This time, Colin talks to Graham Wailes, one of the foremost proponents of safety in the workplace, and a man whose rich and varied career has seen him assigned to many roles and many responsibilities.

Graham talks about his career, the highlights of his time in the field, the many lessons learned, and how he envisions safety going forward.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Safety figures can often be driven by “scorecard pressure” instead of real positive forms of impact. We must see past box-ticking exercises and look for opportunities for real change.
• Going from impossible to possible is a state of mind. Apply positive thinking, surround yourself with empowering influences, focus on your goal, and anything is achievable.
• Whatever KPIs we ask people to adopt, it must be underpinned by a desire to change, in positive terms, the way that business is done.
• As leaders, we must seek to change the very perception of safety. We can achieve this if we spend time in the environment in which we ask our workers to operate. We can only manage the things we monitor.

BEST MOMENTS

‘It’s all quantity-driven, with no qualitative element to it'

’People needed to take a tiny step from it being impossible to possible'

’The people who do the hazardous activities aren’t encouraged to think much about it at all’

’What gets monitored gets managed'

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Interesting Health & Safety Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/vn/podcast/the-interesting-health-safety-podcast/id1467771449  

Graham Wailes LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/graham-wailes-b0897b41/?originalSubdomain=uk

ABOUT THE HOST

Colin Nottage

‘Making health and safety as important as everything else we do.’

This is the belief that Colin is passionate about and through his consultancy Influential Management Group (IMG) is able to spread into industry. Colin works at a strategic level with company owners and board members. He helps business leaders establish and achieve their health and safety ambitions.

He has developed a number of leading competency improvement programmes that are delivered across industry and his strengths are his ability to take a practical approach to problem-solving and being able to liaise at all levels within an organisation.

Colin also runs a company that vets contractors online and a network that develops and support H&S consultancies to become better businesses.

Colin chairs the Construction Dust Partnership, an industry collaboration directly involving many organisations, including the Health and Safety Executive.

He is a Post Graduate Tutor at Strathclyde University and a highly sought-after health and safety speaker and trainer. He has a Post Graduate Certificate in Safety and Risk management, an engineering degree and is a Chartered Member of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH).