you know, see what you can learn from each other, then, yeah, as the world evolves and more technology comes about and AI evolves, you know, it's quite hard for people to get their head around, but I feel like that people will be left behind if they don't look at that.
And yeah. Again, there are so many other opportunities for growth for the profession, I think by collaborating with other functions, and that's probably another skill that I see a need for is, how do we actually do that? Because it's not as simple as saying people just go and collaborate. There's actually a lot of barriers to that.
There's a lot of fears that people have about that. And so, yeah, I've learned a lot through trial and error and mistakes myself. And so, yeah, again, a lot of this comes back to looking at an organization as a whole system within a larger system. And so, you know, in terms of complexity science and theory, it's really kind of moving away from the traditional organizational structure of silos.
And health and safety being its own sort of function and silo, yeah, I would love to see more development, I think, in that space.
- It all comes back to curiosity and connection.
- It's definitely a good start.
- This is what I've come to in my own life and my own profession and everything is that, you know, curiosity and connection really, you know, they're at the basis of a lot of different advancements. And as far as theories and being theory agnostic and that sort of thing, I think what you're saying is it's not the theory itself, it's the fact that the discussion is happening that is hopeful, or that is the development in the past 20 years, I'd say.
- Yeah, look, the likes of Adam Grant and others have done some amazing work on this about the need for people to rethink. And so by way of those theories coming about, it actually gets us to challenge the status quo and actually look a bit more deeply in inquiry into what are we actually currently doing now, whether it's 5,000 forms.
Is that actually working and could this alternative approach or view help? And again, it's, you know, what can you take from all the different theories and practices?
- So let's move into...I have some questions that I ask every guest. So, the first one would be, and to be honest, you've kind of touched on these already, but the University of Amanda, if you were to be developing the curriculum, where would you focus human relationship training for tomorrow's professional, or perhaps where's one area that you would focus?
- This should be easy because I am working on it, but it's hard.
- You're working on a lot of different things. Yeah.
- Yeah, there's a number of areas. But I would say just in terms of, again, my own experience interviewing practitioners and listening to the needs of people, I suppose, particularly managers in organizations, the human skills that I mentioned at the beginning around listening, it sounds ridiculous, but listening and inquiry.
I think that, like, if you look at the opposite to that, there's still practitioners come to me and say, oh, I'm really interested in doing my Cert IV, we call it TAE, so training and assessment. And so I just start asking a number of questions about what do you hope to get out of that? And when we get to the crux of it, it's actually enabling and improving work, which if you're really good at listening and inquiry, a lot of the answers are already there.
The workers know or you can facilitate that learning. So I would say listening, inquiry, and facilitating learning is is a good place to start.
- Yeah. It's a great place to start. If you could go back in time to the beginning of your safety career, and you did already mention this a little bit, but what is one piece of advice that you would like to give young Amanda?
- I'll try and think of something else. What would it be? I feel like a lot of my frustration came from what I was taught from mentoring others...sorry, from others mentoring me.
And that was very traditional, what we now know is safety 1. And like I would be mortified going out to a road construction site with a new form or a new initiative. And ironically, I've actually looked back on that and I was thinking about this the other day that now that we are talking about psychosocial risk, I feel like that is a psychosocial risk to health and safety practitioners.
It certainly was to me, you know, this burden of paperwork and compliance. And yeah, as I said, I would be upset, I would be mortified, I'd be embarrassed to go to site. So, if I could go back to that person, I would say be brave and be...I think I was pretty brave, but be brave in challenging the status quo.
But I think to be brave, you need the support around you. So I would've tried to reach out to people who were trying to challenge the status quo as well. It doesn't have to be in the same area, but to get that sort of inspiration and to see what's possible, I think, yeah, reaching out to people in other professions, other industries, other countries coming back to, you know, the why behind why I'm trying to do that connectivity at scale, that would've helped me immensely.
And I'm sure it would help other people to...maybe there are people that have left the profession that actually would've stayed and be able to make a bigger contribution. You know, I quite often think about that as well.
- Yeah. Well, hopefully, there are some young professionals listening up because it's very hard to challenge the status quo when you are the greenhorn, the youngest, you know? It's a difficult place to be, but it is an important thing to do. How can our listeners learn a bit more about some of the concepts we've talked about today? Are there books or websites that you particularly recommend?
- Gosh. Like I said at the beginning, I mean, if you glance behind me it keeps growing by the day, I've got a little bit of an addiction, as you can see. I don't particularly like really subscribe to, again, one particular person to follow or anything. I would say I've definitely learned the most, I think, from more organizational psychology type in that space, working with org psychs and learning from people like, you know, Adam Grant and others.
The amazing thing is that information that you can learn from people like that who are so well-researched and speak really well and can connect theory and practice, which is super important as well. There's tons of TED Talks and podcasts and things like that too.
That's probably more in the expert space. I would definitely say, again, this whole connectivity piece, like, I'm talking to, you know, our health and safety team at the moment about what can you actually learn more from each other because that's like even an untapped resource as well. So yeah, I think just reaching out more to people that you think can add value to the work that you're doing.
- And often the value is hidden. Like, you have no idea that they used to work in this profession or have this experience that they can share. Where could our listeners find you on the web?
- Probably the best place would be to connect with me on LinkedIn. I think, yeah, it's a great place to connect and, you know, drop me a message. Always happy to talk to people that are inspired or doing interesting things that are aligned with what I'm talking about. And also, yeah, amandaclements.co is my website as well.
- Great. Well, that's all the time we have for today. Thank you listeners for tuning in. And thanks so much Amanda for lending us your brain for our episode, your ideas.
- Thanks, Mary. And take care, everybody.
- Yeah. And, of course, as always, thank you to the "Safety Labs by Slice" team who have been spotting gaps and opportunities since 2022. Bye for now.
