Welcome to the award-winning Interesting Health & Safety Podcast!

In today's episode, Colin wants to talk about perception; Your perception of the workplace, then the perception that you then need to give to the people in the workplace (when considering workplace activities).

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

As a manager or director, the way you view the plant/facility and machinery is very different to that of a staff member in charge of maintenance;

• A director sees the monetary value in machinery and its output in correlation to cost and profit. Whereas a Maintenance man will see a series of processes, materials, machines and productions (and all these require to keep the plant/facility running)
• If you’re an employee/operative, what you are doing is looking at the workplace as an opportunity to work and earn some money so you can live (and more!). It is also a social environment as well as a place of employment.

 

This same building and facility is viewed very differently by all members of staff. From a health and saftey perspective; you can’t look at the jobs/tasks and the risks/hazards with those same differences!

 

You need to ‘get down and dirty’ and start seeing these facilities, jobs, productions (etc) from the eyes of employees & maintenance as well as management; otherwise you have blindspots.

 

“What I am really saying is.. Don’t look at your workplace just through your eyes. Take some time to actually look at how other people perceive the workplace… talk to the people that are doing the job. Look at the risks, look at the hazards through their eyes”

-Colin Nottage.

 

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).