In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Sarah Ischer, CIH, CSP, the Senior Director of Expertise at the What Works Institute, who recently published a ground-breaking report investigating neurodiversity in the workplace.

Roughly 1 in 5 people are neurodivergent, meaning their brains process information, perceive hazards, or communicate differently. Yet many traditional safety programs still assume a single way of thinking.

Sarah explores why neurodiversity isn’t given the same focus in the workplace as it now receives in the education system and highlights how this negatively impacts the well-being of your workers.

She provides EHS professionals with practical and affordable tactics to improve workplaces for neurodiverse - and neurotypical - workers, giving you a new lens to enhance safety systems at your organization.

Find out more about Sarah’s work: What Works Institute

The full report into neurodiversity at work: Neurodiversity in EHS

Sarah Ischer on LinkedIn: Sarah Ischer, CIH, CSP | LinkedIn

Safety Labs is created by Safety Products Global, the world's leading manufacturer of safety knives. Through our trusted brands, Klever, Slice and PHC, we empower companies to prevent injuries by providing safer cutting tools for every material and application. Find us at www.safetyproducts.global

If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected]

In this special 100th episode, we look back at the conversations that have shaped Safety Labs by Safety Products Global over the past 99 shows.

The series has consistently explored the major challenges facing today’s EHS professionals, providing a platform for expert guests to share candid perspectives on the realities of workplace safety.

Inevitably, certain subjects have consistently shaped the conversations and sparked wider debate on LinkedIn - so you’ll find lots of firmly-held views on hot topics including safety theories, metrics, and blame; frank assessments of the role of EHS professionals, psychological safety and Heinrich; and emphatic statements on safety porn, Zero Harm, and safety culture.

Expect rallying calls to action, powerful messages, and hard-hitting insights. And some of the language is as strong as the opinions.

Thanks for being part of the Safety Labs journey, and we hope you enjoy this celebration of its success - here’s to the next 100 episodes!

Featured guests (in order of appearance):

• Sam Goodman (Episode 27): Making Safety Suck Less
• Fred Sherratt (Episode 84): The Ever-Changing World of Construction Safety
• David Provan (Episode 58): What Is the Role of a Safety Professional?
• Tim D’Ath (Episode 61): A Human-Centric Approach to Safety Management
• Brye Sargent (Episode 11): Who is Ultimately Accountable for Safety?
• Tony Muschara (Episode 70): The Critical Steps in Workplace Safety
• Scott Gesinger (Episode 24): The Past, Present and Future of Safety
• Leslie Rex Stockel (Episode 91): Making Sense of Evolving Safety Approaches
• Stephen Harvey (Episode 38): Why Safety Needs More Fun and Connection
• Todd Loushine (Episode 96): Redefining Safety Success
• Gary Namie (Episode 41): How Bullying Impacts Workplace Safety
• Tim Marsh (Episode 01): How Can You Make a Case for Empowering Safety Culture?
• Stephanie Benay (Episode 42): Women in Safety
• I. David Daniels (Episode 30): Workplace Safety is for Everyone
• Crista Vesel (Episode 94): The Power of Words in Workplace Safety
• Dr Tristan Casey (Episode 40): What Does Safety Culture Mean?
• James Junkin (Episode 37): Thoughts From a Safety Outlaw
• Bob Edwards (Episode 53): Managing Complexity in Workplace Safety
• Kym Bancroft (Episode 05): The End-to-End Process of Safety Culture Change
• Stephen Scott (Episode 28): Embracing New Approaches to Workplace Safety
• Clive Lloyd (Episode 44): The Key Component of Workplace Safety: Trust
• Greg Smith (Episode 80): The Safety Profession’s Disconnect Between Process and Purpose
• Elisa Lynch (Episode 14): Is New View Safety More Effective Than Traditional Approaches?
• Logan F. Martin (Episode 22): The Safety Profession: Where are We and Where Do We Go From Here?
• Josh Bryant (Episode 26): Using Multiple Safety Theories to Implement Critical Risk Management
• Nippin Anand (Episode 99): Is Safety Learning the Right Lessons
• Lori Guasta (Episode 95): Getting Back to Safety Basics
• Mikel Bowman (Episode 51): Leading From the Middle To Enhance Workplace Safety

Safety Labs is created by Safety Products Global, the world's leading manufacturer of safety knives. Through our trusted brands, Klever, Slice and PHC, we empower companies to prevent injuries by providing safer cutting tools for every material and application. Find us at www.safetyproducts.global

If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected]

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Nippin Anand, an event investigation expert who founded a consultancy specialising in human-centred approaches to learning.

Using the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster, Nippin examines how investigations often produce explanations that satisfy the need for closure but fail to reflect the complexity of events and help organizations actually learn.

Drawing on social psychology, mythology and anthropology, Nippin challenges many “safety myths” including normal work, zero harm and the role of blame in the workplace. He encourages the safety profession to uncover deeper insights through surfacing the unconscious, using our three minds and focusing on intelligent cues in accident investigations.

A key theme is that real learning lies in the tension, and Nippin argues for transdisciplinary thinking in safety, moving beyond root cause and corrective action towards context, meaning, individuality and uncertainty. This interview offers EHS professionals a more reflective approach to safety learning.

Find out more about Nippin’s work: About Nippin - Nippin Anand

Nippins’s book: Are We Learning from Accidents?

Nippin’s consultancy (including knowledge space): Home - Novellus Solutions

Recommended resources about the iCue (intelligent cues) process:

The iCue engagement program™

iCue engagement process

Dr. Robert Long’s excellent work: Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR)

Nippin Anand on LinkedIn: Nippin Anand | LinkedIn

Safety Labs is created by Safety Products Global, the world's leading manufacturer of safety knives. Through our trusted brands, Klever, Slice and PHC, we empower companies to prevent injuries by providing safer cutting tools for every material and application. Find us at www.safetyproducts.global

If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected]

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Doug Parker, former US Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, whose illustrious career has spanned labor law, federal and state oversight, worker advocacy, policy leadership and consultancy.

Doug explains why regulators are often seen only through the lens of enforcement and what that view misses. Drawing on his time leading OSHA, he describes the broader role of guidance, dialogue and worker voice in improving safety outcomes.

The conversation explores how trust shapes the relationship between regulators and organizations, why engagement matters and how fear of enforcement can limit learning and transparency. Doug also reflects on the constraints regulators operate under and what that means in practice.

This episode gives EHS professionals a rare regulatory perspective on how to engage more constructively with oversight bodies and use regulation as a lever to support meaningful, lasting safety improvement.

Find out more about OSHA: Home | Occupational Safety and Health Administration

California State OSHA resources and templates: Cal/OSHA - Division of Occupational Safety and Health - Home Page

Worker-focused global resources Doug recommends: Hesperian Health Guides | Knowledge for Action - Action for Health

Doug Parker on LinkedIn: Doug Parker | LinkedIn

Contact Doug directly: [email protected]

Safety Labs is created by Safety Products Global, the world's leading manufacturer of safety knives. Through our trusted brands, Klever, Slice and PHC, we empower companies to prevent injuries by providing safer cutting tools for every material and application. Find us at www.safetyproducts.global

If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected]

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Shawn Connick, a safety consultant with decades of experience across construction and energy.

Shawn reflects on why safety professionals are surrounded by ideas yet often struggle to turn them into practice. Drawing on his own experience, he shares his success operationalizing new workplace safety approaches with (all too familiar) resource constraints.

Discover how to effectively implement learning teams, ensuring safety is aligned with production and quality, insights emerge before workers get hurt, and your organization improves in all these areas together.

Shawn emphasizes the importance of building ‘safety fluency’, helping leaders understand that organizational change is the key to creating safer workplaces. This episode gives EHS professionals invaluable guidance on making new safety approaches work in practice - and on a limited budget.

Find out more about Shawn’s consultancy work: Shawn Connick Construct Strategies

Books recommended by Shawn:
- Sidney Dekker’s: The Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error'

- Todd Conklin’s: The 5 Principles of Human Performance

- Bob Edwards and Andrea Baker’s: Bob's Guide to Operational Learning

- Edgar Shein’s: Humble Inquiry

Podcasts recommended by Shawn:

PreAccident Investigation Podcast | Todd Conklin

A HOP Podcast (With No Name)

Podcasts - Freakonomics

Shawn Connick on LinkedIn: Shawn Connick, CSP | LinkedIn

Safety Labs is created by Safety Products Global, the world's leading manufacturer of safety knives. Through our trusted brands, Klever, Slice and PHC, we empower companies to prevent injuries by providing safer cutting tools for every material and application. Find us at www.safetyproducts.global

If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected]

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Dr. Todd Loushine, an Associate Professor, EHS professional, scientist and Data Analytics enthusiast who has extensively researched how we track safety.

Todd challenges the profession’s reliance on familiar aspirations and indicators, questioning whether established goals and metrics actually enhance workplace safety.

In this stimulating interview, he explores the current balance between compliance and people, and shares his extensive critical analysis of the data we rely on to measure performance. Other big-picture questions, such as safety’s role and alignment within an organization, also come under the spotlight.

Todd pushes EHS professionals to raise ambitions for safety. He urges you to think more deeply and critically about metrics, while broadening your perspective beyond hazards to a more empathetic approach.

Resources recommended by Todd:

Home - Safety On The Edge Conference

SafetyInsights.org – Home of safety & risk research summaries

Dr. Todd Loushine on LinkedIn:

Todd William Loushine, PhD, PE, CSP, CIH | LinkedIn

Safety Labs is created by Safety Products Global, the world's leading manufacturer of safety knives. Through our trusted brands, Klever, Slice and PHC, we empower companies to prevent injuries by providing safer cutting tools for every material and application. Find us at www.safetyproducts.global

If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected]

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Lori Guasta, a safety leader whose career spans frontline practice, academia and consultancy.

Lori reflects on the profession’s obsession with the next shiny object, even though the fundamentals that support safe work have been understood for decades. She explains that chasing the latest silver bullet will actually distract organizations from doing safety well.

Leadership development and cultural change are key themes throughout this inspiring conversation; however, Lori’s experience allows her to cover many important areas, including generational change and women’s role in workplace safety.

Lori encourages EHS professionals to step back from the noise, reconnect with proven principles and focus on what genuinely supports people to work safely. This episode offers practical guidance to get back to basics and ignore the temptation to search for safety shortcuts.

Explore the life’s work of Edgar Schein: Edgar H. Schein: books, biography

Lori Guasta on LinkedIn: Lori Guasta, Ph.D. | LinkedIn

Safety Labs is created by Safety Products Global, the world's leading manufacturer of safety knives. Through our trusted brands, Klever, Slice and PHC, we empower companies to prevent injuries by providing safer cutting tools for every material and application. Find us at www.safetyproducts.global

If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected]

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Crista Vesel, an academic, author and safety communication specialist whose work focuses on how language influences learning and decision-making in safety-critical environments.

Crista explores why safety professionals often rely on familiar approaches even though they fail to produce meaningful learning. She explains how language used around incidents can steer inquiry in particular directions, narrowing what is explored and what gets left out.

Drawing on her pioneering work on learning reviews, Crista explains how certain language patterns can unintentionally shut down inquiry, reinforce blame and limit understanding. She contrasts this with approaches that support open and collaborative dialogue to give organizations deeper understanding of workplace safety.

This conversation offers EHS professionals practical insight into using language more deliberately, strengthening insights after events and creating cultures where workers share and organisations learn.

The Masters of Engineering program where Crista teaches: Graduate | Advanced Safety Engineering and Management

Her (open access) thesis on agentive language: Language Bias in Accident Investigation

Crista and Ivan’s book: Human & Organization Potential

Find out more about their work: Dynamic Inquiry | All change starts with a question

Kenneth Gergen’s book recommended by Crista: An Invitation to Social Construction

Crista Vesel on LinkedIn: Crista Vesel, MSc | LinkedIn

Ivan Pupulidy on LinkedIn: Ivan Pupulidy, PhD | LinkedIn

Safety Labs is created by Safety Products Global, the world's leading manufacturer of safety knives. Through our trusted brands, Klever, Slice and PHC, we empower companies to prevent injuries by providing safer cutting tools for every material and application. Find us at www.safetyproducts.global

If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected]

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Dr. Simon Goncharenko, a respected thought leader and author on a mission to make safety management theory more accessible. 

He examines why many organizations continue to rely on specific philosophies, frameworks and metrics to manage safety, even as serious injuries and fatalities remain stubbornly high. He questions what established measures, such as TRIR, tell us and where they can distract attention from more meaningful risk.

Known for challenging narrow thinking in safety management, Simon revisits key concepts, including behavior-based safety and safety culture, highlighting the crucial gaps between theory and practice. 

Throughout the interview, Simon returns to a central theme: safety is not a single-solution challenge. He encourages EHS professionals to broaden their approach, push boundaries and resist over-reliance on specific ideas. Safety is a journey, not a destination.

Simon’s safety management books:

Save Lives: Pushing Boundaries in Human Factors

Operationalizing Twenty-First Century Safety

Find out more about Simon’s work: Save Lives Global – Safety Consulting

Dr. Simon Goncharenko on LinkedIn: Dr. Simon G. | LinkedIn

Safety Labs is created by Safety Products Global, the world's leading manufacturer of safety knives. Through our trusted brands, Klever, Slice and PHC, we empower companies to prevent injuries by providing safer cutting tools for every material and application. Find us at www.safetyproducts.global

If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected]

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Diane Chadwick-Jones, a former BP safety leader and long-time researcher whose work has shaped how organizations think about safety incentives.

Diane explains why linking pay and bonuses to injury rates often creates unintended consequences, including suppressed reporting and reduced learning. Drawing on years of internal and external research, she shows how incentives can reinforce belief systems that feel right but undermine safety in practice.

She shares how BP and other high-hazard organizations have moved away from injury-based bonuses, what replaced them and why peer recognition, transparency and supportive leadership matter more than annual rewards.

This conversation offers EHS professionals practical insight into influencing senior leaders, changing belief systems over time and building conditions where people feel safe to speak up about problems before they escalate.

Diane’s published research on safety incentives: Rewarding safety performance: Improving safety or maintaining beliefs?

Find out more about Diane’s work: Diane Chadwick-Jones / Safety Leadership / Human Performance

Energy Institute videos Diane recommends:

The modern view of incident causation

Human performance - what does it mean?

Walk through a task to prevent incidents

Safety leadership in the field

Diane Chadwick-Jones on LinkedIn: Diane Chadwick-Jones | LinkedIn

Safety Labs is created by Safety Products Global, the world's leading manufacturer of safety knives. Through our trusted brands, Klever, Slice and PHC, we empower companies to prevent injuries by providing safer cutting tools for every material and application. Find us at www.safetyproducts.global

If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected]