In this episode of Safety on the EDGE, EDGETalks, Corrie Pitzer sits down with Todd Conklin for a candid conversation about how safety thinking is evolving and where it still falls short.

They dig into a shift that sounds simple but changes everything: the worker is not the problem. The worker is the solution.

From there, the discussion goes deeper.

Why do organizations still default to controlling people instead of learning from them? Why does safety continue to focus on eliminating risk when risk can’t actually be removed? And what happens when leaders realize the problem sits closer to their desk than the front line?

They also take on some of the friction in the industry today, including the tension between engineering-driven risk control and human performance thinking, the debate around whether HOP “reduces injuries,” and whether injury rates are even the right way to measure safety performance.

🔹 Why asking workers what they need is more effective than telling them to be safe

🔹 The difference between preventing failure and building capacity to handle it

🔹 How systems degrade long before something goes wrong

🔹 Why some regions are leapfrogging straight into newer safety thinking

🔹 What the “next thing” in safety might look like

This is not a conversation about compliance or programs.

It’s about how work actually gets done and what it takes to make it more reliable in a world where risk is always present.

If you’ve ever questioned whether traditional safety approaches are solving the right problem, this one will land.